For the longest time, I couldn't figure out what to do for our table names. We knew we wanted to use the names of all of the streets we'd lived on together, so naturally we wanted to make them look like street signs. But how to do it?
I searched and searched for something that would work. In my head, I saw one of those photo holder things with a cardstock sign atop it.
This kind of photo holder but bigger and more street-signy.
Alas, I could not find anything that would work. About a week-and-a-half before the wedding, I told Daniel I was out of ideas, and as usual, he immediately figured out a plan.
Thus, we made street signs out of actual wood.
And when I say "we," I mean Daniel, Becca, and my mom.
Actually, come to think of it, this is where my missing Sunday afternoon went. Yay! I'm not losing my mind!
First, Daniel bought some wooden planks and doweling, cut them to size, and drilled a hole to stick the doweling into the wood.
The Drilled Hole
Personal Photo
Sawing the Wooden Pieces to Size
Personal Photo
That worked fine, but there was still the matter of the sign itself. Originally, we thought we would just cut slits in the doweling and stick in strong card stock for the sign.
Slit in the Doweling
Personal Photo
Possibility #1
Personal Photo
But the cardstock really wasn't strong enough to hold itself up. Solution? We would make the slit a bit bigger and find very thin sheets of wood to use instead, making actual wooden signs.
This meant that instead of printing out the street names, they would have to be painted. And so it was that I spent a Sunday afternoon picking out the right shades of white and blue for the signs, and that Becca and my mom spent a large portion of Wednesday carefully painting in stenciled letters.
It took hours, and even still, the look is more homespun than professional, but I really, really like the way they turned out. What can I say? My husband should be a professional idea giver (or saver in my case).
The Day's Labor
Photo by My Mom
Sign in Action
Photo by Laura
We really owe Becca and my mom for doing the lettering all by themselves. We never could have found time for it, and it looked so much better the way they did it than it would have if we had had to throw it together quickly. Thanks!
Did you do anything last minute that turned out great?
Oh my gosh! Those turned out great! We were super lazy and got those mini tree things, but our cardstock was also not strong enough to hold up, and the little tree things were weak too so all our table signs tipped over. We wound up leaning them against vases in the center of the table. Your solution is way better and WAY cuter!
ReplyDeleteShoot! I have pictures of everyone working on the signs. I'll send them along to you.
ReplyDelete