NOEL - altered wooden letters

Here's some altered wooden letters that I worked on here and there the last couple of days. I picked up the already-painted white letters in Walmart's craft area last week and couldn't wait to decorate them. The letters were inexpensive, so this project didn't break the bank ~ especially since I've already got a stash of embellishments screaming to be used! :)

Here's a close-up of each individual letter, so you can see the details alittle more clearly-








I used the Holiday Treasures Designer Paper (page 170, F/W 2008 IB&C) for the background of each letter. I traced each letter lightly with a pencil and cut out with scissors. I mod-podged the letter and glued the paper on top. I sanded the paper edges with my sanding block and did a bit of distressing too. I sponge-distressed the edges of each letter with Close to Cocoa ink. To decorate my letters, I used a retired Stampin' Up Christmas stamp set that I've had for many, many years called "Joys of the Season". You can see the Santa on the N, a stocking on the E, and a Christmas tree on the L. After stamping and watercoloring in the images, I wanted the images to stand out a bit from the busy background, so I stamped Versamark over the entire image and heat-embossed it with clear embossing powder. I did this a few times to make it very glazed, like glass, and stiff enough to withstand a few Christmas uses over the years... also, I used pop-dots behind the images to make it alittle more dimensional. They actually do stand out a bit and don't blend so much into the background IRL - the photos don't do this project enough justice! The snowflake on the O is the large Sizzx Snowflake #2 die found on page 31 of the Holiday Mini Catalog. I diecut a thin sheet of chipboard (like a cereal box) and glued each side of this with a Riding Hood Red snowflake to give it some weight and keep it from tearing very easily. The other embellishments are buttons, ribbon, twine, brads, half-back pearls, etc that I've had forever in my embellishment tote (not all are SU). They are adhered with glue dots or Mono-Multi glue.

This was a very fun project to work on, and I hope I've inspired you to try this out for yourself! Go ahead... you can do it! :)

See you next time!