{entertaining with style} Duct Tape Bottle Wrappers

This weekend we hosted a mustache bash to celebrate Cooper's first birthday! I'll share all of the photos from the celebration soon, but today I wanted to show you this super simple way to add some flair to any party...duct tape your beverages!

I love to host parties and gatherings for our friends and family, but with so many gorgeous and over the top Pinterest parties out there for inspiration, it can sometimes feel overwhelming trying to decide how decorate and what to serve without letting things get too complicated or time consuming. I find that it's often the small, thoughtful details that make a party feel special, so I like to look for quick and easy ways to make a big impact. For Beckett's Sesame Street themed second birthday party, the simple yet adorable DIY Hooper's Store awning and street sign food labels really hit it out of the park, and for Cooper's mustache bash it was the water bottle wrappers that received the most comments.

For a couple of years I've been seeing decorative duct tape in lots of fun patterns and colors everywhere I go - Target, Michael's, Home Depot, Staples - everywhere! I have always been tempted to buy some, but that little voice in the back of my head would say, "Really?! What are you going to do with that?!" Well, I finally figured out a perfect use - wrap water bottles {or any beverage, really}!

This is so simple that it almost needs no explanation, but I'll go ahead and share a few helpful hints. I originally intended to just put the duct tape over the brand labels {because some water bottle labels don't peel off cleanly and easily}, but we bought the Kirkland brand of bottled water from Costco, and the labels were a piece of cake to remove. I measured out one length of tape long enough to wrap around a bottle with just a bit of overlap {approximately 8.5 inches}, then stuck that piece of tape to the edge of my glass kitchen table and used it as a guide for measuring and cutting all of my other pieces of tape. I was able to wrap 40 bottles of water from each roll of Duck brand duct tape.

I've always loved the look of the printable bottle wrappers that are so popular on Pinterest, but they require printing, cutting and gluing or taping, and that's a lot of work when you want to wrap 60 bottles. Plus, paper bottle wrappers won't hold up if you are keeping your water chilled in a tub or cooler of ice. That's why duct tape was the perfect solutions for us - so simple to cut and stick, and best of all, waterproof!

Of course, you don't have to stop at water bottles, or even beverages. Just think of all of the other things you could wrap in decorative duct tape! My boys LOVE bubbles, so for our next party, I think I'll wrap bottles of bubbles in duct tape for the kids to play with and take home.

Best of all, duct tape comes in SO many cool patterns these days that you can find something for just about any style or theme. Here are some of my favorites...

{1} Paint Splatters - perfect for a paintball party or an art party; {2} Bandana - perfect for a cowgirl or cowboy party; {3} checkered - perfect for a race car themed birthday; {4} Comic Book - perfect for a superhero themed party; {5} Butterflies - what little girl wouldn't love these? {6} Hawaiian Flowers - perfect for a backyard luau; {7} Mondrian Inspired - perfect for an art party; {8} Pink Polka Dots - perfect for a girly baby shower; {9} Sports Teams - available for numerous sports, both professional and college, this tape would be perfect for tailgating or a Super Bowl party, especially if you wrapped half of the bottles in the tape of the opponent team, allowing guest to choose sides via their water bottle; {10} American Flags - perfect for a 4th of July bbq; {11} Spider Webs - perfect for Halloween; {12} Red Stripes - perfect for Chirstmas because this tape looks like candy can stripes.

These are just a few of the patterned duct tape options from the Duck brand of tape, and other brands, like Scotch, also sell colored and patterened duct tapes - so no matter what your celebrating, you are likely to find a tape to fit the bill!

So now I am super curious to know what other kinds of projects you guys are doing with pretty duct tape!?

Are you looking for more entertaining ideas? You might be interested in these posts!