Thursday, June 30, 2011

Letter Art and a Little Organization!!

On Tuesday the girls and I were in Temple for a Dr. Appointment. I had some time to kill so we were hanging out at my mom's and she had a current Potterybarn Kids magazine. I love looking through those magazines. I don't really (ever) buy anything from there, but they have great ideas that with a little ingenuity you can copy for much cheaper. There was one particular page that had a little girls desk area photographed with these really cute shadowboxes filled with letters. I 've looked and looked for this picture online, but I can't find it. But it is the inspiration for this blog post and for what is now hanging in my back hallway.

Here recently I'm feeling the need to clean different areas of our house (I really need to do the laundry room, but I'm dreading doing it so it hasn't happened yet). But one area that is an eye sore is the hallway in the back of our house that really is the girls. All their rooms are back there and there is a lovely desk area with a computer and two chairs for a work area. Before last night it was piled high with papers and colors and all kids of books. It needed a makeover and an organizational overhaul. I decided to start with the makeover =)


The girls and I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and found all the materials that we'd need. Here they are below. The awesome thing about Hobby Lobby is they have 50% of sales all the time.

Here is what I used for this project:

1. Shadow Box-I wanted white boxes, but they were $10 more than the black and they didn't have 3 in the size I needed. So, black won out. These were back in the large frame section and were 50% off.

2. wooden letter- I've noticed that you have to really search for letters that aren't scratched. So luckily I found some that were perfect. Which for this project was great since they were staying white. These are almost always 50% off, but are normally $2 and some change.

3. Tacky Glue- You could use any type of glue, but this is what I had in my stash at home.

4. Velcro-I also had this in my stash of craft stuff

5. 12x12 Scrapbook paper- This was not on sale, but was only $0.59 so I don't think it really counts =)



Now to get started!!!! This project is sooo easy, and you've probably thought about doing it before and just didn't do it.


Take the back off the Box and spread your glue all over the back of the Scrapbook paper. Then stick it well to the backing of the box.


Then cut the velcro into strips that are the same size.
The size of these will depend on which letter you are using.


Here is the velcro stuck to the back of the letter. It doesn't matter if you use the rough or smooth side on the letter. But go ahead and leave both sides stuck together.


When you take off the backing on the velcro, line the letter up in the middle of the paper and push it down really hard so that it doesn't move around.


The last step is putting the letter into the frame box and closing up the back.


VIOLA you are finished with your custom Letter Box.

This project was soooo easy and relatively cheap since everything was on sale and I already had some other materials.


I wanted my letters to be crisp and clean white, but you could take it a step further and use paint, fabric, or embellishments to your hearts content. These would look super cute coupled with pictures of your kiddos. Or you could make it more adult like and put wedding photos coupled with your last name initial.


So, I should've taken a before picture of our girls' hallway, but I didn't think about it. But here is the after. There is a space right in the middle of the wall that will house a frame I already have that says Sisters on it. So, once we get a picture of all 3 girls, then it'll hang there.

I found the heart boxes at Target in the kids bedding aisle. Not really sure why I didn't get 3 of each. So I'll be going back to get another set. These were also on sale this week.

The lights are also new. There was just a single lamp there, but these were cheap and I decided they gave off more light.



Here is a close up of the boxes. I had large scrapbook letter stickers. So, I put each girls' initial on a box. The small boxes also have a lowercase inital on them. Now each girl can place whatever treasure she'd like in her own box. Right now each one only has a set of watercolor paints in them. I like these because you can see what is in them, but the junk is somewhat masked by the hearts. And they matched the color scheme perfectly.

This area of our house had tons of potential. But it always gets junked up with papers, and is a landing place for toys that the girls don't want to walk another 2 steps to put in their rooms. On the wall by the computer is their clock. I found a super cute one that matches at Hobby Lobby, but I need to wait just a bit to get it. And on the other side by Aby's inital is the chore chart. This is something that we really need to start implementing, but it was just covered up by all the junk. So, here's to hoping they will help keep it picked up since all their things now have a place.


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