DIY Wall Letters

With the nursery almost complete, the one thing I needed to figure out was the wall letters. I had a general idea of what I wanted, and I was going to order them on Etsy. I found a bunch that I loved, but they are pricey-especially since this girl's name is going to have 7 letters. For the style I liked, the average price was about $150.00 + shipping. Considering what we've already spent on this kid's room, I decided to google some tutorials and see if I could pull off making them myself. I was skeptical-even after 4 years in sorority spent amongst the craftiest of ladies, I have never been remotely crafty. But to my surprise, they didn't look too complicated at all. The letters I had in mind were a combination of this

and this

I like the idea of a square background, but I also liked the look of the design on the letters instead of just paint, so I decided to combine both.

A few weeks back, I headed to Michael's to gather the supplies:

Scrapbook Paper

Plywood squares (which had to be cut down from 12x12 to 7.5x7.5)

Wooden Letters

Paint (black for the edges of the plywood squares, and light pink for the edges of the letters)

Mod Podge

Exacto knife

After the wood was cut, I used the mod podge to stick the paper on the squares. Once it dried, I cut the paper down to size, then used another layer of mod podge over the paper.

I used two alternating black and white designs for the backing. I wanted it to stand out against the pink walls.

Next, I painted all of the letters. The letters I ended up going with had multiple edges. Since I was only going to use scrapbook paper on the top "layer" of the letter, I needed to paint them so the wood wouldn't show.

Painted (the flash made them look white, but they are pink)


Next was the tricky part-covering the letters w/ scrapbook paper and exacto'ing around the edges. A little time consuming, but they turned out cute! I did, however, start to regret using so many letters to spell her name...

And here they are on the wood squares. I just need to physically attach the letters to the sqaures and then hang them on the wall, but that requires another trip to Michael's.

Close up of the first pattern combo

And a close up of the other pattern combo

Depending on how they look once they are attached, I may add some embellishments. They already have a lot going on with the two patterns, but I will figure that out and then post the finished product once they are hung.