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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)
Photoshop Ruined my Self-Esteem
Those poor woman, back in the 1500’s, who couldn’t reach the glorious standard of painted artist’s visions of perfect women. How did they ever deal with their low self-esteem developed from comparing to the strokes of an artist?!
Confidence is sexy. Not to be confused with arrogance.
Society may not like me for this post since it goes against popular belief of “Photoshop ruined my self-estem”, but that may, honestly, be the biggest cop-out I have ever heard.
Does auto-tune cause one to have self esteem issues? Let me assure you, I cannot sing to save my life. Auto-Tune wouldn’t even be able to save my voice from making your ears bleed. To top it all off, I come from a family of talented singers! So the pressure to have a perfect voice overflowing with harmony surely exploded in my face when I let out my first screeching note and tried to clap along to a beat… When I hear people sing amazing – I do not think of myself as less of a person, I do not get jealous; instead I appreciate their talents (auto-tuned or not).
What you see pictured below is me with a mass of make-up on my (photoshopped) face, an overtly sexy outfit on a rockin’ hot (photoshopped) body in which I have actually had people tell me “That looks nothing like you.”
Roland Moriarty – Mayhem #2280234
Oh my God, Becky, look at her butt.
Of all people to claim low self-esteem from such unrealistic expectations – would it not be the model who had to go through the society’s sigh of missed expectation when she walks out the door actually looking like a disastrous mess of a human we all are; hair in ponytail, sweatpants on, acne, no make-up, dark circles under her eyes…
Many (not all) of my photos undergo rigorous Photoshop in order to create the artists desired image. I’m the one IN these photos. When I wake up in the morning, walk past a mirror and see the un-Photoshop version of me – I do not suddenly shriek back, withering away with my low self esteem, due to unmet perfection.
I go to work everyday with no make-up on and I have acne on my face and cellulite on my ass – and I’m as still confident as you would come to believe the apparently flawless woman in the images you see pictured would be (Still even after someone tells me again “But seriously, this picture looks nothing like you!).
Gulf Coast in Focus
It is called “self” esteem, it is how you feel about your “self”. YOU are responsible for your happiness. YOU are responsible for the highs and lows of your self-esteem. Not your friends or media or your partner or your family. Blaming media for poor self-esteem is a way of casting off responsibility for ones self. Work on YOUR self-esteem. Stop comparing yourself to others, and instead work on bettering yourself only compared to the YOU of yesterday.
If you allow the world to dictate how you feel about yourself, you will live hating the very skin you were born in.
- Help build self-esteem by developing a positive attitude
- Reject the desire to compare yourself to others or make unrealistic and unhealthy expectations
- Act with confidence to lead in your communities
- Identify adults who can act as role models
- Act as positive role models for younger girls
Note: Struggling with Low Self Esteem and Depression is very real, and should be diagnosed and treated by a medical professional. If you, or a loved one, are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts then you should seek professional counseling.
Ashlee Karin 