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Wedding Welcome Sign – Save Hundreds!
Hello fellow DIYers…
Who am I kidding?
I do not DIY anything. I am the worst. I am creative – when it comes to processes to follow. Not so much when it comes to painting and art. I’ve been trying to write a book practically my entire life, but writers block prevents that.
But weddings are EXPENSIVE!
I really want a beautiful dream wedding… can I do it for a couple hundred dollars? The answer is no. Venues alone run you thousands of dollars (in my area). So I have to find ways to save. And some of the design aspects I found I could DIY for drastically less (🥲).
Here we are. My first major DIY for the wedding! And I’ll walk you through how I saved hundreds so that maybe you can too! (Also some mistakes I made/things I would do differently so maybe you can avoid those yourself).
Wedding Welcome Sign
First – I have a free app on my iPhone (works on Androids too) called Da Vinci Eye. This app uses your phone as a looking glass of sorts – where you can put the image you want over top of the paper you are working on and pretty much trace that image.
I designed the image I wanted in another app called Enlight (basically photoshop editing type app – I do not know if this app is free still, but any editing app that lets you overlay images on top of each other will work). I used images off google searches that I liked, overlaying letters and words and images to design this mock-up:
I bought this large 5.5ft sign at a local thrift store for $50. (Sometimes thrift stores have bargain days, so I probably could have waited and gotten it even cheaper!)
After that, I used the Da Vinci Eye app to project my image on my TV so that I could see where I was drawing / writing at… and I painted away! (The great thing about acrylic paint is it dries quick and if you hate it – you can paint right over it to fix any mistakes!)
I did end up free handing the greenery, and I watched Pamela Groppe’s YouTube video on “how to paint leaves (beginner friendly)”
Things I would have done differently:
I definitely would have used painters tape to line out straight lines with the highest and lowest points I wanted the letters to be. Whether I moved the tripod or if it was just me… some of my letters became a bit slanted or not as big as I would have liked.
While this isn’t what a professionals work would have come out to look like – I paid less than $75 and a few hours and likely saved $400-$500 (as I am sure a custom 5.5ft sign like this isn’t cheap)
Subscribe for future crafting updates! I’ve got a few more up my sleeve (and luckily some friends who love me)
In the New Year…
It’s that time of year, where we resolve to do something to better ourself. Promises, big and small, made right at midnight to make the next 365 days more productive, healthy, beneficial…
My resolution last year was simple, it was to have a better year then the year before. That was easily accomplished.
By the end of 2016, I want to look back and say I am a better version of myself than I was in 2015.
Everywhere from spiritual growth to financial stability to business development and anything in between. I want to be a better friend, daughter, sister, granddaughter. I want to be a better employee. I want to be a better citizen. I want to be smarter and more savvy. I want to be more positive and more grateful. I want to be a better me.
And so it will be.
Bucket List: Do a New Year Dip
What better way to bring in the New Year than to run flailing into the ocean after midnight? Easy, to do so with your friends.
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A huge thank you to one of my best friends for agreeing and following through on what may be a silly goal. The worst part was the freezing cold sand (the water wasn’t even that bad). The good news is, we weren’t shark food.
We celebrated our success at the Awful Waffle.
Happy New Year! May 2015 be filled with many adventures!
#SWFW 2014
I was so excited to when I got casted to walk in South Walton Fashion Week 2014 again this year! When I auditioned, I got to hear “You have improved so much this year compared to last” and my heart soared! How exciting!
I went to the practices. I was coached by Heather Forrester, and didn’t receive a lot of critique to my walk. I was feeling good.
Then the Wednesday Night practice a couple days before, I got to walk the runway with America’s Next Top Model Cycle 19 winner Laura James… everything was beginning to get more real!
America’s Next Top Model Cycle 19 Winner Laura James
Then Thursday I got the phone call. “Hello Ashlee. The designer pulled a lot of the line, and so we won’t actually be needing you this show.”
It was the only show I was going to walk in, and now they did not need me. … I was crushed. I actually started crying during the middle of my lunch break, in public, with my friend. Everyone tried to console me, and I did quickly suck up my tears and moved on. If it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be.
Though it didn’t hurt any less.
Then I got the phone call Friday at work – “Ashlee, think you could fill in for a model tonight?”
“Um, Yes!!”
And that was that! I got to walk in the Friday night show. That was exciting enough.
It wasn’t until Saturday that I got the phone call saying a Designer needed a model, could I go try on the outfit, that I realized Woah! I am going to get to walk in TWO shows this year, TWO days in a row! Wow!
I even got to meet America’s Next Top Model Cycle 2 winner, and judge of SWFW 2014 show: Yoanna House! How awesome!
America’s Next Top Model Cycle 2 Winner Yoanna House
God is good!
Photog Feature: Hanna Roller
Photo Credit: Hanna Roller
It was so much fun shooting with Hanna Roller at the Fort Pickens shoot out. The images returned were stunning! Check out more of her work here, and be sure to hire her for your next shoot. 🙂
Photo Credit: Hanna Roller
Ashlee Karin 