Weddingbee Blog

Here’s another chance to impart my wedding-guest “wisdom.”

As a bridesmaid in a recent wedding, I took on the job of making water-bottle labels for the bachelorette weekend (gotta hydrate after days at the beach and nights on the town!).

I know this is very much “in vogue” right now, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard. I started with some Googling.

Can anyone tell me what a water bottle lanyard is?

Though I expect to be wrong more often than right when judging the simplicity of DIY projects, this time I was correct. Now, a lot of the credit is owed to the site I used to purchase labels, which was OnlineLabels.com. This tutorial is going to focus mainly on using their tools and services, but I’ve also listed specifics that might help if you use a different site for purchasing.

To start, the process can be simplified by choosing the type of water bottle you’ll be using and then measuring the label size. This will help narrow down the type of blank label you should use, giving you the option to put your personalized label over the current label or place it on a “naked” bottle.

Step 1: Measure Bottle

Tutorial example: Nestle PureLife water (1/2 liter) with label measurements of 1.25″ x 8.25″

Image via Vend Central

I picked OnlineLabels.com for my template because of their number of template choices. Here, you have to select the template that meets your size and material requirements. The site has hundreds of options for size, and you can choose materials from recycled white to waterproof silver.

Step 2: Choose Label Template

Tutorial example: OnlineLabels.com template OL435RX (1.375″ x 8.1875″), 100% recycled white

I made this choice since I didn’t want to go super fancy on my first try…and, it’s a little cheaper. If I were to list one problem with OnlineLabels.com, it’s that you can’t buy in small quantities, at least not for much of a discount. So, I now have 700 labels in my possession. Expect more personalized water-bottle labels in my future (birthdays, Christmas, etc.).

Step 3: Set up Template

Tutorial example: Maestro Label Designer

With my purchase, I received a free three-month trial of Maestro, which pulls up the template for your label and allows you to design in their system. However, you can also use one of the templates that fit your size labels and populate on your own. Here is an example of a blank template in Maestro, if you want pages of identical labels.

Yup, just a big giant box.

The bachelorette I was designing these labels for incorporated flip flops and the colors pink, green, and blue. So, I set out to tie the water-bottle labels to both the theme and colors. First, I did some Googling (love that it’s a verb) for flip-flop images to insert, but nothing was matching my vision. I had to get creative.

All of our decorations were from Party City, so I decided to see if I could get an image of the purchased items. I went to Party City’s website and…bingo!

Thanks, Party City.

I right clicked on the paper plate, selected “save image as,” and then opened the image in Paint. (I was going low tech, so no Photoshop.)

It’s 9:38PM and I’m almost out of battery

In Paint, I used the “select” tool and created a rectangle around the five main flip flops in the middle of the plate. This would be my main image for the label.

I inserted two copies of the images on either side of the empty template, leaving space in the middle.

Had to make sure we had alignment.

Next, I created a monogram C in the middle of the template, using French Script. I followed by inserting text in a circle, saying “C___’s Bachelorette 2010″ in Georgia font. One note: since the text is in a circle, I inserted a dash on either side of 2010 to separate things (in other words, “- 2010 -”). This created the necessary space in the circle.

It doesn’t get much easier than this.

After clicking on print, I saved the design as a PDF and an entire page was populated. I created three variations of the design—one pink, one blue, and one green. See how easy (and how many labels?)!!

Lots and lots of labels

So, how did it turn out in real life??

Perfectly matched to the tablecloth—type-A me LOVES this.

Not too shabby! I would say that the chosen material (100% recycled white) was a good option for bottles that are not expected to get wet or super cold. For our purposes the labels were fine, but if you were looking for something to put on ice at a party, this would not be the way to go.

Overall, this was a fun, easy project that showed great attention to detail, which the bride loved…and that’s all that’s important!

What project have you found to be more than worth the effort expended?