January 25, 2010

Better late than never....

I made these in December, but just took the time to post them now!  I should have posted sooner, because now I realize I don't have a picture of them hanging on the wall.


Supplies:
* wooden letters (I got mine at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents each)
* paint for edges
* scrapbook paper (I suppose you could also use wrapping paper, stamps, glitter, etc.)
* Mod Podge
* sponge brush
* acrylic sealer

I needed to trace the letters to get the right size to cut the paper.  It was tricky just to trace with a pencil because the letters are smaller on top than the bottom.  The easiest way to do this, I thought, would be to paint the letters with the brown background paint, then lay them upside down on the scrapbook paper.  It worked great! 


When the paint was dry, I cut the letters out of the paper.  I put two coats of paint on the letters to make sure there was no wood showing.  No need to paint the back, because they would be against the wall anyway.


Once dry, I placed a thin layer of Mod Podge onto the letters, placed the paper on top, then put another thin layer of Mod Podge to seal everything together.  Twenty minutes later, I put another layer of Mod Podge over it all, just to make sure.  I let it dry completely for a day, then sprayed a coat of acrylic sealer on top.  Bam!  I wanted to hang them by ribbon vertically on the wall, but couldn't figure out how to make all the letters centered (that darn 'J' was the problem!).  So I ended up just using 3M strips on the backs of the letters.  If you have any better ideas of how to hang them on the wall, please leave me a comment!