DIY - Monogrammed Aisle Runner

Finished project - day of wedding.

Lots of people that went to our wedding have asked me who I ordered my monogrammed aisle runner from.... the answer is I made it myself!

I can't take all the credit because I did see it first on Heather Drive's wedding blog Road to the Aisle. I absolutely loved the idea and though a lot of my personalization ideas went down the drain (the DIY photo booth, aisle lined with tissue poms, and slide show of baby photos) with lack of time left available and the very flighty/not quite as organized as she appeared to be venue coordinator, this was one DIY project I was not going to give up on.

It was very simple, and I designed the logo and finished the runner in one evening after work all in about 2 hours.

First, I designed the text, and stretched it in photoshop until the image was as wide as the runner itself. I printed it out "poster size" which was about 12 sheets of paper and lined it up on my kitchen table and taped it all together. I rolled out the end of the aisle runner to the location I wanted the image to be, and then laid that portion over the top of the printed out image, and traced the imaged in pencil directly onto the runner. Note for anyone else who tries anything like this - even though you are writing in pencil, the eraser just causes a big mess if you use it!!

After you trace it onto the runner, remove the actual print out and replace it with waxed paper. It prevents the wet paint from getting all over your table because it will seep through, even if you think it won't. Also, it is super easy to clean up once the paint is dry and there is no sticking to the wax paper; the runner comes right up!





Runner with just the G painted on.

After I traced it all, I decided that I would paint the big G first, because it interlaces with the other letters and I can paint around the red. I found that because of the glitter texture of the paint, the red glitter was the darkest part and the rest of the paint was virtually clear - so if you use paint like this - don't be afraid to almost scoop it on and then spread it out. The nice thing about using such a "scripted" letter is if you paint a little over the penciled in outline, just smooth it out like the mistake never happened! My G had a ton of errors, but i just smoothed it out! 

 



Switch the colors and continue painting. Just a tip, if you drop paint - especially BLACK paint..... do NOT rub it trying to get it out. The runner with have a "burn" mark and the paint will not come off. Instead, squirt the spot with water and blot to your heart's content until it comes out, because it will.

 In no time your will have your very own customized runner!