Cherish Paperie » diy tutorial

DIY Wedding Maps {My Rock, Paper, Scissors Tutorial}

Danielle — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:33:56 +0000

Have you seen those gorgeous maps on the wedding invites of your friends and family? Did you get a quote on what it'd cost to have one designed and just can't afford it? Why not make one yourself! That's what I did back when I got married and I loved the way it turned out. This tutorial from My Rock, Paper, Scissors is not only simple to use but it's exactly what I did in 2007 when I designed my own map. In 10 easy steps you will have designed a map that's perfect for any occasion.

DIY Wedding Maps Tutorial

1. Google Map the area around your event site(s). 2. Determine the scale and the level of details you want to include in your map. In my case, the wedding couple only wanted to show the ceremony and reception sites. So I zoomed close enough in the map to include just these 2 locations. 3. Once you are at the right scale, do a print screen. (There should be a PrtScn or PrtSc button on your keyboard. If you only want to capture the window with the map, but not the junk on your deskstop, click on the map to make it the current active window, then press Alt-PrtScn.) 4. Open up a blank presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint. 5. Paste (Ctrl-v) the screen capture on the blank presentation. 6. Crop and size the image to approximately how you want the final product to look. Don’t worry if some of the scaling is off. No one has to know. 7. You should now have an idea of how detailed you want the map to be. For a wedding map, you probably just want to highlight the major highways or main streets, plus a few finer details (e.g. parking) around the wedding sites. There are 2 ways to add highways and main streets:

If they’re straight, use a Line;
If they’re curvy, use Autoshape –> Lines –> Curve. To create curves that follow the turns on the roads, try click on the vertex on each turn. This will create a series of pivot points (Fig. 1) that will help curve the line as you trace the rest of the road. Double click to end the tracing.

8. After the highways/main streets are done, you can start to add more details (eg. street names, ceremony and reception location, etc.). If you have out of town guests, consider adding one or two landmarks close-by to help them navigate. But don’t clutter the map with information irrelevant to the occasion. They will distract guests from finding their way to your event (Fig. 2).

9. To make key event sites stand out, try to highlight them with interesting icons or clip arts. In case you’re wondering, PowerPoint actually does an adequate job on searching for suitable clip arts when provided with the right keyword (ie. birthday, wedding, party, parking, etc.)

If parking is separated from the event site, you may want to include it in the map too (Fig. 3)

10. To match the map to your party colors/theme, try formatting selected drawn objects on the slide. You can do so by right-clicking on the object and going to the Format menu.

11. Once you’re done detailing the map, remove the Google map backdrop. Group all drawings together (i.e. Select them all, right-click, Grouping –> Group) before saving the picture. Now you’re ready to insert a homemade map in your party invitation!

Don't have the time to do it yourself?

While Cherish Paperie is designing your invitations, we'd be more than happy to design a custom map for you as well! And remember these important tips when creating your map. Check out weddingmapper.com and have their software do it for you! Or create your map on mapfling.com and just publish the URL of your map on your invite for others to view on their own.

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Heart Shaped Crayon Valentines {DIY Tutorial}

Danielle — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0000

I first saw the crayon heart valentines on the Family Fun website. I thought they looked adorable but didn't have a heart mold so I figured I'd just send the regular store-bought valentines instead since I had a few I purchased on clearance a few years back. Then we went to Target and I saw the heart molds in the dollar section of the store and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Plus they were all over Pinterest!

So I went to the store, stocked up on a mold and crayons and headed home to do some experimenting. Before I started I did a little research to see what others were saying about the craft. I try not to just jump into a tutorial without reading about it from a few others first. That can lead to disaster (or just make it harder on me since others have found key tips/tricks on making it easier). Once I got the low-down I headed to the kitchen to soak, unwrap, break and bake! And here's what I did:

Materials Needed:

1 box crayons, unwrapped (or left over broken crayons laying around)
1-2 heart molds, choose your size
Construction Paper
Alphabet stamps OR printer
Adhesive dots

What to do:

Place your crayons in a heat proof dish & preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Heat up some water and pour warm water on crayons (note: do not use boiling water... crayons might melt).

Let crayons soak for 30 seconds (see what happens when your water's too hot?).

Unwrap crayons (any that didn't unwrap easily after soaking were set aside and not used).

Put crayons in a dish and let kids break them up into small, tiny pieces (or put them in a bag and hammer with a kitchen mallet or meat tenderizer until broken up).

Place heart molds on a rimmed baking sheet and fill with broken crayon pieces.

Place tray in oven and bake for 15-18 minutes or until crayons are fully melted. Then carefully take out of oven and set aside to harden.

Once cooled completely pop crayons out of molds and smooth edges by rubbing against a piece of paper.

Now's the fun part! You can decide what you want to do with the crayons once you've baked them. I decided to use scrapbooking paper I already had in the house to create a postcard sized Valentine for my son. You can use this printable here for a square valentine with the writing already on the paper or this printable here for a circle valentine (you just have to add your child's name).

Or you can do what I did and use an alphabet stamp set to customize the sayings you put on each valentine. I simply adhered the crayon to a square piece of scrapbook paper with a glue dot and than layered that onto a larger postcard size piece of scrapbook paper. Then I stamped the sayings I wanted as well as my son's name to personalize it. You can also have your child decorate the postcard paper by drawing or coloring on it before you stamp out your sayings. You can find more sayings here (as well as more printables!).

The possiblilties and variations really are endless with this craft. And the kids have a great time helping you make them too. Much more personal then a store-bought valentine and twice as cute!

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Fabric Poms {Once Wed DIY Tutorial}

Danielle — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:50:00 +0000

When we stumbled upon this DIY tutorial from Once Wed we knew that we had to share it with our readers! This project is simple, versatile and gorgeous. Some have mentioned that they have had luck using styrofoam balls and pins instead of the lantern and glue gun so it's really up to you to choose what method you best like for the project.

I plan on using these to decorate the house for an upcoming party I'm hosting in the colors of the party. I think that these will give that little pop of color that I need without breaking the bank! These poms are the perfect substitution for pew bows or hanging flower balls for the flower girls at a wedding, hanging decorations at a shower or party and much more. Thanks, Ashley! We love it.

Fabric Poms

Supplies

fabric
scissors
hot glue gun
chinese lanterns

Step 1: Cut circles out of fabric.

Step 2: Fold the circle in half and put a little hot glue on the center, then fold over to secure.

Step 3: Apply more hot glue to the bottom of the folded circle.

Step 4: Press the bottom of the folded circle with the hot glue onto the chinese lantern.

Step 5: Repeat these steps until the whole lantern is covered. Once finished, attached some fabric to the metal frame of the lantern to hang.

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