Wedding Blog

A while ago we started thinking about what we wanted to do for our table numbers. While we had seen some adorable paper and photo ones, those just weren’t for us. We wanted something that would take up a bit more table space and tie all of our colors together. I was at Michael’s one day on my 33rd craft run of that week when I happened upon some adorable wooden numbers. At first I didn’t know how to use them. They’re flat on their backsides, so I figured I needed to glue them to something to create a final product. From there, the design just sort of evolved into the end product!
Want to make your own? Here’s what you’ll need:

• Wooden number
• Wooden frame
• Craft paint/paint brush
• Fabric
• Tea
• Bowl to soak fabric in
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors

First, I painted all of the wooden pieces with gold craft paint. I think everything got about three coats total, with a 10-15 minute rest in between coats.

While the paint was drying I decided to age the fabric a bit in a tea bath. I measured the picture frame and added 1/4″ to all sides, and used these measurements to cut out pieces of fabric.

I just kind of eyeballed it…

Then I brewed two teabags in a couple cups of water and let them steep for a few minutes. Once the tea had brewed, I poured it over the pieces of fabric and let them bathe for about 10-15 minutes.

Once it all had a good soak, I took the fabric out and popped it in the dryer to tumble dry. Once it was out of the dryer, I ran a hot iron over each piece to smooth out any wrinkles.

See the difference? The tea stained fabric is on the right.

By then the wood was dry. I took a piece of fabric and laid it face down. I then centered the picture frame backing and laid it flat on the fabric. I piped a thin line of hot glue along each edge of the frame backing and pulled the fabric taught.

Then, I placed the fabric covered backing into a frame. I determined the placement of the wooden number and hot glued it into place. Voila!

Are you creating custom table numbers? What do they look like?