Weddingbee Blog

Bees, it has been WAY too long since I have completed a DIY project. Between starting a new job and the holidays (yes, I realize it has been almost a month since Christmas but I am still recovering from all of the festivities), my craft cabinet went a freakishly long time without being busted into! But no need to worry—the disturbing drought came to an end this past weekend.

In an effort to dip my toes back into the DIY pool instead of cannon-balling, I decided to take on a smaller project that I could likely complete with a quick turn around. The project that fit the bill: table numbers!

During one of my antiquing escapades, I came across vintage flashcards with basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems on them.I knew these were perfect for us because I have a nerdy love for doing basic math in my head, and Mr. D has a nerdy love for giving me math problems to do in my head and seeing how quickly I can do them (you don’t have to tell me, I know we’re cool). When I got home, I finished off my collection with an Etsy purchase of very similar cards.

Vintage Flashcards by paintedpony99 on Etsy

Since the flashcards were double-sided, I had to come up with something to mount them on so as to not end up with very confused guests. I swung by Michaels on my way home from work (there is a Michaels about 30 seconds away from my new job…VERY dangerous!) and bought a bag of scrap wood and some sand paper because it looked a little rough. Now, I must admit that after a couple of attempts, I gave up on the sand paper. The wood was a little rough, but the paper was doing nothing to help the situation. It was, however, creating a huge mess of tiny wood dust. No thank you.

I did make use of the wood. I started by painting one side of each of them white. And then painted the other side green (note: it takes a lot of paint! I was mixing a bunch of greens to make my own color and kept having to make more).

I then decided to try out a stamp that I had in my craft cabinet. The edges didn’t come out quite as neatly as I first expected them to, but I decided this was a good thing because 1) it goes with our natural look and 2) it left a lot more room for small mistakes.

I spent the next few hours stamping and watching Friends reruns, until I had fourteen checkered pieces of wood in front of me! Time for another admission: In my head I was totally thinking the stamp was gingham until I saw them next to a piece of gingham fabric and realized that it was not actually gingham, but rather checkered. My bad. Luckily, our wedding style involves lots of different patterns along with lots of different colors!

My next step was to Modge Podge them all. I went with the matte finish (I love Modge Podge and am readily stocked with glossy, satin, and matte finish—and yes, I’m proud) because I wanted it to look polished, but not too shiny.

It was finally time to attach the cards. I used some Scotch Maximum Strength Adhesive because, once again, I happened to have it on hand. But after trying it out, I ended up buying more on my next craft store trip! From my experience thus far, it holds really well, does not make a mess, and is not ridiculously expensive. I highly recommend it.

So, after a little maximum strength adhesion, here is the final product:

Are you making your guests do a little work to find their seats?

What are you using to mark your tables?

*All photos personal unless otherwise noted.