We just had our annual family photos taken and when the photographer suggested that each of the 4 of us hold a letter spelling “love”, I couldn’t just buy simple letters and leave it at that! I’d been wanting to do something with the fun colored and patterned burlap that all of the craft stores have these days and the bright colors of our outfits & the country setting were the perfect fit. This project took about an hour.
Here are links to purchase the materials if you’d like to save a trip to the store:
Paper Mache Letters | Burlap Ribbon (red) | Wired Chevron Burlap Ribbon (similar)
Using a hot glue gun (I prefer the mini like this one, easier to store), start at the top of a letter and glue the burlap on at an angle. Trim off the excess and fold burlap over the edges, gluing as you go. I found it handy to use the scissors to press the burlap onto the hot glue to save my fingers.
Depending on the letter, you will need a number of sections and cuts to go around all of the corners. For the L, I trimmed the red burlap so it wouldn’t have folds & creases in the front. Keep gluing on the back and trim off any excess.
The O took 5 sections to avoid bulges and creases. For some letters, it makes more sense to just run a bit of burlap around once and secure + trim all the way around.
After all 4 letters were finished, I was left with these beauties, but I wasn’t quite finished…
For a little extra pop, I folded and wrapped a bit of wired chevron burlap ribbon around the letters and attached a bow to one letter. The pop of red worked great against the navy, white, and green of our outfits!
Now that our photos are done, we have these sitting on the girl’s “little kitchen” – so cute!
I used some double-stick foam adhesive (this one is a low strength version so we can remove them without damage later) to get them to stay put and stand upright.
You know who else loves her love letters? A certain little cutie who ran to get her iPad to help photograph the letters in her little kitchen.
