Craft Project: Decorative Letters

We moved into our new house in January of this year, and we haven't really done a very good job of getting the place decorated. More than once, David was ready to hang pictures, but I couldn't go through with it...I just couldn't bear to put the holes in the walls! I'm having a hard time committing to the placement of pictures. But strangely enough, I don't have too much of a problem with hanging "stuff" on my walls. Right now, just about the only two decorative things we have hanging in our house are a tobacco basket and an old wooden ladder from my grandfather's farm (which led one of my colleagues to say that I'm going with the "Cracker Barrel" approach to decorating). Anyway, the ladder was the springboard for this whole craft. The ladder is hanging horizontally over the entrance to our kitchen/breakfast room, but it was a little bare. I knew that it needed something extra, and then I thought about the decorative letters I'd seen all over the web. Here's what I did:
I bought some large, chipboard letters from Michael's and painted them all a cream color. (I realize that it might be hard to figure out what the heck I plan on spelling. I had intended to spell HOME. However, Michael's did not have an M that day, so I got the letters to spell LOVE along with the H. Hopefully Michael's will have the M next time I go back.)

Then, I gathered my scrapbook paper and traced my letters. It's very important to actually do the tracing on the side that you don't want showing. Also be sure you trace the letter backward!

Here are cut out scrapbook letters! As you can see, they're all turned the right way. That's because I traced the letters backward! Now I'm ready to apply the scrapbook paper to the chipboard letters. Sorry I don't have any pictures of that step, but it's pretty self-explanatory. I used Mod Podge to glue the paper to the letters, but looking back, I'd use spray adhesive instead. The Mod Podge was a little messy to work with, and the paper wanted to wrinkle.

After the letters dried, I put them in the "frames" of my letters, and here's the finished product! In this picture, you can see the whole ladder.

And here, you can see the letters a bit better. Once I finally get my M, it'll only be a matter of changing two letters to make HOME. And, if you think about it, I can cover the reverse of the HOME letters pretty easily with other papers for Christmas! This was such a quick, easy project, and it makes such a difference!