In my last post I shared one way of adding a perfume sample to the inside of a card. In this post I’ll illustrate a second way of doing that: by way of what I would call an integrated belly band.

By ‘integrated belly band’ I mean a belly band which is not layered on top of a (design) paper surface, but which has seemingly been integrated with it instead.

Basic construction is the same: fold a card and make sure it has a wide enough gusset (or spine). But before you start matting and decorating, attach the belly band first! Simply dry-fit a strip of (design) paper around a small perfume vile or sample and glue its ends to the base card, on either side of the spine.

Only then mat & decorate. And a nice ribbon closure would be fun too 😉

In this example I created an ATC card-sized double card with a spine, of about 3 x 4″ (7.5 x 10 cm). I used design paper by Mintay Papers.

Done! Let me know in a comment: have you ever sent out perfume samples over the mail, as a little extra ‘something something’ for a dear friend or a loved one?