Thursday, September 23, 2010

Custom Nursery Letters - Part 1

My sister-in-law (D's little sister) is pregnant and I wanted to do something special for Clayton's nursery so I decided to attempt to make some letters (spelling his name) to hang above his crib. I knew right off the bat that I was not going to be able to paint them - I'm just not that talented, but I thought that I could cover them with something and go that route. I couldn't find any letters that I liked so I talked D into letting me print them out and trace them on some wood and then him cut them out for me. Then - I was at Hobby Lobby and stumbled upon some giant chipboard letters that were $1.77 each - much cheaper than the wood route, so I bought all the letters that I needed.

The letters look similar to this (I forgot to take pictures at first). They are like giant scrapbook embellishments.
Then I went to the scrapbooking paper and picked out a different sheet for each letter and a few 3d scrapbook stickers to add once I got the letters all papered.

Once I was home, I turned the paper over and traced the letter then cut it out and used Elmer's spray adhesive to adhere the paper to the letters. Warning: Be careful with that spray glue! It is strong and gets everywhere, so make sure you put something down under what you are spraying.

Then I used an Xacto knife to trim all the excess paper, to make sure I had clean edges.
When I was at Hobby Lobby, I picked up a pad of black ink so that I could trim the letters with it, to add a little deminsion and possibly age them a bit.
You can see the difference with (right side) and without it (left side).
This is after I finished the whole letter. I think it makes a huge difference.
These are some of the tools that I used to finish the letters.
Come back tomorrow to see how they turned out!

3 comments:

Amanda said...

Girl, you are so creative! I just painted one set of Wesley's! Can't wait for you to post them finished!

Heather said...

I've seen a lot of nursery pictures of these wooden letters and it makes me want one! :) Have no idea what I'd do with a random letter that's been painted though. Your pictures make me want to do a craft project instead of school work! :)

Anonymous said...

I LOVE this idea!!! I think this would be delightful in a little boys room that still is unfinished!