A Fun Project!

Craft projects always make me happy... they allow for creative outlet, give you something to work on and at the end you have something cool to keep or to give to someone else!  One of my favorite go-to spots for classy crafts (think more something you'd proudly display on a bookshelf in your home and less something with beading and puffy paint that you made at camp) is Paper Source.  They sell kits and even offer free online tutorials on how to complete their crafts(check out their How To section of the website).

The downside is that some of their crafts are pricey and time intensive but recently I found a really easy and cheap craft that anyone can do:  Decorative Letters!

Materials:  Paper Source is a one-stop shop for everything you will need!  For those of you who don't live near an actual Paper Source store you can order everything online!

• Paper!  

• Letters!

• Adhesive glue and a glue brush!  (I put a picture of the kind of glue that I bought - there are other kinds, of course, but this one didn't require any mixing and stays wet for a decent amount of time which makes it a bit more forgiving)

• Pencil and Scissors

• And you can include anything else that you would want to fancy up your letter.  For example, when I did this craft with my roommate, Sarah, she went and bought some matching ribbon to attach to the back of her letter so that she could hang it on the wall in her room!

My Directions:  This is how I completed the craft... I'm sure you all can figure out the method that works best for you.   Here's what my workspace looked like:

     

• 1) I bought a patterned paper and a plain paper in a complementary color for my letter design - my goal was to cover both faces of the letter with the pattern and then the edges in the plain paper.
• 2) First, I traced the outline of my letter (both sides) on the patterned paper and cut it out.  This way the paper would fit perfectly on each face of my letter.
• 3) Then, I cut strips of the plain paper a little wider than the sides of my letter so that when i applied it the edges would wrap around the faces and be covered by the patterned paper.
• 4) I covered the sides of my letter with the plain paper first.  I brushed very thin layer of glue on the letter in the spot i was working and pressed the paper gently down.  Then I brushed glue onto the overhang pieces of paper and and pressed it down to the face of my letter.
• 5) After the sides were completely covered I brushed a think layer of glue on the front face of my letter and applied the pre-cut patterned paper.  I repeated the same process on for the back face of the letter.
• 6) If there were any stubborn parts of the paper still sticking up, I just brushed glue over them to get them down - the glue dried clear so you would never know it.
• 6) Let dry overnight and - voila!

Here are some pictures of the ones that I did:

   

With the L i just covered the whole letter with patterned paper but the method I used was the same.

Sidecraft! Sarah got inspired to cover a whole box with paper - she struggled a bit but it came out beautifully:

 

After doing these first couple of letters, I decided to try to do one for my boyfriend but needed a manly looking paper so I chose this world map wrap.  I don't have any pictures of the finished product but it came out really cool looking and is a great addition to his desk!