DIY Wedding: Aisle Runners (oh and a fire too...)

When my sister was planning her wedding, I was browsing some wedding forum somewhere and came upon a picture of this super spectacular personalized aisle runner (sorry, I can't find the picture-I tried. I really really did). I BEGGED her to let me make one for her because it was just awesome. She agreed and I was so excited!!!!

This one wedding item made the largest (and most firey) impact (in my opinion) and it looked great in pictures (see at the end of the post...).  It was also VERY easy to make, so easy that I almost cried when I looked on Etsy and saw how much people charge...Again, I'm in the wrong business. I really just need to do this for a living and give the bar thing a rest...but I digress-as usual. 

I bought a 100 ft runner (I think I got it at Hobby Lobby) which was waaaaay too long. I cut 25 feet off the end of the runner, measured out 50 feet from the new end and placed the monogram there. I was slightly apprehensive about this, probably because I can't measure to save my life.  It all worked out in the end though... 

I really wanted to personalize it, but I needed the monogram to be 3' by 3'.  I had one heck of a time trying to figure out how to print the it that big,  my printer wasn't having it, so I finally just called a copy place and they did it for me. Very easy. 

Here is the monogram printed on big paper behind the runner so that we could trace it:

Originally, I had the "H" behind the other text and we were going to make it glittery, but that would have looked weird with the black paint being non-glittery, so I put the H on top.  After some consideration,  I decided to NOT make the "H" glittery, because I didn't want it to get all over her dress when she walked over it.  I'm glad that I kept them separate in the end, the paint bleeds a little when you use it on that kind of material and the two colors wouldn't have looked very good bleeding into one another. 

Mom and I traced the monogram onto the runner (I had help on this craft...there's my mom!  HI MOM!!!).

There she is, hard at work. Good Job MOM!

Then I started painting.  Mom was bored at this point, so I took over.  Before I started, I put wax paper behind the runner. That paint is nice and all, but it would NOT have been nice all over my dining room table...

It looked really good. Like, REALLY good. I was actually quite proud of myself.  When I rolled it up to ship to Florida (where the wedding took place) I put wax paper on both the front and back of the design.  The aisle runner material is very porous and I didn't want the paint bleeding through onto the non painted parts.  In the package, I also put a huge roll of very wide, very sticky double sided tape. I wanted the florist to use that (and not stick pins) to secure it to the carpet. They did NOT take my advice and panic ensued...more on that later. 

Here is how it looked on the big day...

Now onto the most disappointing moment in my crafting career...Notice on the sides of the runner that there are candles in water vases on the floor. Yes, that's right. There was FIRE on the FLOOR when there was a very very VERY flammable aisle runner mere inches away. After the wedding party marched out of the chapel to take pictures, someone knocked over the fire ONTO the aisle runner and it proceeded to go up in flames.  I did not know this, nor did I hear anything about it until the cocktail hour (thank God for wine) when my husband told me. I thought he was kidding, but soon confirmed the story with my father in law (who would NOT lie to me) and so it was true.  One of the wedding guests  actually put out said fire with his hand and sported burn blisters for the rest of the evening. 

The moral to this story? If you're going to have an aisle runner, DON'T PUT FIRE ON THE FLOOR!  DUH!  I tried to tell her...she wouldn't listen and my masterpiece went up in flames.