DIY Letter Board
It all started with a $5 letter board I saw in the Aldi ad. When we went to the store, I couldn’t find it. I started wondering how I could make one myself. After much indecision, this is the result. While it did cost more than $5, I think the end result is worth it. Photos don’t do it justice; the color of the letters changes in the light and is just beautiful.
This letter board project evolved over time. My first thought was to do something very colorful—like rainbow stripes. Eventually I settled on this style of board because I like the idea of the letter “tiles.” I thought about painting the dowels different colors. Then I considered making just the letters on the tiles colorful. In my search for letter stickers, I came across some gorgeous iridescent stickers that were too small for my purposes. That led me to search for holographic rainbow vinyl, and here we are! Maybe a little more subtle than I was originally imagining, but I think it’s better than what I’d originally envisioned.
I’ll link to everything I bought so you can check it out. I did a lot of searching before I bought anything. I have enough dowels and wood rectangles left to make a few more of these, and I definitely intend to do that.
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Supplies:
- 16×20 frame
- 12”x1/4”x1/4” square wood dowels
- 12”x3/8”x3/8” square wood dowels
- Wood rectangles
- Holographic rainbow vinyl
- Paint
- Paint brushes
- Glue (wood or E6000)
- Cutting machine (I love my Silhouette Cameo)
Optional:
- Letter stickers (instead of cutting them out)
This is a project with several steps and plenty of waiting in between. I started by painting all of the pieces. First I painted the wood dowels black and left those to dry.
Then I painted the wood rectangles white. I didn’t bother to paint the back side of these. It took several coats (at least 3 or 4) to get good coverage. (Ignore the lumpy paint in the picture; I found a better bottle of white paint.) I tried to be careful about painting the sides, but after they dried I realized I’d missed some. I’ll be more methodical next time.
For the background of the letter board, I painted the back board of the frame. I used a foam brush, and It took me four coats of paint to cover it completely. I considered spray painting the board instead, but in the interest of time (the weather was not cooperating) and wanting it to match the background of my letters, I painted it by hand.
Once all of the individual pieces were dry, I started piecing everything together. I glued the dowels together first. One 1/4” dowel per 3/8” dowel. I was originally going to use wood glue, but I ended up using E6000 instead. It’s one of my go-to glues (after Tacky glue), and I knew it would hold.
To keep the dowels from bowing while the glue set, I put them next to each other and then put a few heavy-ish items on top to weigh them down. This worked like a charm.
So much so that when it came time to glue the dowels to the board, I did the same thing.
Now, the smart thing to do probably would have been to place the dowels on the board before I reassembled the frame. I didn’t do that. I think it was because I wanted to be able to visualize it as I spaced out the dowels. I put the board back in the frame, set the frame on a box to prevent bowing, and glued the dowels on. I used some books to weigh it all down, and everything glued flat to the board.
I used my Silhouette software to size the letters to fit the wood rectangles. I chose a narrow font (DIN Condensed) that worked perfectly.
No matter the cutting project, I will happily let my Cameo do any cutting it possibly can. This time I set the cut settings to metallic vinyl, and it cut perfectly! It even cut through the plastic sheet covering the vinyl (that I couldn’t for the life of me peel off before cutting).
I didn’t use any transfer material to place the letters on the rectangles. Instead, I peeled them off and placed them like stickers. Once I figured out how to center the first few, it was easy to do the rest.
I chose a couple of quotes to help determine which stickers to use first, but I have a lot left over to spell out whatever I want in the future. An advantage of cutting the letters myself is that if I do ever find myself lacking a particular letter, I can just cut it out. I don’t need to buy a whole new pack of stickers.
All I have left to do is decide where to hang this thing. I’m going to have a lot of fun changing the quotes, and I suspect my family will also. 🙂
Happy crafting!
