DIY: Thank You Parasol

During one of my marathon idea gathering days, I was searching the web for something cute and fun to do with our Thank You's.  I had seen before a couple holding signs saying thank you and was looking to do something along those lines.  The best way I've come up with for getting ideas is to simply type into Google Images what you're looking for.  Somewhere along the line I found Thank You Parasols and simply fell in love.

At first I started looking for places to buy them but I was seeing them for $50+ and didn't want to spend that much on something that would only be used one time.  So I put that idea on the back burner for awhile.

Until one day, Weddingbee came to the rescue again!!  Mrs. Spring Roll posted a tutorial showing us all how she made her own.

It sounded simple enough, and cheap! so I had to try it.

I ordered this chartreuse green parasol from Pearl River.  It cost more than the $5.50 white one Mrs. Spring Roll ordered, but I decided I wanted a pop of color in my pictures.  So $11.50 plus $8.00 in shipping and a week later a box arrived on my porch with my pretty Parasol!

I followed the directions Mrs. Spring Roll provided in her tutorial step-by-step, excluding the use of pins to hold on the stencil.  I simply held them in place because I didn't know if the pin pokes would show or not, and let's face it, I was too lazy to run upstairs and grab some!

I outlined the stencil with a pen and painted it in with black acrylic paint I had laying around.

And here is the finished result, for under $20.00

I used Scriptina as my font which I downloaded for free from Dafont.com

 I can't wait to see what it will look like in our pictures!  Are any of you doing something fun to use for your Thank You cards?