C-R-E-A-T-E How-to

I have this strip of wall above the window box in my craft room that was just begging for some attention. I got the idea to spell out the word create, seeing as this is a room meant for creative pursuits.

First, my apologies for having very few pictures of this process. I did this project all the way back in January. (I just didn't put it on the wall until last week.) I thought I took pictures throughout the process, but apparently, I did not.

I started with 6 cork trivets from IKEA. They come in packs of 3 and cost a mere $2.99. I painted them with inexpensive acrylic paint (2 lime, 2 turquoise, 2 pink). This took a few coats because cork is ridiculously porous.

Then I created my letters. I considered printing out templates from the computer, but frankly, I'm starting to dislike how uncrafty a lot of crafts are becoming because of computers and machines like the Cricut. A little too generic for my liking. If I wanted my stuff to look like I'd bought it at a store, I'd just buy it in a store! Besides, I have nice handwriting, so why not put it to use? I measured my trivets to get an idea of how tall I wanted the letters to be, then I drew lines on cardstock. I drew letters within those lines to keep the letters all at a uniform size. (I could explain this so much better if I had photos, but I guess I forgot to take any.) Then I cut out my letters.

Once I had letter templates, I placed those on the papers I'd chosen to use, traced them, then cut them out.



The next step was to adhere them to the trivets. I brushed Mod Podge on the backs of them, using a sponge brush. Then I stuck them on the trivets.




Finally, I covered the trivets in Mod Podge. I think I did 2 layers, but I honestly can't remember.



I used the Mod Podge with glitter in it. At first, I wound up regretting that because the sparkles competed a bit with the busy paper patterns. However, this wound up being a good thing when it came time to hang them. I simply drove a nail through each trivet. The sparkle from the glitter made the silver nails completely unnoticeable. Otherwise, I think I would have needed to put a dot of paint on each small nail head.



I think that with the cost of the trivets, the paint, and the paper, I spent a total of $9 for this project.