This was one of the Christmas projects that I decided to do while perusing the aisles of Michael’s one day.  I grabbed the letters, and knew I’d figure out the rest later.  I did know one thing, I wanted each letter to be done in a different way, and made room for them on the bookshelf in our living room before I even started on them.

NOEL Letters

What you’ll need:

• 6″ Wooden letters
• Spray paint
• Twine
• Hot glue
• Paper map
• Mod podge
• Sponge brush
• Scissors

Since I decided I wanted every letter to be different, I needed to figure out what every letter was going to look like.  One would be wrapped in twine, one would be decoupaged (because I literally can’t stop), and the others would be painted different colors.

First: Painted N & L

This is as easy as it sounds.  I took the N and L outside, put down my handy cardboard and spray painted them silver and blue. Bam, done.

Second: Twine wrapped O

Put a little bit of hot glue on the letter, and attach the twine.  Then wrap the twine around the letter, making sure to keep it tight, and close enough together so you don’t see any white coming through.

About a quarter of the way around the O, I put another dab of hot glue, so it would be secure there as well.

Not long after, I ran out of twine, but bought more and continued until the O was completely wrapped.

Third: Decoupaged E

As I mentioned, I’ve been obsessed with decoupaging everything lately so it’s not surprising one of the letters would be covered in a map.  Probably not the smartest idea to decoupage the letter with the most sides, but I did anyways.

Start by printing your map and tracing around the E on the map with extra room on the outside so it when it’s cut, it will cover the sides.  Cut out the E shape and make a few extra cuts to make it easy to apply to the wooden E.

Apply mod podge to the wooden E, and start to apply the map.  Instead of trying to do it all at once, I applied a little bit of mod podge to the letter (like the top of the E, then applied the map in that area, and moved on to another area.

Slowly work your way around the E, making sure you wrap the map around the sides, and keep any bubbles out.  Once it’s covered, apply another layer of mod podge on top to seal it in.

Once the mod podge is dry, your letters are ready to be displayed!

It’s no surprise I like the mismatched look, but I also like that you can customize this to match your decor, whatever it may be!  What colors and materials would you cover your NOEL letters?