Calligraphy by Shannon: Chair Signs DIY by Carly

The lovely Carly is sharing a few more of her wedding details with us today.

Enjoy!

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The topic for today is DIY decor! Some brides love it, some dread it- I probably fall somewhere in between. I’m not overly crafty, but there are a lot of times when I see something I like and think “I could make that for way cheaper!” Case in point: chair signs. Lots of couples are putting something on their reception chairs to distinguish their chairs (and get a cute picture). Here are some examples:

source

After deciding I wanted to do something like this, I did a little Googling, and came across this very helpful blog: Happily After All.

You’ll notice that her inspiration sells for $30 plus shipping. I can definitely do better than that! So I set out on one of my first DIY projects. Fortunately I had already purchased two signs at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago, since they were marked down from $2.99 each to $0.99 each, post- Valentines days. (I knew they’d come in handy for something!) My signs are a thin tin/metal material, and looked like this:

They actually came with pink ribbon threaded through predrilled holes, but I forgot to take a picture before I took out the ribbon. I’m just glad the holes are already there and I don’t need to do anything involving power tools.

I pretty much followed Happily After All’s painting directions exactly, using two coats of black acrylic as the base, followed by one coat of crackle medium, and then one coat of off-white acrylic. You don’t need much paint- small bottles will definitely suffice. I let each coat dry completely before moving on, including the backs of the signs which I painted plain black. As soon as I started to paint on the white the crackling started happening! It was way more exciting than watching paint dry (sorry, had to do it).

Unlike Happily After All, I did not free hand my words. I blew up the words Mrs. And Mr. in Microsoft Word, using Edwardian Script ITC font and 375 point text. (Note- all you really need to do is print Mrs. Just do that sign first, and then when you make the Mr. just cut off the “s” first!). The trickiest part of this whole project was cutting out the thin stencils. Printing them on cardstock would have helped make the words less flimsy. After the word was cut out, I traced it on the sign in pencil, then went over it and filled it all in with Sharpie. It looks like paint unless you really look closely. Now all I need to do is put in the ribbon and hang them from our chairs!

The finished product: