Wedding Program Tutorial

It's time for a little throwback....all the way to Nov. 2010! (I said little!) While cleaning the basement, I found the last handful of our wedding programs. I was so pleased with these that I had to snap a few more photos before I recycled them. I just love the rainbow of colours and assortment of odd items on this funky scrapbook paper. As a final farewell to this last little bit of wedding clutter, I thought I'd write a walk-through of how to assemble them.



Materials Needed:
- double-sized heavy scrapbooking paper (12 x 12 size)
- plain 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock
- laser printer
- Fiskars paper trimmer
- Exacto knife
- metal ruler
- ruled cutting mat
- double-sided tape (the Mainstays brand from Wal-Mart is cheap and wide and made light work of the assembly)
- ribbon

1. The printed pieces are pretty straightforward. We created a template in a word processing program, using the text, font, and clip art we wanted. Print it onto card stock and slice it down to size using the paper trimmer.

2. The main body of the program was a tri-folded piece of double-sided scrapbooking paper. Trim the paper to 12 x 6 size (you can get 2 programs from each piece of scrapbook paper).

3. Scoring the paper to make the folds crisper is the trickiest part. (You definitely need a thicker paper to do this, or you'll just end up slicing it clean through.) Using the cutting mat to measure and the metal ruler as a guide, gently graze the surface of the paper with an exacto knife. Follow this link to hear a lady with a lovely British accent explain it to you.

4. You'll need to score both sides of the paper. Score 4" in from one side, then flip the paper over and score 4" in from the other. This will help you to easily fold your paper in an accordion style.



5. Attach the printed pieces to the background using double-sided tape. (You'll need less than you think. That stuff really does its job!)

6. Cut a piece of ribbon about 20" long. Lay the ribbon over the front of the program, like this:



7. Then, grab the two sides of ribbon and flip the card over so that the ribbon wraps around the back like this:



8. Cross the ribbon over the back side and flip the card back around to the front to tie a bow.



It's best to do these assembly-line style. Things definitely progress much faster that way!


A special shout out to my amazing in-laws and cousin Kelly who helped to do most of the trimming and scoring on this major project!