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If you guessed "religious relics of any sort," then you just received 10 Super Awesome points.
Adam and I are getting married in a church on our college campus. It is appropriately named the "All Faiths Chapel." While this post isn't about "churching-up" the church, it is about decorating a church that is lacking in decoration (say that 5 times fast).
Early on in the wedding planning process, I saw these door monograms from Martha Stewart and decided that I wanted to make them.
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It seems like such a cute gesture for the church - something that adds a personal touch to the ceremony venue. Since our church doesn't have big stained glass windows or a huge altar, we can't just rely on flowers, a unity candle and an aisle runner to fill the void. Thus Thus, I thought this would be a nice way to make our church a little more snazzy and to look like I put a little more thought into the ceremony decor.
DIY Church Initials
Materials:
9 1/2" Wooden letters from Hobby Lobby (A / L )
7" Wooden Ampersand (&) from craftcuts.com
Acrylic paint
Paintbrushes
Mod Podge or Acrylic sealant spray
Ribbon (1 1/2" and 5/8" widths)
hot glue gun & sticks
velcro
Note: I did a terrible job taking pictures on this project. Thankfully it is simple, and I'll give you what photos I have!
1. Paint the letters (A / L) and the ampersand (&) with acrylic paint. I put two coats on the front and sides and just one coat on the back. It will look kind of chalky...but the next step will help with this!
2. Seal the paint with either Mod Podge (I used the matte finish) and a dabber sponge or Clear Acrylic Coating (found with spray paint at craft stores). I cannot use spray paint for the life of me...it always turns out patchy and runny, so that's why I chose mod podge.
3. Hot glue an 18" section of the 1.5" ribbon onto the back of each big letter. Make sure you glue it straight or your letter will hang crooked.
4. Attach velcro to the ribbon. I hot glued the velcro onto the ribbon (even though it was adhesive) just to make sure that it stayed.
**This step is kind of optional, depending on how you are going to hang the letters. Adding to the list of my incompetencies is tying a bow with ribbon. I decided to just have them hang, rather then horribly tie two pieces of ribbon together.
5. Hang! I wrapped the ribbon around our shower curtain so that you get the full effect. I had to make a few small adjustments to the ribbon/velcro after I hung the letters to make sure that they were even with each other and level too.
Notice how I hung the ribbon off to the side of the L.
If I had put it directly in the center then the letter would have hung crooked.
So there you have it! Unlike Martha's picture above, these are going to go on the front doors of the church. I might put some felt on the backs of the letters to soften the sound in the event that they bang around on the doors when being opened.
Total:
9.5" Wooden letters $1.99 each (30% off) = $2.79
7" Wooden Ampersand (&) from craftcuts.com - I couldn't find them at Hobby Lobby so I had to special order ($3.10 + 3.95 shipping) = $7.05
Acrylic paint = $0.99
Paintbrushes - on hand
Mod Podge or Acrylic sealant spray - on hand
Ribbon:
1 1/2" - on hand
5/8" = $1.97
hot glue gun & sticks - on hand
velcro = $2.47
$15.27 - with lots of paint, ribbon and velcro left for other projects!
(Half of that price is just for the ampersand symbol! I was originally just going to do "A" and "L", but the church has three doors. I thought about doing a big "C" for our last name in the middle, but I really liked the look of "A & L" so I sacrificed the extra $5.)
What do you think? Have you done any extra church decorations? It seems like receptions get the brunt of the attention, so how are you keeping your church from getting jealous?
Excellent work. I love this very much! Anyway, I found another art and craft store which is - build a cross.
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