D.I.Y. Decorated Lettering

So, I am in the process of making my home binder, and I had to stop at my local Meijer to get something for it (they didn't even end up having what I needed) and I stopped in the craft/home section like I always do pretty much every where I go so I don't miss deals.

And thank goodness I did because there was a heck of a deal going on! Little cardboard letters were 90% off! Now, most of them were already taken of course (as they were each going at $0.25 a piece) but there just so happened to almost be all of the letters I needed to make a sign that says read to go on my bookshelf.

Now, notice I said almost. They were actually out of E, but they had two Fs left so I cut the top of the F off of one and hot glued it to the bottom of the other to make the E, so it is a little uneven. But no matter.

What You Will Need For This Project:

• Letters to cover

• Fabric or scrapbook paper to cover them

• Some sort of adhesive, whether it is adhesive spray or scotch tape

• Scissors

• Pen/Pencil

• Measuring tape/Ruler

Now obviously I didn't want these letters as is, they were brown cardboard and most had a few rips from where the stickers wouldn't come off right. So I made a plan to cover them.

First I picked out the paper I intended on using. For Christmas last year, my mother got me these beautiful scented drawer liners, but seeing as that was two years ago, the scent is all out of them. And I loved the design on the paper, so I wanted to put it to good use where I would see it more often.

Second, I measured the width of the side of the letter, because I wanted to cover the sides as well so you couldn't see hardly any of the cardboard. Mine measured at 2.5 cm.

Third you have to trace your letter face down. Meaning, look at your letter, have it facing how it reads, take that face, and put it down on your paper so it is backwards when you look at it. This way, you're tracing it to cover the front.

After I was done tracing the letter, I took my measuring tape and made several lines all around the letter that were 2.5 cm away from the line I traced.

Your fifth step is to cut it out at the lines that you marked with your measuring tape. Do not cut at what you traced unless you don't want the sides covered, or you plan on adhering the sides separately.

Now you will need to cut the corners. When you do this it will make it much easier to fold over without having creasing sides. If you want to wait until after the next step to do this so you know the best places to cut it, that is perfectly fine.

For this step you will need some sort of adhesive. I wish I had some adhesive spray, but I haven't made a trip to hobby lobby lately, so I don't have any. If this were anything other than cardboard, I would have waited until I had something stronger, but I just used scotch tape to adhere the paper to the letters. I did the little fold over trick and put a few pieces on the front. This isn't going to be the main hold, so don't worry about how well it sticks at this point. You want to put them on the front face of your letter.

The eighth thing to do is place the letter face down onto where you traced it.

Now, begin folding your paper over the side and taping it.

Keep doing this until all the paper flaps are taped down and until your letter is complete!

Doesn't it look so fancy? And you can't tell it was once a cardboard mess. So repeat this with all your letters until you have a wonderful finished project. It really adds a lot of flair to a shelf or a wall when you have the 3-dimensional wording and art. And I made mine for $1.25! You can't tell me you wouldn't buy a word set for such a low price if you saw it!

Have you done any cool art projects recently? Are you planning on attempting this project? Let me know!

I linked this up with: Serendipity and Spice and A Bowl Full of Lemons.