Sharing a little global LOVE this morning : )
As those of you who follow my blog may know, we are deep into the planning stages of our daughter’s wedding that is happening this August. What you may not know is that now we have TWO weddings in the making, as our son proposed to his lovely fiancé over the weekend as well!! For our daughter’s celebration (#1 on the calendar), we’ve started having monthly “craft days” to start chipping away at all of the DIY designs and decorations we are hoping to have displayed at this very international wedding. But of course, before we could begin crafting this past Sunday, we popped some bubbly (and shared some fries : ) to celebrate both of our lovely brides-to-be!
The project of the day was painted globes featuring the cities and countries of some very special places around the world that are near and dear to our daughter’s and her fiancé’s hearts.
Coach has been collecting globes for the past few months and we’ve been painting the bases and handles teal blue, one of the chosen colors in the wedding palette. So even though they are all a little different in shape and size, the base colors tie them all together.
The process of painting the globes is fairly simple, but tedious. First, we chose these cutout letters
I got from Michaels as the font pattern and traced them onto contact paper,
one city at a time. Then they were carefully cut out (this was, thankfully, not my job!) with little scissors and an exacto knife. We decided each globe would have a slightly different letter placement depending on the colors of the globe itself. You have to make sure that the unpainted lettered areas show through once you paint the globe, so you want to choose the darker areas of the globe, like the land masses vs. the oceans.
Once the placement was determined, the letters were peeled off the contact paper backing and placed on the globe, rubbing the edges firmly to ensure proper adherence so the paint wouldn’t bleed under. (I really couldn’t take an accurate photo of this, as the contact paper is clear…) I made a concoction of Americana Paints, clear wax and soft finish varnish because I wanted it to be opaque and dark enough to contrast with the lettered areas.
Once the letters were in place, we simply used small brushes and started adding light coats of the white paint/glaze, allowing to dry until we were happy with the depth of color and contrast. Once slightly dried, we peeled off the letters using a small Exacto knife and tweezers. Voilà! Aspen!
The very first craft day, we were able to create this one LOVE globe while sorting out all of the exact craft details.
This past Sunday, we busted out 8, even while shipping champagne and discussing all of the wedding(s) planning. We have more to do, but we are at a standstill because we didn’t run out ofcountries, we’ve run out of globes! So if anyone has a globe they are willing to donate to the cause, let me know! Have a world class Wednesday everyone! Susan