pinteresting: paint stick letters!

prepare yourself for the cutest, cheapest craft in the history of ever.

i was really thrilled when i pinned this cute paint stick letter on pinterest:
i wanted something big, dramatic & monogram-y for above finn's crib. i'd considered getting the ginormous paper letters from joann's, but couldn't quite talk myself into spending even the fairly reasonable $30 for the 3 of them. so when i realized i could make big letters without tons of decoupaging & with supplies i mostly already had, i jumped on it!

big adorable handmade decor for next to nothing? you're speaking my love language.

all you need are craft paint, a few paint sticks ( i never leave home depot without a handful, even if i'm not painting) & some small, very inexpensive bolts with nuts to 'close' them. you can see in the second one what kind of bolts i used.
[edited to note: home depot's paint sticks are WAY better than lowe's. they look like real wood, whereas lowe's looks like pressed plywood. i found this out the hard way after getting about 5 bajillion of them from lowe's for another project & wishing i'd gotten them all from home depot instead.]

i didn't take many photos in progress on this one, but it's seriously easy. all i did was trim off the curved part of the paint sticks [i scored both sides with a kitchen steak knife & then gently snapped it apart], sanded the edges just a touch & laid them out to form the letters. you can trim them a little shorter depending on your letter.
then i just painted them with craft paint & used a little brown ink pad and sandpaper to distress them a bit. i marked where i wanted the bolts, drilled a little hole (very gently!), stacked them up & bolted it all together!
the best part is they're seriously light as a feather, so super easy to hang. i just hot glued a picture frame bar on the back & i think it will hold fine.

i loved it so much, i'm making a second one for over the boy's crib... i'm going to do a fun little monogram thing but i'm waiting on one more part to get here so i can finish it. can't wait to 'reveal' the whole nursery!

the letters took me literally about 15 minutes. i think they'd look equally good spelling out something cool on a playroom wall, or a single letter on a mantel, or anywhere else you need a little typography goodness in your decor! is there anywhere you want to get a little (big!) wordy?