the anthropologized wall letters.

in my imaginary shopping spree at anthropologie, one of the first things i'd stock up on is several letters to monogram pretty much every room in the house [i also have a big thing for ampersands]. i really liked the heft of these zinc ones, but of course, didn't want to shell out the $18.

luckily, i had a papier mache B just waiting to be "anthropologized" [haha!]. remember the letter from the middle of this wreath?
i pulled all the hot glued flower petals off of it, and flipped it over to the smooth side. i started with krylon brushed metallic satin nickel, just because it looked pretty!
it looked quite a bit like the original, but i wanted it to have more of a [faux] metal look rather than a spray-painted-silver look.
so i thought i'd try a hammered metal spray paint and see how that worked. there were three different metal colors in the store and i had a really hard time picking, so i asked my husband which one looked the most like real metal and he picked rustoleum hammered in dark bronze. i liked how it turned out much better:
but, knowing me, at some point i will probably get indecisive and spray it the lighter shade of silver again. my little collection of B's is growing!

as for the price, the letter cost about $2 on clearance because they're apparently not going to carry them at michael's anymore. i guess i'll have to order from joann's... or, here's a great tutorial on how to make one from scratch if you want a unique size or specific font! the spray paint was a little over $3 for the first can [bought with a coupon] and $5 for the second. already cheaper than the anthropologie version, but it could be almost free if you already have a big spray paint stash with options to choose from.

next, i want to try a padded fabric one for my little girl's room [also an anthro-esque idea] and there is a wonderful tutorial right here by prudent baby... and i want to get a ginormous one and cover it in twine for our front door in the spring. although, since i already know how long that kind of wrapping could take, after making those decorative twine balls last week, i might just "anthropologize" the big one too!