DIY: Lace and Pearls Placecards

Honestly, I lose my mind for beautiful paper goods. The stationary is my favorite part of the wedding decor, and that's reflected in the detailed collection of placecards, menus, signs, and programs that I designed for our wedding. I plan to unveil them as we race towards the big day, but first, a word of warning- some of my DIYs are involved, so they're not all for the crafting faint of heart. Or those on a budget. Turns out "Do it yourself" doesn't always equal "do it cheap." I'm not even keeping track of what I'm spending,  I'm just enjoying the crafting.

We'll start small, with placecards. Anyone can tackle these - my mom and I knocked out 165 in two hours.

Supplies:
Opal Stardream 2 x 4 folded cards from Cards & Pockets
Lace trim* (I needed a little over 9 yards to do 165 cards)
Really good scissors
Modge Podge
Brush or Popsicle stick for spreading glue
Optional Embellishment: 400 3mm flatback pearls (can find on Etsy, Ebay, etc).

Steps:
1. Line the lace up against the edge of your placecard, and make a tiny pencil mark so you know where to cut. (Tiny is key- the pencil mark will show if you're not careful). You can, of course, use a ruler to to actually measure. But I am lazy. If you can't get the size exact to match your placecards, it's better to err on the side of making them just slightly too long.

2. Cut the piece of lace, and use it to measure and cut 165 (or however many you need) additional pieces. Experiment with different scissors. Some I used sort of cinched the lace, and using a razor frayed the edges. I had success with an extremely high quality, never used set of kitchen shears.

3. Dip your brush or Popsicle stick in Mod Podge, and smear it along the edge of the card where you want to apply the lace.

4. Press lace on top of Modge Podge and nudge into place. If the lace is too long for the card, let the excess fabric hang at the bottom, not over the fold.

5. Repeat 1,000,000 times until your place cards are done. It helps to have a partner- I cut the lace, my mom glued, and we got this done pretty quickly, and had a nice chat over it as well.
6. Let dry overnight, and then snip any edges that hang over. Here's the finished product:

Personal Pic- The calligraphy was a sample done by our calligrapher, and I will post about her very soon.

If you want to add the optional pearls, just get mentally prepared, because that takes this DIY from easy to pretty tedious. (But it looks SO good).  You need a tiny pair of tweezers and more Modge Podge. Figure out where you want your pearls, dab the spots with glue, use tweezer to apply the pearls, and let dry. It looks like this:

 My mom's awesome handiwork

Either way, pretty! And of course this DIY can be adapted for any type of fabric, lace, ribbon, etc.

*I purchased my lace at M&J Trimming in New York City. I unfortunately cannot find the exact lace on their website, but you can check their site here for other lace options, or visit the store at 1008 6th Ave.