Decorative Letters with Mod Podge and Scrapbook Paper

Before I even decided on my daughter's name, I heard about Mod Podge. And as soon as I heard about Mod Podge, I knew I wanted to make decorative letters spelling out her name, no matter how long her named turned out to be. With the name 'Chloe', I got lucky. Five letters is pretty reasonable. At almost $5 a piece for the letters, the shorter the name the better. I got mine at Michael's, and used a 40% off coupon on them. On each one. Individually. Yes, I went to Michael's 5 days in a row to use a coupon each day. While 8 months pregnant. 

Supplies:

- All the letters you want to decorate

- Mod Podge (I used regular matte, but there's some specifically for paper or glossy)

- Paints

- Scrapbook papers

- A lot of patience

The first step is planning. Plan what colors you want to go with, pick out your scrapbook papers and paints accordingly. Figure out which letter you want to be which color, then get to work. Planning was the hardest part for me. I picked out all my papers, got them all ready then changed my mind on about half of them. 

Step two is tracing. Really, you can trace whenever you want, but at the beginning is easiest because then if you get pencil marks on your letter, you don't have to touch up your paint job. 

Make sure you trace the same way you're going to glue - the front of the letter against the back of the paper. I originally traced the front of the letter against the front of the paper for this E and it didn't fit properly when I flipped it to glue it on. The top of the E is not identical to the bottom, I learned the hard way. 

Step three is painting. Paint your letters with whatever colors you've chosen. It doesn't have to be perfect, since you're covering the front with scrapbook paper, but you'll want to do enough coats so you can't see the white anymore, and you'll want to make sure you at least make the sides look good, since that's the part that will be showing. 

Step four is cutting out letters. This is the most tedious part of the project. I would cut them out as close to the traced line as possible, then hold them against the letter and trim as necessary. You don`t want the paper hanging off the edge. I cut out extra letters because I was going to do some letters half a solid paper and half a patterned paper. 

Step five is Mod Podge. (This is where I got lazy and forgot to take photos - sue me, I was a couple of weeks away from having a baby) Using a paintbrush, spread a nice layer of Mod Podge onto the back of the paper, then put it onto your wooden letter. Rub it with your fingers to get out any bubbles and make sure it`s stuck good. Make sure you don`t get any Mod Podge on your hands and mess up the front of the letter by leaving a dirty, gluey smudge like I did. Make sure the Mod Podge is perfectly dry before doing step six. 

Step six is Mod Podge again. Paint a layer of Mod Podge over the front (and sides) of your letter to seal it all. I say put it on the sides too because it makes it shiny and smooth like the front. Let it dry completely then use your judgement to decide if you want another layer or two of Mod Podge. I believe I used two layers.

Step seven is to show it off. Take pictures and show me what you did : ) Here is my final product. You might notice I used a few different papers than I originally cut out, making even more work for myself. 

Link up your own handmade projects on Created by Me Mondays. 

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