How to Decorate your Wedding Reception Facility on a Budget.

Mr.& Mrs. Signs by Lisa Englert

I fell in love with these chair signs...but not so much with the price! We decided to recreate them to fit our wedding budget. First we started off by purchasing 2 wood plaques from Michaels (at 40% off) for $1.95 each. We drilled a small hole at in the top corners of both plaques (to hang them). We purchased a distressed ivory painting kit made by Rust-Oleum from AC Moore (with a 40% off coupon of course) for around $10 (we used this paint for several other wedding projects that we will be posting soon so it ended up being a really good buy!) We followed the kit instructions and painted the signs with the ivory paint. Next we sanded the edges and roughed it up a bit to give it a worn out look. Then we applied the antiquing paint that came with the kit, let it sit for 5 minutes, and wiped it off with an old cloth. This really added to the aged and distressed look. For the lettering, we printed the words “Mr.” and “Mrs.” in Edwardian Script IT font from Microsoft Word in the biggest font possible. We then enlarged them one more time to fit the plaques perfectly. To create an at home stencil, we then flipped the paper over to the blank side. We colored the blank side of the paper with a lead pencil where ever there was lettering on the opposite side. We colored the paper completely with pencil lead. Then we flipped it over so that the font side was on top and the pencil side was on the bottom. We positioned the lettering in the center of the signs and secured them with tape so they wouldn’t slip and slide. Next we took a regular BIC pen (any color) and traced the outline of the lettering. This transfers the lead from the pencil directly onto the plaque and gives you an easy to follow pattern. Once the patterns were completely traced and transferred we took them off and set them aside for reference. With a thin paint brush and black acrylic paint ($0.99 at Michaels) we painted the outline of the letters and then colored them in. After the signs were dry, we threaded approximately 24” of thick pink ribbon (purchased from Michaels with a 40% coupon) through each hole. We secured them to the chairs by looping each side around the chair and tying into a big bow. You can find more of Lisa's tips at our main site, The Portrait Gallery Niagara at this link.