DIY Program Fans

With not much on the social calendar this past weekend, Mr. High Wire and I decided to knock out our wedding programs.

I had come across this link ages ago, and had it stored in my little special area of wedding projects I wanted to complete before the wedding. While the weather should be significantly cooler by the end of September, we still wanted to have these fans handy in case the temps are still somewhat sweltering.

Here’s what you’ll need:

-Printed Programs on Regular White Cardstock (we folded them in half for the completed version)

-Double Sided Sticky Tape (you’ll need 5+ reams of tape if you plan on doing 150 programs)

-Popsicle Sticks (2 packs of 25 shown, I bought a total of 6 packages)

-Rubber Bands

-Golf Pencils for the word search on the backside (which are sold at office supply stores and NOT at a golf store nor Wal-Mart, FYI)

-Corner Rounder

-Meat Tenderizer/Hammer once you decide you don’t want your thumbs to bleed

-Moral Support

After you’ve gathered your supplies here’s what to do:

1. Fold cardstock in half

2. Round the corners

Here’s a close-up of the front and back:

Cardstock Corner Graveyard

3. Tape popsicle stick to inside of program, add tape along the edges

4. Press and seal

5. Affix golf pencil using colorful rubber bands

And voila!!

The whole project took 8 hours of labor (I know, ROUGH right?), but don’t let that deter you. A solid 4 hours of that was spent attempting to get the damned corner rounder to punch through two layers of folded cardstock. Mr. High Wire rounded every single corner of these bad boys. I’m so thankful!

So unless you have a fiancé that is willing to incur blisters, I might suggest just totally skipping rounding the corners. I wouldn’t suggest going with thinner paper (which would make for easier corner punching) because then the whole “fan” aspect gets sort of lost.

Thankfully, they are safely packed up and ready to be transported to our venue in just a little over a month!

Did you DIY your own programs? Anyone else nursing thumb blisters after one too many corner rounding’s?