Weddingbee Blog

Are they hideous?

You can see from the close ups that they aren’t perfect, but from far away they look all right, huh?

They’re unique if nothing else!

Here’s a closer view:

I think the lace is the only reason these signs might work. Without it, they would probably look really bad, and boring, too. Funny thing is, the lace was a total afterthought. I just so happened to stumble across rolls of the stuff going through my grandmother’s craft boxes and thought, This might work.

Now, I think it’s the only reason they do work.

The jewels were an afterthought, too, actually!

Who am I kidding? The whole design was an afterthought!

Let me explain.

I never envisioned our Mr. & Mrs. signs would look like this. It just sorta happened; I winged it, and I guess it worked? Winging it has pretty much become my method for DIY projects. I don’t like to plan—I just wanna go. Forget forethought, just drive. Drive full-speed ahead!

When I started, the only thing I really knew that I wanted to use was the cherry-blossom paper. Everything else came together in the most peculiar way. Creating the background layout (cutting the paper and sticking the card stock together) was the easy part; the lettering, on the other hand, was a HUGE hassle. (That’s what I get for not planning, I guess!)

At first, I tried painting the words directly on the paper. Bad idea. Especially when you only have limited amounts of the paper you want to use. Next, I tried printing the words from the computer in a pretty font and cutting that, which didn’t work either. (Apparently you can’t cut cursive letters with scissors, no matter how skillful you are or how large the font is.) I even tried just using computer paper with the words on it. That looked awful!

Nothing worked, and I almost gave up. I was down to my last piece of cherry-blossom paper and couldn’t ruin it or I’d be back to square one. Finally, I went real old school and, like a fifth grader, drew bubble letters (yes, by hand) on full-sheet labels, cut them out (with scissors), and painted them gold.

Eureka!

I waited for the letters to dry and very carefully stuck them to the card stock. Thank God they didn’t appear crooked; the final product looked half decent, and by that time, I was over it.

At first, I really liked them; but then I went through this period of about a week where I hated them and contemplated doing something different. Now I’m in this weird place where I don’t know if I like them, but I don’t want to trash them either. I guess they’re starting to grow on me.

Have you winged any DIY projects? Are you happy with the way they turned out?