Gettin' With It!

...The programs, that is!

Our programs are FINALLY done! I really like how they turned out, but they sure took a long time to make, which was not at all my first intention.

I really didn't want to spend too long on the programs, since I know that half the guests don't even take one, and the ones who do take one definitely don't keep them. But the design of these programs got away from me!

At first I thought, "I'll just glue some ribbon on them, and be pretty much done," since that's my go-to easy DIY move--throwing ribbon on things.

So I printed out the covers, folded them in half, and hot glued ribbon around them, leaving about an inch overlap on the inside.

But then came the problem of binding them. I had planned to glue the inside pages to the inside of the cover, covering where the ribbon ends. But my content ended up being too long to keep it to one sheet of paper as I'd originally planned. I briefly considered stapling, but didn't want to be bothered with having to go to Kinko's to do it, since I didn't have a stapler long enough to hit the center fold.

So instead I dug up an old inspiration link I had flagged on how to bind booklets, from 100 Layer Cake. Using this as inspiration, I set out to do my own embroidery floss binding, on the two inside sheets of my programs.

First, I used a seam ripper to poke three holes in the paper along the crease, using tape marks on a ruler as my guide.

Then I used embroidery floss and a needle to loop through the holes I'd made, and tied the floss on the outside crease, since it was going to be covered by the wood grain cover paper.

After this really long process, with very tired fingers, I glued the outermost inside cream sheets to the inside of the wood grain cover paper, so that a little of the wrapped around ribbon could be seen when the booklet was open. And then they were done, all 60 of them....mostly.
Here is a look at the inside pages. Quote from "Marry Me" by Train (left page) and the ceremony description (right page):

The wedding party (left page) and important reception details (right page):

A thank you to our family and friends (left page) and silly trivia about Mr. Cola and I to entertain the guests before the ceremony starts (right page):

The programs were ready to be loaded into their basket and stored for the next two months...or so I thought! But after putting them in the decorated basket, I wasn't very happy with the big space in the middle between the two rows of programs. Not only did the gap look funny to me, but the programs kept trying to fall to the center because of the uneven bottom of the basket. They were going to be a jumbled mess after a few were taken out and the basket was bumped by guests.

So using some floral foam and leftover flowers from my rehearsal dinner centerpieces, I fashioned a quick arrangement, and covered the foam with ribbon to hide it.

When done, these flowers fit perfectly in the empty space in the basket, and also helped hold the programs in place, preventing them from tipping to the center.

I completely blew my time allocation with this project, since I'd wanted to complete them in just one weekend and it took about 2 1/2. But that's what happens when you change your design plans mid-project. Looking back, I probably should have just gone the staple binding route, but oh well. At least now I can add hand binding to my DIY repertoire!

Did any of your DIY projects take longer than expected?