First anniversary fringe letter DIY

First anniversary fringe letter DIY

The traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper, so I really wanted to try to incorporate paper into our party in as many ways as I could. I actually pretty much thought about paper decorations for the whole year. I had about a million ideas for our party, big fancy elaborate ideas, but this is real life so none of that happened. Woops. We didn’t end up actually finalizing our party plans until a couple weeks before, because someone is a procrastinator (cough, Andy, cough). And I literally made the decorations the day of. I decided to make giant fringey letters that spelled, of course, ONE, and I think they turned out super cute. It was also way easier and faster than it looks, which is the best kind of DIY.

I bought some large cardboard letters at Joann’s along with three different colors of streamers at Target. The only other supplies I needed were glue and scissors.

Here’s how to make them:

1. Start at the bottom and glue strips of streamers across your piece of cardboard. Put glue only along the top edge of the streamer so the bottom stays loose. I used a glue that I had at home already, and it didn’t bleed through as long as I put it on thin.

2. Work your way from the bottom of the letter to the top, overlapping the streamers. Vary the distance between streamers for a more interesting look.

3. When you have all the paper glued on, trim all the way around with scissors.

4. Then cut vertically all along the bottom of each streamer, creating fringe. I think you can buy fringed streamers, maybe, but I was in a rush and didn’t have time to shop around. Cutting the fringe sounds worse than it really is. I swear it’s easy. When you have all the fringe cut, just “ruffle” it up a little bit with your hand to separate it and make it stand out.

That’s it! If I had more time, I would have painted the edges of the cardboard rather than leaving them bare, but it was fine. And I doubt anyone even noticed!

We’ve put the letters up in our living room for now, and I smile every time I see the giant ONE. I still can’t believe we’ve been married a whole year. We aren’t newlyweds anymore…

Hmm, now what should I do for the second anniversary???

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