I have seen people using initials in their Engagement Pictures everywhere lately! I love the idea of taking your first formal pictures together with the first letter of the last name you'll soon share. Obviously I wanted to follow suit, but after perusing the aisles of Michaels and Hobby Lobby, nothing appealed to me. I saw these more modern looking light up styles, but I wasn't willing to shell out an upwards of 200 dollars for one, especially if I was going to have to order it online. I'm the type of person that prefers to see EXACTLY what they are buying before pulling the trigger.
Spoiler Alert: This is the finished product, WHOOP!
Seriously, that's actually us. Don't we look fancy???
But back to the initial problem.
Found here for over $200.
Found here for $300.
While these are crazy adorable and I would absolutely love to own one, I'm a poor college kid, and they are just so far beyond my price range that it's comical. I gave up on the light up idea completely, lowered my standards and headed back to Hobby Lobby.
Supplies:
Letter you want to use ($15)
Lights ($10)
Paint ($5)
Drill (Free to daughters who smile and say please... in my case at least!)
We were going to use one of the chipboard letters and as I affectionally say, "glitter the crap out of it", but then my parents and I stumbled across some battery operated lights in the chipboard letter aisle. It is apparently impossible to find these on their website, but we got two packs of them for $7.99 each. If you're anything like me you will be ALL OVER that Hobby Lobby coupon and they will come out a little cheaper. The original plan was to use them on the chipboard letter, until I lucked into seeing this much larger, metal letter T.
Found here for $29.99, but we lucked out and got it half off, because hobby lobby weekly ads are a magical, magical thing. The back was absolutely perfect for a marquee letter. This project practically made itself, I swear. Although if I say that it makes me look less spectacular so I'll keep that to myself.
I went home and immediately two weeks later, got to work. I measured out the lights so that they would be evenly spaced from each other and each side. I use the back to measure so that any marks wouldn't somehow find their way through the spray paint.
From there, my dad and I drilled holes for each light. We found that if we drilled a small hole and then used a larger drill bit to widen the whole that it worked a lot better. With the holes drilled, I went outside to spray paint. We used a flat black for the entire inside, and a gold for the outside. LOVE. It turned out SO pretty! (If I do say so myself.)
I slipped the lights back into the holes we drilled and secured them with a little hot glue. Most of them were pretty solid with out the glue, but I'd rather it not fall out. :) Here is the final lit product and I think it's going to look amazing, not only in our pictures, but at our wedding and in our home in the future. :) Also who let me take pictures in front of all the wild TV/Wii cords?? None of those cords belong to this T, I promise you.
Disclaimer: The back is Ugly as sin.
