I wanted my seating cards to be really fun and unique. What I ended up doing took a whole lot of time but I totally loved.
- I bought birdhouses from AC Moore for $3 each. With ten tables it wasn’t breaking my bank.
- I then sanded each birdhouse quickly- I wasn’t going for perfection here. I doubted people would be running their hands all over the houses so a few chips here and there, I was ok with that.
- I bought spray paint in 3 colors: blue, red, and brown. I then headed outside and put down newpaper. Make sure to do this!!! You do not want a red sidewalk. I then sprayed the birdhouses, making sure to get the bottom too since they would be hanging.
- I let them dry for 2 hours and then came back and sprayed them again.
- After 24 hours I attached a loop of ribbon to each house to hang from the tree. My trusty gluegun was my friends and let my glue the ribbon on even at weird angles.
Now came making the actual table numbers.
- I bought 80 of the red scallop ovals from paper source. Paper Source did not have it in stock all at once so I had to go back later *pain in the butt, just order online*
- I knew I wanted a wood grain background and found a huge stamp over at AC Moore for $4. Yay! I did end up getting the stamp pad from Paper Source because it had this ice blue sparkle pad which I loved. That was $5.
- To get the background to come out well I had to expirement. I ended up holding the stamp pad in a freakish way(see photo) and lightly dabing the pad over the entire stamp quickly and all over. Otherwise, you got color in some parts of the stamp and not others. BUY a big stamp pad. It’s worth it. I could kick myself for not doing so.
- Then position your red oval so the stamp covers as much as possible. And with one huge movement, PUSH that stamp down on the scallop paper. With such a big stamp it’s hard so you need a lot of force.
Then came putting the names on the cards
- I ended up buying these from paper source. I don’t know if it was my printer or what but the ink kept flaking off the labels!! I was pissed! So I ended up spraying this protective seal spray for paper on them so the $#%%^&^% ink wouldn’t flake off.
- Then I stamped numbers on the back of the red scallops for the table numbers people would be sitting at. I used Martha Stewart stamps that they no longer sell. They are huge numbers and worked really well.
- I wanted to attach the scallop paper on the ribbon I had glue gunned to the birdhouses that would STAY but come off easily. HA! I first tried these glue dots as you can see in the picture. They fell off. I tried more glue dots. A few fell off and my DOC said if any wind came- poof. No table numbers.
- So I thought glue gun them on. Uh-uh. They refused to come off.
- So I ended up stapling them to the ribbon. Perfect! Not exactly the visual I wanted, but the ribbon pretty much hid the staple and they came off easily.
I asked my DOC to hang them from the trees right outside the tent and tada! I loved them!
