Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Baby Letters

I am so lucky to have wonderful women in my life and some of those wonderful women have recently had or are about to have adorable little baby girls.  And there is nothing more fun then crafting for baby! 

So I recently made three yarn letters for Catalina, Daphne & Sophie (which explains the "C", "D" & "S")



(Sorry, not sure why I didn't get a pic with all three.  That would have been thinking ahead.)

Although I will admit these letters are time consuming they are not at all hard to make.  Just sit yourself down in front of an episode of American Idol and in a couple of hours you will be done...and dialing in to vote for your favorite performance. 

And here is the how-to...

you will need:
cardboard letter - mine are from JoAnn's - wood would also work
yarn - it took me almost one spool, lump, bunch, seriously what do you call it, per letter
felt flower - also found mine at JoAnn's but you can make your own - see below
glue gun
scissors

OK so before you jump right in take a moment to think about your edges.  Each letter will have some edges that need to be pre-wrapped because they are at a different angle then the rest of the letter.  In the case of the "C" I needed to wrap these two edges...


So cut a bunch of small yarn strips, long enough to cover the edge and wrap around the corner.


Then with a glue gun attach each strip to the edge, until it is completely covered.



Continue this on any edges needed.  This can also be done on corners that you anticipate will be difficult to cover.

Beginning at one end, glue the end of the yarn down to create a starting point and then start wrapping!  As you wrap I recommend adding some glue along the way just so things don't slip, especially when you get to the corners.  Make sure you cover up all the cardboard, you don't want that peeking out!


Keep wrapping and wrapping and burning your fingers with hot glue and wrapping until the entire letter is covered. 

Now for the flower there are lots of great tutorials for creating fabric flowers.  You could do something like this one I made for my Fall Wreath.  Or I love these no-sew flowers from Craft Snob.  If you do want to get out the sewing machine check out these at Crafty Staci or these from Make-it Love-it.  But this time around I chose to buy some already made felt flowers at JoAnn's.  I simply glued them on once everything else was wrapped and dried and the project was complete.  Three little letters for three little girls!