Craft #2 - Yarn Covered Letters

When M. was born, we kept his crib in our room for about 3 months, and then moved it into his own room.  However, since there wasn't much room in our house, his room also had a queen-size bed for any guests who would visit.  Because his room was also the guest room, I didn't want to put many wall decorations up.  When we found out we were pregnant with another boy last year, we decided that the boys would share a room, so we got rid of the queen-size bed to make room for another crib.  Now that the room was our boys' room only, and not a guest room as well, I wanted to put up some decorations.  The first thing I did was hang a picture of the temple in their room, but I couldn't decide on what else I wanted to do.  I started searching online and decided I wanted something personalized.  The room was going to be for both boys but I still wanted each of them to feel like it was their own.  So since I was trying to decide on something to do to decorate the room, it's now been at least 9 months and I haven't done anything yet.

Recently I saw online cute cardboard letters covered in yarn.  I thought it would be cool to make one for each boy with their first initial to hang over their beds.  However, if I were to buy a wood letter, or a 3D cardboard letter at a store, it would be costly, so I decided to make my own with just a flat piece of cardboard and some yarn from my stash.  I have tons of yarn in many colors so I knew I'd have enough and each boy's letter could be a different color.

I started out by drawing the letters on an empty cardboard box that was leftover from Christmas gifts.  I drew an A, a M, and a G.  I decided I'd do one for each boy, and eventually one for a decoration for our family with the initial of our last name.

Then I used a box cutter to cut them out.  You can also use scissors instead of a box cutter.  They'll work just as good.  When cutting them out, I cut a small slit in one of the corners for the next step.

You can use any kind of yarn you want for these.  I decided to use a navy blue worsted weight yarn for M.'s letter M, and to use a lighter weight gray yarn for A.'s letter A.  I still have yet to do our letter G.  After you have your letter cut out, pull your yarn into the slit you made to hold your starting end in place.  Leave about an inch of yarn hanging through on the back side.  You will be wrapping your yarn over this end to hold it in place and cover it.

Then I started wrapping.  Wrap tightly but not so tight that the yarn causes the cardboard to bend.  I wrapped in the long direction first to cover the ends and then wrapped the other direction to cover the other sides.  When I would get to an intersection, I would change directions to make sure every edge was covered.

After the whole letter is covered, you have 2 options for the finished look of the letter.  I used one for each of M. and A.'s letters to demonstrate.  The first option is just to leave it alone the way you've finished as of now and just tie the yarn to one of the loops on the back of the letter and trim it to about an inch short and weave it under more loops on the back to hide the end.  This is what I did for the A.

The second option is to make it have a more random look by taking the yarn and just randomly wrapping it around the letter before ending it off the same way as described above.  This is what I did with the M.

That was so easy to do and now I have a cute decoration for each of the boys to decorate their room.  We're out of town now, but I can't wait to hang them up when we get home.