Save the Date Sign

As promised yesterday, here is my first wedding craft!

I decided that for the MIT engagement pictures, I wanted to hold a Save the Date sign so we could just make a picture into a post card. I meant to order a small chalkboard to go along with the MIT theme, but I forgot.. 

I bought a large piece of blue paper (52x78) which coordinated well with our outfits and some hot pink paper I already had. I cut out a heart in the blue paper, decided on the text and layout, and then got started on the template for the text. 

J helped me decide how big to make the font - 250 to be exact. After he figured out that the word "Save" should take up most of the short end of a normal piece of printer paper. I eyeballed on it on Word with that info. I also went through all the fonts in Word and settled on Apple Chancery since it is pretty but not too loopy or ornate, things that are bad for cutting out. Here is the template I made for my stencils - since google docs does not have the font that I chose, I made the file a PDF and added in numbers 0-9. 

I cut out one of each letter and number that I would need from the white printer paper and used these pieces as stencils. As you can see, my stencils were white with a black outline. Unfortunately, I could not make that effect "stick," so the template above has solid black letters. Please pass along my apologies to your ink cartridge.

Then I flipped the stencils upside down and traced them on the pink paper. This was not the easiest thing to do, but J's fingers definitely helped out. You have to hold the letter very still or else the tracing comes out all strange. 

Whenever I am gluing paper to paper, I like to squeeze out some Elmers glue into a puddle and let it set up a bit so it is sticky more than runny. Then I use a stretched out bobby pin to place the glue onto the paper. I am sure there is a better way to do this, but I use what materials and tools are easily available to me. Don't put too much glue on the letters or else they will slide around and the glue will seep out and be visible.


I am quite proud of my homemade sign and it turned out pretty cute in the pictures :) I had grand ambitions of outlining all the letters in white glitter (another use of sticky glue and bobby pins), but quickly lost the desire when I realized it was after midnight and I still was not done gluing things down.

Did you have any DIY projects for your Save the Dates? Did you include a picture of you and the groom on them? I am looking for a good service to turn one of the images into a postcard, so share any good suggestions you may have!