Thursday 26 June 2008

easy project: customised plywood letter

"L" is for Layla. And because I can do girlie things now I have a daughter, I cut out a few pretty pink paper butterflies and stuck them on the wall.

With my new addition to the family, I of course had to add her initial to the wall somewhere as everyone else in the house has one! But even I'm bored with the usual white or plywood letters out there, so thought I'd jazz it up a little with some paper. And being the nice person I am, I thought I'd go all Martha on you and show you step-by-step how to do it. However, it's so easy and pretty self-explanatory so I must apologise for making you feel five years old!


Your toolkit: letter, $4 and paper 80c, craft store. Spray glue, $8, hardware. Also required: newspaper

Step 1: Place the plywood letter on top of the paper right-side up and cut roughly around the shape of the letter, leaving a margin of around a centimetre. You don't have to do this, but it does make it easier to work with and also if you're tight like me, you can keep the leftover paper for other projects!

Step 2: Turn over paper cut out, pop onto newspaper and spray glue adhesive all over. Follow the instructions on the can, but it'll usually tell you to wait until it's a bit tacky before sticking

Step 3: Apply to the front of the letter and press firmly all over so the glue sticks nicely

Step 4: Turn letter over, hold firmly with one hand and use the other to cut the excess paper off. Use the letter itself like you would a ruler to cut it perfectly around the shape

Step 5: Hang wherever you like!

For more customised-letters ideas that don't actually involve you doing anything harder than spelling a name for someone else to create, check these out here. Don't you love how I keep sending you between the two blogs? How very sneaky of me!

4 comments:

Belinda said...

Hi Belinda,

I found your via decor8. Congratulations on the birth of Layla. love this idea! I'll have to give it a go, it looks simple enough.

Anonymous said...

Very sweet. i love the little butterflies you have fluttering around your home.

Pinto and Max said...

I am going to try this on the weekend - very excited! You are truly an inspiration!

Pinto and Max said...

I am tackling my own version of this tonight - just a quick question - what do you use to mount it on the wall?