Your Favourite People Board

Who needs to be the same when you can be a little original for your wedding day? At Least that's what we thought!

For our wedding day I saw a VERY COOL idea I just had to have

An 'Our favorite people' Board for a table seating board and SCRATCH CARDs that reveal your table number with a tie dye effect . WHAT ! I know, how cool?? I fell in love because honestly - all the people at my wedding are my favorite people- for real. And I had a nifty idea for the board afterwards anyway . Plus I'm never shy for a DIY Challenge.

But for this post I'm going to be focusing on the board, BUT I've made two special posts on how I made these beautiful cards and envelopes

and even popped some free templates for you to custom make your own!

So lets begin with the board -

First things first- The number of guests you have will determine your board size because of the number of envelopes and cards you need. If you are making this and its a few months ahead of the wedding make a safe guestimate . More is better then less !! So if you have 120 RSVPed and have 10 outstanding. Still make 130 , you can always remove 10 envelopes.

To figure out the size of the board work out how many envelopes you need to place side by side with roughly a 0.5cm gap between each edge of the envelope. Both width and length ways. This way you'll be able to figure out the dimension of the board you need. Remember to keep a gap at the top for the name of that board i.e. 'Our Favorite People

I've also put the scratch cards, and envelopes here for you to download and use !! Check out our 'I DO' Wedding DIY page for more details.

Lets begin.

For the board you need:

• I used - Pine wood, but you can use a simple plywood. The only reason I used this wood is because I wanted it to be freestanding and had two legs made for this stand.

• Wood Stain - I used Newdens Varnish Stain Gloss in Mahogany , its my first time using this range or product so I must say I was pleasantly surprised by it. The other stain I'm a big fan of is Rust-oleums Wood Stains. The Black Cherry stain should give you the same effect. But it depends on the wood you are staining.

• Wood Varnish (for afterwards) I used Prodecs Wood Shield in Clear Gloss, I got this at my local hardware store . But any non yellowing wood gloss should be ok :)

• Custom Wood letter cut out ( These can also be vinyl letters) -I had these awesome cut out letters cut but MU Studios who did an AMAZING JOB and it arrived way quicker then I anticipated . They also cut out our words for our customised pretzel board which you can check out here.

• Sand Paper- You'll need to check the quality of your wood. If there are scratches like with mine start with a 120 Grit . But just before you stain use a 220 grit.

• Craft Glue - This you can use any craft glue. I can't even recall the type I used.

1) Begin by taking your board and giving it a good sand to make sure its smooth. Make sure you go along the grain .

2) Taking a clean brush begin staining the wood. The wood stain I used is a affordable wood stain but is very easy to use. If you find its a bit too thick or you need to thin it out . I found this article really helpful .

3) Once its dried start placing your envelopes on . I used double sided tape to attach these as I wanted to use the board afterwards as a keep sake in my own filled with all the polaroids from our wedding,

4) Once you are happy with your envelopes you can start placing your custom lettering . Begin by finding the center of the board and your middle letter. The way you find this is by counting the number of spaces and letters you have in your phrase i.e. "_Our_Favourite_People_" there are 22 spots. That means the 11th spot should be in the center .

5) Taking a pencil and ruler lightly line where you need to place your wording.

6) Then take a clean paint brush and paint the back of your words and begin placing them. For me a glue gun didn't work , neither did wood glue. Only craft glue (surprisingly) . Place them gently on the lines and leave them to dry.

Boom your board is done.

If you'd like to follow our tutorial for envelopes and scratchcards check them out on our I DO Wedding DIY Page.

After the wedding I varnished the board to be able to seal in the stain and be able to create a really cool keep sake which you can check out below.

To varnish the board-

1) Remove all your envelopes and set them to one side.

2) Taking a clean paint brush begin with your first coat of varnish and leave this to dry for 4 hours. Do this three times. The final and fourth coat leave for 24 hours.

Now you have a board you can use for all your creative keepsakes.

If you followed this tutorial and like this give this a share, and show us your versions !! We would LOVE to see them.