I found this post on Pinterest about a week ago. Originally, I pinned it in order to come back to it so I could look at the instructions. I didn’t realize at the time that it was an Etsy post. However, I had shown it to the husband and he agreed that it would be a fun project. Saturday evening, we started gathering the things we would need and we got to work on Sunday morning. Here’s how it turned out:

We decided on fall colors because 1) it’s fall, and 2) I left my fall wreath in my mom’s attic by mistake. So I was bumming out a little about still having my spring/summer wreath up.

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Hand-Painted Letter

• wooden letter (I got this one from Michael’s)
• burlap ribbon
• acrylic paint in two different colors (I used Spiced Carrot and Nutmeg Brown from Apple Barrel)
• a low heat hot glue gun
• painters tape
• paint brushes with different tips
• embellishments (I used silk flowers and leaves)

Step 01: Take the lighter color paint and put a few coats on your letter. I did about ten. If you put on thin coats, it should only take 10-15 minutes to dry. 

For some reason, Michael’s insisted on putting stickers on the back of the wooden letter. We tried getting them off, got fed up, and left them. There are plenty of tricks to get stickers off of surfaces, but it really doesn’t matter. They were on the back, which will be up against the door. You can choose to paint over them (a few layers will mask the stickers fairly well) or leave it alone. I painted over them. The only reason the sticker would be a problem is if you plan to sell the letter.

Step 02: Painter’s tape. This took some time. I’m very, very bad at measuring and getting things straight. So I put take over the whole thing to ensure that the stripes would be consistent in width apart and perfectly straight. Once the letter was covered in strips of tape, I removed every other piece so I was left with this:

I then went around the edges of the letter with tape, because I only wanted the front to have stripes on it. This was probably unnecessary. If I had been really careful, I really wouldn’t have needed the tape.

Step 03: Paint over the bare areas with the darker color. I pulled up the tape while it was still wet, but you might try doing it while it’s dry to avoid smudges. 

A few of those smudges are also from where I touched it by accident. -_- I went through and smoothed it out a little bit, so it looks much better now.

Step 04: Once the stripes have completely dried, use your hot glue gun to attach the burlap/ribbon to the back. Michael’s has burlap, but all I could find was a HUGE roll of it. I didn’t need that much. 

I decided on a burlap-like ribbon because I liked the fabric and I can use whatever is left over this Christmas. After attaching the ribbon, find a nice place to put your embellishment. I got some leaves and a daisy from Michael’s, as well.

I think all-in-all this project cost about $15, which is way better than paying $45+S&H. And most of it was stuff I can use again for future projects (paint, tape, ribbon, etc.).

So what do you think?