Happy Tuesday, everyone! Tonight I’m sharing a sign that I made this past weekend for my home office/craft room. As you all know, I’ve been slowly redecorating my office for the last several months, and I have recently been focusing on wall décor to hang on the wall with the closet doors. The closet takes up the majority of the wall, so there isn’t much space to work with. I found a cute piece at Hobby Lobby and two cute pieces at Marshall’s to go down the left wall, and for weeks now I’ve been looking for something to go over the closet doors, but I keep coming up empty-handed because of the odd size – 68 inches wide x 6 inches tall.
A couple of
weeks ago I was redesigning the logo for my blog header and it finally came to
me – how neat would it be to have my blog header over my closet?! It’s pretty, the colors match my office, and
it just makes sense since the room is technically my blogging
headquarters. I thought it would also give
it a bit of a professional feel. Not that
anyone sees it but me… but I thought it would be cool, so I set out to find a
way to do it.
After scanning
the aisles of wooden letters at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and Joann, I knew
very quickly this would be harder than I thought. Craft stores don’t sell the letters in the
font that I would need or in the specific size that I would need, so that
option was out. I then thought about
making the letters out of scrapbook paper, but I scrapped that idea (haha, see
what I did there?) because I knew that paper just wouldn’t have that same
professional feel… I wanted something more three-dimensional. My next idea was to hand draw and cut the
letters out of foam board, but OMG that would take forever, and I know I would
drive myself insane trying to get every single letter to look perfect.
What to do,
what to do…
A couple of
days later it hit me – I had used an online company a few years ago to order some
large wooden letters to make holiday door hangers for my friends. And didn’t they turn out cute?
Anyhoo, I went
to the website, CraftCuts.com, and was thrilled to see that you can totally
customize your wooden letters by size, thickness, and font. They have tons
of different fonts and if they don’t
have yours listed (they didn’t have mine) they have an option for you to
provide your own! And their prices were
even cheaper than Michaels or Hobby Lobby.
I ordered 4 inch tall, 1/8 inch thick MDF wooden letters and they were
only $1.82 apiece! And their shipping
was super fast… I got the letters within just a couple of days of placing my
order.
Once the letters arrived I gathered all of my other supplies, which wasn’t much – an 8 foot long board from Lowe’s (6 inches wide and 1 inch thick) cut to size for my length (only about $6), some black and white spray paint that I already had at home, and some glue dots, foam board, and a paint marker that I also already had on hand. I love using old scraps! Such a great way to save money!
I started by priming and spray painting the board white. All I had on hand was primer for plastic, but it did the job just fine. I then primed and spray painted the letters black.
Once everything
was dry, I laid the letters out along the board. I made sure to space them evenly, and I
made sure that each letter was centered vertically on the board. I also took care to leave the same amount of
space between each word and on each end so everything would be centered and uniform.
Once everything was laid out, I turned each letter over one by one, applied a few glue dots, and then turned them back over pushing them firmly into place. FYI… glue dots are where it’s at!! Those things are great!
Once everything was laid out, I turned each letter over one by one, applied a few glue dots, and then turned them back over pushing them firmly into place. FYI… glue dots are where it’s at!! Those things are great!
Craftcuts.com didn’t
offer a heart small enough for my logo, so I had to make my own. To make it, I folded a piece of paper in half
and cut out half of a heart on the fold to get my template. Cutting half of a heart on the fold of a
piece of paper ensures that the heart is symmetrical (but I’m sure you’re
already knew that from elementary school).
Next, I unfolded the heart and placed it on the logo to make sure it was a perfect fit. I then I laid it on top of a piece of scrap foam
board, and then traced it with a pencil.
Finally, I used an x-acto knife to cut the heart out of the foam board. Once the heart was cut, I used a pink paint
marker to outline and paint stripes on the heart to look like my logo. Since I freehanded it, it is definitely
imperfect, but I still love the way it turned out.
I glued that bad boy down in place using the same glue dots I had used for the letters, and voila, I was done!
Hanging it was
a breeze because I used Command Strips for frames. If you haven’t ever used these before, you’re
missing out! They make hanging super
simple and easy, and they don’t do any damage to the walls. As a matter of fact, I hung the entire gallery
wall in Olivia’s nursery with Command Strips.
I don’t ever use nails anymore if I don’t have to!
Aaaand drum roll pleeeease… here is the finished product! I love it so much! It gives my office a bit of a professional touch, and it’s soooo pretty.
Aaaand drum roll pleeeease… here is the finished product! I love it so much! It gives my office a bit of a professional touch, and it’s soooo pretty.
Girrrl, first off, this is just awesome, secondly, I'm jealous you have time to do things like this! That's the one thing that gets put on the back burner each time I have a kid, for like, a least a year! I can't wait until I have more time to do awesome things like this! Bravo, this is beautiful! xo
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!! This project actually didn't take long at all... only about 30 minutes once the spray painting was done. And, naptime, girl!! That's the only free time I have, so I always try to make the most of it!! I'm so lucky that Jacob and Olivia both still take 2-3 hour naps on the weekends! It will be a sad day when naptime leaves us. Lol.
DeleteStop it! This is amazing/awesome sauce! ....And can I just say that I looooove the new look of your bloggity blog!! Seriously! Remember me when you're blog famous, k?! LOL!
ReplyDeleteThank you! That really means a lot! And of COURSE I will always remember you because you were my first bloggy friend. :o) And besides, you'll probably already be blog famous by the time I make it... seriously, your DIY projects are to die for! I'm still waiting on a monogrammed chair post ;o)
Delete