Custom Nursery Letters - Part 2 (The Reveal)

I was really bad about taking "during" pictures of this craft project, but I have quite a few afters to share...

All of the letters (except one) are covered with scrapbook paper. I bought coordinating paint and painted all of the backs, sides and edges so that there wouldn't be any raw edges. I bought this little wooden star at Michael's for 99 cents and bought some antique gold paint and painted it. I originally wrote "Sheriff" on it, and then changed it to "Sheriff Clay" and decided that I didn't like either so I spent some time re-painting it (like 4 more times to cover it up) and decided that I liked it best plain. I just hot glued it onto the C.

The accents in Clayton's nursery are going to be red and blue bandana print so I thought it would go well.

I was really excited when I originally saw this bandana print "cowboy" sticker and I just knew that it would be really cute on a red letter. I am not thrilled with how this letter turned out. Its much easier to read in person, which helps some but I don't think the red on red turned out as well as I had hoped. The red paper is textured, and I added the "Wild Wild West" sticker just to break up the red a little. Both of the embellishments are hot glued on.

This was the simplest and quickest one to do. I just covered with with an old fence patterned paper and added the black ink. I decided to leave this one plain and not add any embellishments. This one is D's favorite.

When I first decided to do the letters, this is the first idea that I had. I wanted to wrap one of the letters in jute so that it would appear to be "rope".

This, by far, was the most time consuming letter to do. It took me a little over 2 hours to get that letter wrapped. I started at the bottom of the Y with the natural jute, and hot glued it on, then I brought it to the back and hot glued, brought it to the front and hot glued and over and over again until I got up to the split. Then I had to cut the jute and start over again and wrap one side and then start back down at the "v" and then go up the other side.

Although time consuming, I'm extremely pleased with the way that this one turned out.

The T was another quick one to come together. It's covered in dark blue jean paper to match his bedding (Bridgett and her mom Jackie are making the bedding - the comforter and bumper will be dark denim material). I tied rafia around the letter and made a knot and then found a scrapbook embellishment in light and dark blue and hot glued it to the top of the knot so that it stands out some.

I was really unsure, for a long time, about what to do with the O. I wanted something that didn't match all of his bedding, but that still coordinated with it. Maybe something a little more neutral that tied in with the A and the Y, but brought a western feel to the room. I stumbled upon this paper and knew that I had to use it somehow. Even after I covered the O, I wasn't really in love with it. I went back and forth about adding something to it, but decided that it needed a little something extra. I had bought two horseshoes to use on something else but pulled them off of it and used them here. I just painted them a burnt sienna and used a paint pen to add some markings to make it a little more realistic. I hot glued them to each other and then onto the O.

The N is by far, my favorite letter. I am really pleased with the way that it turned out and how it ties the colors of his nursery to the western/cowboy theme. I started with Real Leather Craft Lace and tied a couple of knots into it to make some lassos. I put a magazine between the letter and the lace and sprayed glue all over it and then pressed it down onto the N until the glue dried. I felt like it would be easier than trying to hot glue it and not have any glue showing. The lace is pretty pliable so you can bend it and shape it pretty well I just continued to do that until I had taken it from one side to another. When I had all of the lace down, I hot glued a cowboy hat scrapbook sticker on top to finish it off.

I bought a picture hanging kit at Hobby Lobby and am going to hot glue hangers to the back so that they can hang the letters like pictures.

And the letters all together - and ready to be hung up!

In case you want to make your own - I'm figuring with supplies (paper, glue, hot glue, letters, embellishments) I made these letters for about $45.

I bought some little brown (butcher paper-like) gift bags and some red bandana print tissue paper to wrap them up in and I'm going to give them to her at her baby shower!

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!