DIY Details

With only 3 days left and one glue gun down, we are pretty much ready for our wedding on Saturday!

This evening I wanted to share a basic DIY that we are using: wedding programs. I chose to make ours in the style of a fan, so that our guests can use them if it is too hot or humid. I also chose to make the back of our programs fun by adding a word search game and some trivia about us – there are always those boring moments before the ceremony begins! The supplies needed are very basic, and there are only a few different steps.

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Supplies Used:

Cardstock ( 2 packs, at $5 per pack) – $10

Black Ink For Printer (I bought mine at Walmart) – $16

“Curvy Craft Sticks” (from Amazon, pack of 200) – $7

Graphic Design – Free (me)

Glue Gun – $3

Glue Sticks for Glue Gun – $6

Steps/Instructions:

  1. First I designed the front of the fans, making sure to include basic ceremony information, a thank you, and the names of those in our wedding party. *Side note: I accidentally used one of my bridesmaids maiden name, and didn’t catch it until around #80. My tip is to have someone double check your wording and spelling within the first five! I decided to just roll with it (and checked with her as well).*
  2. Design the back! As stated above, I wanted to make it fun and give our guests something to do while they sit around awkwardly. You can google “free word search maker” and you will get plenty of options where you can make your own and save them as an image file.
  3. Test your printing on a regular sized paper before using your cardstock. I printed mine on regular sized letter paper at 20% and printed them 10 at a time. Printing them 10 at a time let me take some much needed breaks, and it was easy to keep track of how many I was making.
  4. Center your images and cut into a square. My finished squares ended up being about 5 1/2 inches by maybe 7 inches.
  5. At this point you can choose to round your edges with an edge trimmer or use them as is. Both are great options – I chose to round mine to make it look more finished and professional.
  6. Take your handy curved craft sticks and your glue gun. Ready, aim, go! I only had one pack of glue sticks so I had to run to our local Dollar General to get a few packs. The next day my glue gun gave out on me, so I made another trip there to get a new one. I first glued the craft stick to the front page (face down), then the back, and for the last step I ran some glue along the left and right sides.
  7. You are done!

This project was fairly easy, but I definitely took my time finishing. The cutting out of the images were the worst part for me (even with a paper trimmer) and when my glue gun stopped working. I finished the whole project over the course of 3 evenings and ended with a total of 100 programs. Also, I ordered some mini golf pencils from Amazon to pass out with the programs for the word searches.

I hope our guests enjoy them!

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

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Update: 2015

I have now added another gallery to my Art section. You can find the new gallery here. This new gallery includes ATC’s that I make. ATC stand for Artist Trading Card. These are generally small pieces of art (2.5″ by 3.5″) – and can be made using any medium. I have recently started to use mostly watercolors for my cards, while I do sometimes still use decorative paper.

For those that want to start making their own ATC’s – I suggest joining a forum or website that allow you to create based off of themes and then share them with others. Basically you mail an assigned partner your creation (that’s why I always try and take a picture of mine) and you receive someone else’s work. So much fun!

Personally, I am a member of Swap-Bot. It is a free website to join and is very easy to navigate and there are so many crafters and artists on this website!

Enjoy!

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Update

New page:

I have added an acrylic painting gallery available to view on the “Art” page. You can also visit directly by this link.

Social Media and Contact Information:

I have updated my “About” page to include more social media information. You can now follow me on Instagram and pass around my digital business card.

Many (most) pieces I will feature on this blog will be available in my Etsy shop, which I have also included on the about  page.

I hope everyone had a happy holiday and look forward to bringing more to this site with the new year!

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