When we put a call out for crowdsourced DIY inspiration earlier this year, the idea was to deconstruct and simplify really cool statement pieces into simple instructions. But as the suggestions started pouring in, it quickly became clear to us that a lot of the really cool ideas you see floating around Pinterest and other sites are, in fact, the work of skilled professionals. In many cases the projects you loved took days, if not months, to complete. There was a good reason that you loved them, but none of us own a wood laser cutter.
So instead, what we’ve put together for this set of tutorials is more like a hack than an exact deconstruction. Because the beauty of wedding aesthetics is that, for the most part, you really just need the idea to come across. This isn’t Project Runway. Nobody is judging your craftsmanship up close and asking why you hot glued your centerpieces instead of sewed them.
Photos: Allison Andres / Styling: Michelle Edgemont
The original inspiration for this tutorial was a combination of this amazing light-up “LOVE” sign and these oversized letters hanging in a tree. The kicker was figuring out a way to mimic the impact of those pieces, without requiring special tools like a laser cutter or special knowledge like electrical engineering. So when we found these amazing 23″ paper mache letters at JoAnn Fabric (and after Meg finished creating questionable feminist vocabulary with them in the store), the doors swung wide open on this thing.
If you’re a lazy crafter looking for an easy impactful piece to put up at your wedding, you’re going to love this one so damn much for two reasons:
- The letters cost $9.99 each (Update: They are on sale today for $5.99!), which brought the whole project in under $100, and that’s without the coupon we had.
- It took about an hour to make this from start to finish. Which is exactly how much patience I have for crafting.
The steps are remarkably simple. And my favorite part? They don’t require any kind of technical artistry. Just spraying and gluing and cutting, which are crafting verbs I can handle:
- Go to JoAnn’s (or JoAnn.com) and buy these letters
- Spray paint them white. (Meg fell in love with this blue lace in store, but you can do anything with these letters that you want. Spray paint them hot pink, cover them in glitter, make them glow-in-the-dark—the possibilities are pretty endless.)
- Once the paint is dry, spray the letters with spray adhesive. Give the adhesive a minute to dry and get tacky before moving on to step four. (If you don’t, the liquid from the spray adhesive can make the dyes in your fabric run.)
- Gently place your fabric onto the spray adhesive, being careful that it lays flat and doesn’t wrinkle. Smooth it down so that the adhesive bonds to the fabric.
- Cut off any excess fabric. We took the lazy way out and only had the fabric lay flat on one side of the letters, but a craftier/less-lazy person could wrap it around the letters if they were so inclined.
- Screw eye hooks into the top and run fishing wire or twine through the hooks to hang from your desired location. We affixed these to some branches on an ivy wall. The letters are super light, so you really only need a bit of support to keep them up.
