The first DIY that I'm featuring today is for the moss covered soda crate we created to hold our escort cards. This was one of my favorite projects in our wedding and it was also one of the most time consuming. Ironically, it was used for all of, like, ten minutes. Oh, well, it's pretty and it photographs well. Plus, I got to watch a lot of reality TV while I made it. Win some, lose some. Here's what you'll need:
Vintage Soda Crate. You can find these on eBay fairly easily. Also, for reference, we were able to fit 75 clips on one crate and 64 cards. Figure you will reserve a few clips on each create for some vintage millinery......................approx. $10-15/crate
Black Foam Board. Enough to fit the top of each crate.............approx. $2-3/board
Gold Paperclips; 75 clips per crate............................................approx. $3/package
Moss. You'll need quite a bit of this. I want to say I went through at least two bags, if not three................................................................................approx. $3-5/bag
Vintage Millinery......................................................................approx. $3-5/bunch
Wood Veneer Business Cards (or any business card-sized escort card)..........varies
Hot Glue Gun & Glue Ruler & Pencil
Exacto Knife
1. Get yourself ready. Gather your materials, some wine, and put a good trashy TV show on in the background. I'm a fan of The Bachelorette these days.
2. Trace the top of the crate on the foam board with your pencil. Sip your wine. You'll need to be buzzed to tolerate the latter half of this project. But don't get too buzzed. You still have to use sharp objects, do math, and squirt hot, hot glue on things.
3. Cut your foam board with your exacto knife. Place on top of the crate and trim as needed. Save the foam board. You can use it for other great projects.
3. Using your ruler measure and mark out ten lines of equal distance on your foam board.
4. Okay, here's where it gets a little complicated. In order to fit 75 clips on your board, you have alternate rows of 7 and 8. You also have to stagger the rows so that one row of seven falls between one row of eight. Oh, just look at the picture, will you? You'll understand me so much better if you just look at the picture.
5. Okay, once you've got all these things marked, plug in your hot glue gun. Have a glass of wine while it warms up. The worst is ahead.
6. Okay, now in order for you to fit 75 cards on this board and allow people to read them, you have to angle the clips. This is a bit tricky. Place the clip with the single loop side down. You're going to have to hold each paperclip at a 45 degree angle to the foam board and hot glue it into place. You have to put a pretty large dollop of glue in order to create a rigid support for the clip. What's frustrating about this is that you have to hold the clip in place until the glue cools enough to hold the clip. A.P. did this part of the project and I have to tell you, he was really, really fast at it. When I was doing it, I was averaging two clips a minute. He got the whole thing done in a hot minute. If I remember correctly he rigged some kind of system where a book or magazine held the clips in place while the glue dried.
7. Now that your clips are all glued to your foam board, it's time to mount the foam board to the vintage soda crate. Place a thick rope of hot glue around the perimeter of your soda crate and gently press the foam board down. Spot glue anywhere it seems loose.
8. Now comes the super, super tedious part. Begin gluing down the moss around the clips, slowly covering up the foam board. I used white because it's what I had in the house, but even with the black foam board, you can still see the board. It's vital that you cover every inch of board. In order to do this, you not only have to cover the top of the board, but the sides as well. You can do this and create a really pretty look by making the moss look like it's creeping down the sides of the crate.
9. By now, you're probably hammered. And Ashley has made another bad decision. And she's cried and wondered if she's made another bad decision. And she's found yet another reason to dance or have a wedding-themed date. So, go ahead and take a break. Finish it tomorrow. Or the day after that. Then, place each card into a clip. Reserve a few of the clips in the front for your vintage millinery. We did not secure these with glue, but it would have been a whole lot better if we had. Learn from our mistakes. Glue yours down. Cover your glue with more moss. Then, when you're all done, it will look like this:
See? A super sweet, vintage project for your wedding. And not too hard on the wallet either.
Do you subscribe to Not the Marrying Kind? If not, you should! It's free and fun and it means you automatically get new posts when the blog is updated. No having to check back! Click here for more details.
(Photos by me except for the last two which are by Theresa Scarbrough)
No comments:
Post a Comment