Make Your Own Wooden Letter With Cardboard

It's been sometime since my last DIY , but this particular idea has been marinating in my brain for quite a while. I've loved these little beauties for a while now :

http://www.etsy.com/listing/159032097/large-wall-letter-creamy-white-and-brown?ref=market

While I do love these letters, I never felt like paying money for them, nor did I feel like purchasing wood and a jigsaw to make my own. (Although in the future I do plan on purchasing a jig saw along with other power tools.) Since my last post about my Ikea haul, we've been stuck with a lot of cardboard around the house. Rather then let it go to waste I got the idea to make these letters. A great way to recycle and get some of this unwanted cardboard out of the house.

DIY Time!!

Materials List:

-Wood Glue
-Spray Paint (whatever color you like)
-Utility Knife
-Stencil of a letter
-Cardboard (enough to make 4 to 6 letters)
-pencil

Steps:

1. Use your utility knife to open up the box so that it lays flat.

2. Take your letter stencil and trace the letter onto the cardboard. You'll want to do this about 4 to 6 times.

HELPFUL HINT: I made this stencil using Microsoft Word on my work computer. I wanted a font that was simple and clean. Making my font size 650 made a pretty good size letter ,but I wanted mine bigger. If you work in an office and your boss doesn't mind use the copy machine to blow up the image. (If you have more specific questions post in the comments below and I will get back to you ASAP!!)

3. Now that you have traced your stencil lay the cardboard on top of either a cutting mat or another piece of cardboard (we don't want to scratch up your working surface!). Take your utility knife and carefully cut out your drawn letter. Take your time, but remember if you make a little error we can go back and correct it.

4. Repeat step 3 for all 4 to 6 cut outs.

5. Once you have all of the letters cut out line them up on top of each other. When they are lined up you will be able to see if there are some edges that overlap. Use your utility knife to trim away any excess.

6. Now use your wood glue and glue them all together. You do not need to slather the whole letter with glue, just enough to keep the edges down and the letters on top of each other. Wood glue dries pretty quickly so make sure you have the letters lined up correctly.

7. Allow the glue to dry for about 30 minutes to an hour.

8. Now here is where you can do what you want. I decided to spray paint my letter one color, but you can use colorful paper, contact paper, or stencils to color your letter. (I will be going back in a later post and making some letters for my daughter's room in different colors.)

9. Make sure that you use your spray paint outside and coat the entire letter including the sides.

10. Let dry and you are all done! Set it on a shelf, hang it up with ribbon, or place it in a frame.