are you looking for a fun, fun favor for a party or event? this is a great one!
our Women’s Ministries Spring Luncheon planning team was looking for a really special favor for the women who attended. there are only so many times that you can do bookmarks, votives or little tulle circles of candy, ya know what i mean?
i showed them these little plaques that i did for the guest room & nursery at home:
they were made out of 1/4” mdf (medium density fiberboard) that shelly (my hubby) cut into 4”x8” pieces. i painted the edges & mod podged scrapbook paper & letters to them for some cute wall art.
So anyway, they were sold on the idea!
shelly went to lowe’s & they had 4’x8’ sheets of mdf but they were 1/2” thick & that was too thick. or maybe they were 1/8” & that was too thin, i can’t remember which. so he went to Home Depot & bought the 1/4” thick & it was just right! they only carry the 2’x4’ pieces so i had him buy 5 @ 5.73 each. i know, i know - why didn't i do it myself? because you just have to let them help sometimes! (& yes, his real name is shelly! but mine isn't really randee, it's miranda.)
when i make these at home – i don’t worry about the backside but we wanted these to look really nice so i had the brilliant idea to paint the back of the mdf before it was painted. i used some paint leftover from our powder room, painted them in the garage & waited for them to dry.
unfortunately, i forgot to make sure that when shelly cut them into 6” squares that he not stack them on top of each other. a couple of days later, they were kind of hard to pull apart & the paint pulled off in spots. soooooo – DO NOT BOTHER TO PAINT THE BACKS. IT ONLY LEADS TO MARITAL PROBLEMS!
then i carted all 160 squares up to my sister’s house. she has an amazing craft basement (yes, the entire basement is a craft room) & we (8 of us) worked there. we pooled all of our resources: mod podge, bags of foam brushes, stickle, cricut, cardstock, embellishments, ribbon, rick rack, sharpie pens, & even burlap & we were ready to go.
we painted the edges of the plaques various spring colors with craft paint. while they were drying, we started deciding how we wanted them to look. the theme for the luncheon was: "a heart that sings". so i copied some hymnal pages & copied them onto cream & white cardstock & cut them out into hearts & musical notes with the cricut. we all sorta just decided we’d do our own interpretation of the theme. (i was thinking “heaven help us” at this point).
some of us were slower than molasses & some worked assembly line style with 5 or 6 plaques in front of them.
we mod podged cardstock onto the mdf & then mod podged whatever we wanted to on top of that & mod podged, again. then the “finishers” took the “stickle” & dolled them all up.
i gotta stop at this point and make a confession. i have been saying “modge podge” for close to 40 years, as i’m a old decoupager from WAY BACK. why hasn’t someone stopped me? were you all laughing behind my back? it’s MOD podge, not MODGE podge, randee!
ok – back on track - here’s one all finished & hanging on the wall:
hard to decide where to put it it!
these pictures show us in the middle of the project & they are really, really bad. (i was going to say they suck. but i don’t talk like that. i also don’t say the word fart. i say stinker. & when i was little, i wouldn’t say pregnant. i’d only say expecting.)
i still have burlap left over from the bolt i bought over a year ago. i think it added just the right touch to this one. it breaks my heart that you can’t see how adorable it turned out. i wasn’t too sure how burlap would mod podge, but it really stuck & so did the flower & stem with the birdie on it.
you may be wondering what we used for a hanger on the back.
usually, i use the command velcro strips, but they were too expensive for so many plaques.
soooo -
i came up with another brilliant idea. and – this time – it really was a brilliant idea.
i had this real heavy cardboard that comes with packs of paper. i cut it into 1”x1 1/2” rectangles & then bent the bottom 1/2” of the 1 1/2” side(i used a folding bone for some, the backside of an exacto knife for some & the creasing or folding blade for my big fiskar’s paper cutter-all with the same results). then, i punched a hole into the top 1/2” of the 1 1/2” side.
i mod podged it onto the back trying to only glue the part that had the “fold”. you gotta be a good eye-baller to get it into the middle & on straight, but - boy, oh boy, does it work great! & the cost? free!
we ended up making well over 100 plaques & had just under 100 ladies at our luncheon.
here’s how they looked on the tables:
we sold the leftovers for $3.00 each or 2 for $5.00.
this one expresses how i feel about getting them all finished in time for the luncheon:
i mean, REALLY GLAD!
they were an absolute hit with everyone. the ladies were close to fighting over them! so much for our theme, huh? it should have been: “a bunch of ladies who fight over the favors”. hah, hah, hah, hah, hah. just kidding, of course! they were all perfect ladies.
if you’d like to see photos from the luncheon go to our women’s ministries blog: http://www.nafconwm.blogspot.com/ (i took out the photos of everyone fighting, hah!)
these were such great favors that i don’t know how we could possibly top them for next year.
total cost: we spent $73.06 on all of the materials. we did use a lot of what we already all had on hand, which brought the cost down. but, what good is just keeping it for “tomorrow” when you can have so much fun with it today?
120 plaques for $73.06 = less than a dollar a piece!
i can’t wait to make some more!
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