Singaporebrides | Essentials
December 2012
DIY of The Month – Love Notes
Think you’re a hands-on kind of bride and want to make something really special for your wedding? It doesn’t have to be something elaborate; think small, simple yet significant. It could be a personalised Save-The-Date card, or a memorable wedding favour. You don’t even have to be very good at arts and crafts to make these wonderful mementos. SingaporeBrides shows you how to Do-It-Yourself.
Most couples nowadays will have already moved in together before the wedding, or are preparing for their new home. Skeptics will say that marriage is the end of romance, and while I think that statement is rather fatalistic, keeping the initial flame alive needs some work. Extend that feeling of being in love by always reminding yourselves of what brought the both of you together, and maintain that “honeymoon period” for as long as you can. Keep a cork board at your new home at the kitchen or outside your bedroom and leave notes for each other to discover, and pin photographs and postcards from your travels so you’ll be reminded of those memories every time you walk past them. If you’re a crafter, you definitely can find many bits and pieces left behind from previous crafts that you can use to decorate your new message board.
Here’s what you need:
- Cork board with frame
- Cardboard letters
- Heart-shaped cardboard
- Japanese washi tapes from MT Tape
- Printed craft paper
- Adhesive foam tabs
- Self-adhesive letters
- Assorted buttons
- Crocheted lace strips
- Scissors
- Craft glue
- Craft knife
- Tweezers
Time taken: 1 hour
Average cost: Less than $15
1. Measure out strips of craft paper to use as a background for the cork board. For our demo, I’ve used a different print for the centre panel. Glue the paper down with craft glue for something more permanent, or if you’d like to change your design once in a while, pin them down with push pins.
2. Next, we’re going to dress up the cardboard letters that will be the main feature on the cork board. You could get smaller-sized letters to spell out your names or bigger ones for just your initials, or just about anything you want, really. Using MT Tapes, I’m going to create designs by overlapping the tapes over the entire cardboard letter. You can have a mix of as many designs as you like, using two or more prints. There really is no rule to this.
3. After covering the entire cardboard letter with tape, flip it over, tape down the corners and carve out the excess tape. I would love to tell you to be neat at this step, but the beauty of this DIY is that there is no need to be neat, especially when the whole point of the board is to have many things going on, with the backgrounds and MT Tape designs! What’s also great about MT Tapes is that they peel off cleanly without leaving stains, which means you can reuse the cardboard letters for future crafts.
4. I’ve left out the “V” in “LOVE” and replaced it with a heart-shaped cardboard that I am going to use as a photo frame. The one I have already comes with a string attached, but if you can’t find an identical one, simply punch a hole out of your desired cardboard shape (or the letter “O”) and loop a string through it. After deciding on the placements of the photo frame and the letters, glue down a large button on the background to use as a hook for the photo frame. Use a tweezer to handle the buttons to prevent getting glue on your fingers.
5. Next, stick the adhesive foam tabs to the back of the cardboard letters and press them firmly down onto the background. The foam tabs can be found in varying heights that can create different pop-up effects.
6. Taking a length of the crocheted lace, stretch it across the bottom of the cock board, roughly 1/3 of the way up. Remember to leave a slight slack so that it falls naturally down the middle and not stretch straight across the board. Either glue or pin it down to stabilise it in front, as well as the back. Apart from being part of the design, the lace also functions as a hold for postcards, photographs, or mail that you can attach to the completed board.
7. Now comes the fun part of the DIY. Take any loose pieces of lace, cloth, buttons or craft paper that you have lying around the house and go crazy decorating the board. You can have a theme or you can just play with colours that go well together. You can buy stickers from craft shops and decorate the background to make it more interesting as well.
Remember the photo frame in step 4? Print out your favourite photo of the both of you at your honeymoon and stick it with Blu Tack to the back of the frame. That way, you can change the photo whenever you want. This board now becomes your own little private world in this digital age, and you can both think of cute and fun ways to leave messages for each other.
Credits:
Japanese washi tapes and tape cutter courtesy of MT Tape.
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