Operation girl-ify Eleanor’s room from gender neutral nursery to little girls pretty space is under way. Sort of. I’m hesitant to do too much really, one day the room will more than likely be home to another little person as well as Eleanor – I’m not about to splash pink paint about everywhere if it is destined to be a shared unisex space! It also still has to serve as our spare bedroom so at the moment it is a dual purpose space. Little pink touches have been creeping in though in the way of her pretty dresses, gifts she has been given and now some little decor bits and bobs I’m scattering about.
Top of my list to make for her room was a customised wooden letter to put on her walls – truth be told I bought this ‘E’ before she was even born, once we had decided on a girls name! (I also have a boys initial stashed in my craft box). I want Eleanor’s room to maintain it’s vintage feel, with soft muted tones rather than in-your-face pink pink pink. I’m also quite partial to a touch of glittering gold for my girl. My inspiration point for a girly-yet-subtle room for Eleanor has been a Cristina Re lustre paper with damask print in a dusty pink. Armed with this, some gold glitter, my wooden letter, some glue and a Stanley knife I got to work…
What you’ll need to make your own letter…
Wooden letter (I bought mine from Spotlight)
Pretty paper of your choice, mine is a Cristina Re print but you could use any scrapbooking paper, or even wrapping paper that takes your fancy
PVA glue
Paint, colour of your choice (this will go under the glitter)
Fine glitter
Paintbrushes
Stanley knife
First, paint the edges of your wooden letter. I chose to use a metallic gold paint because I was using gold glitter. This is just in case your glitter doesn’t give a very even coverage (although it should), you want the underneath that shows through to be a bit similar – or perhaps you want it to be a total contrast, entirely up to you, I just didn’t want to leave the bare wood.
Next, trace the outline of your letter onto your paper. Cut out with scissors, try and be quite exact but don’t stress too much, bigger is better rather than smaller because you can trim later with a Stanley knife. With your paintbrush and PVA glue paint an even layer of glue onto your letter. Carefully place your cut out paper letter onto the wooden letter, making sure it’s all aligned correctly and no air bubbles. Put some heavy books on top and leave for an hour or so to totally adhere them together.
Now flip your letter over and using a stanley knife carefully trim any excess paper you may have hanging over the outer edges of your letter. Make sure your knife is quite sharp and you cut rather than pull your paper, I stuffed this up a bit and damaged my paper – don’t do that!
Add a few drops of water to some PVA glue to water it down a bit, making it a bit runny. Paint your runny glue onto the edges of your wooden letter, you might just want to do a few edges at a time, not all at once. Grab a wide shallow bowl or baking tray, holding your wooden letter over the bowl carefully sprinkle your glitter over the letter. The glitter should stick to any of the edges you’ve painted with the glue. Shake off any excess into the bowl. Repeat until you’ve done all the edges.
Bang your wooden letter a few times over the bowl to really shake off any excess glitter (that stuff gets everywhere!) Secure to a wall with blu-tack, that’s how I’ve done it above Eleanor’s change table (we’ve re-arranged her room a little bit, more on that later) but am thinking we might need something more permanent/stronger as I’m worried it will fall on her head! Those 3M velcro strips should do the trick.
Now, curse for the next four years why oh why you used fine glitter – that stuff will be found forever and a day in the most unlikely places!
