I've seen tons of different letters on Etsy and instead of spending about 7 bucks a letter.. (the twins names would have cost me about $80) I asked my dad for some help. It just so happened that he had the right tool for the job.
Here's a mini tutorial...
Materials needed:
*Computer
*Printer
*Particleboard (can be purchased at any home improvement place)-One piece should be enough
*Dremel tool (dad had one.. no need to purchase.. borrow one from someone..)
*Paint
*Command Velcro Strips
*Cardstock
*Sander
Step 1. Choose a font you like... and print it the size you want on a thick cardstock.. I think we went with font size 550 or something like that. Either way you want it to be the right size for your wall.
Step 2. Cut out each letter from your cardstock, these will be your stencils
Step 4. Trace your letters onto your Particleboard
photo from my dad's facebook album :)
Step 5. Cut... Cut... Cut....
Step 6. Once all of your letters are cut out... Sand them down to a nice finished look
Step 7. Plan your design.
I wanted to match the letters to their bedding.. Here is Aidan's bedding (sorry about the photo quality; took pictures from the internet)
Here's Audree's Bedding
They share a room and these bedding sets "match" in style and theme so I chose to do their letters similarly. I drew my designs out first... deciding on the the bed skirt and sheet style for every other letter and patterns from their quilts for the other letters. (you'll see what I mean in a couple of steps) I highly recommend drawing it out on paper first to see what you like, dont paint until you have a plan!
Step 8. Color Match! I made test colors and painted them on scrap pieces of particle board to make sure the colors would match the fabric when dry...
Step 9. Paint away
We Painted the sides of every letter a dark brown and the top of each letter according to my plan... Here is a partly done painting photo:
The white letters are the "bed skirt and sheet" and the colors are matching the Quilt..
Close up of the one letter... this pattern is found on her quilt, one of the inner squares
The U, R and E match the squares in her quilt and his I and A match his... (his I was later changed....)
The white letters then got a brown stripe down the middle this broke up the "bed skirt" from the "sheet"
The next stage of painting I dont have pictures for (by this time the twins had arrived..) But I can tell you that they were free handed by my husband, who is very artistic.
Step 10. Hang on your wall... we found that using command velcro strips were the easiest way and very secure.. I didn't want these falling on my babies!
Her finished name on the wall..
His finished name...
What you can't see from this photo is his "sheet" painting, its blue swirls and bananas... super cute
***After his name was finished I decided that I didn't like the print throughout the whole letter so we went with a palm tree that was on his quilt. I like it MUCH better....
And there you have it... Hand painted wooden letters, far less than 7 bucks a letter... I think the whole project cost about 25 bucks? and time.. lots of time.
Thanks to my Dad and my husband for all of their help.
