The Skinny on Water Bottle Labels…

16 Jun

At first I thought custom water bottle labels seemed like an awful lot of work, but after seeing them all lined up like little organized party soldiers I'm in! If you are setting up a spread it is a great way to inject more color onto the table, and get your theme across. Most of the labels I've been designing lately on Etsy are for brides making hotel welcome bags. But even on a smaller scale they look adorable at a baby shower, bridal shower, graduation party, or even for your house guests (yes, I am going there!)

Here are my tips for doing it at home and keeping it sane...

First off, the paper. You can buy waterproof vinyl label paper, and set your printer to the correct setting to get it through. They are also self adhesive so this may be good (no taping necessary) and bad (a lot of sticky label to deal with that may wrinkle) If you are going to be cooling the bottles in bins of ice and water this is the route you'd need to go. BUT here's my vote for regular paper. If lined up on a table, in gift bags, or even in the fridge, there's actually no risk of them getting wet, so regular paper works just fine. One less thing you need to special order!

The design...you can make them youself on the computer, even in Word, and generally speaking 8" x 2.5" would fit most bottles. Here is thing I wouldn't lose sleep over. If the bottle ridges are wider than the label (like the one below) it still looks fine, and I've seen this size even used on shorty stubby bottles and they look darling! If you really work at it you can probably fit 4 on a page.

The prep...Start by cutting the strips of labels out and then prep the bottles but cutting off the plastic.

Finally the application. You've got regular scotch tape, double stick tape or a glue stick. If you really care about the tape showing, then go for the double stick. It's my first choice because it's so simple, and in my opinion beats dealing with a sticky glue stick that sometimes doesn't hold as tightly.

Then we are ready to line them up! I love them. I want to squeeze them! The recent photoshoot leftovers made it into my fridge and I must say it makes me smile when just grabbing for a bottled water!