I woke up one day and thought I want to do a craft that will go in my sons room. I rarely accomplish such a challenge as I only get to the idea part which sounds amazing and I’m all eager to get started but for some reason I never get beyond the idea part. Well I was determined this time that I was going to make the letter E to hang on my sons wall in his soon to be newly decorated little man cave. Naturally I looked on Pinterest and found my new project. I hopped in my car and headed to the dollar store where I purchased cardboard, twigs, a glue gun, a ruler and pencils. I was all set to start my craft. I even told my crafty mom my idea which she got all excited and said “oh I want to do that”. Knowing me, she knew I was unlikely to finish or even start my project decided to give it a try as well.
So two hours later, with glue all over my hands, frustration and not looking quite like the pintrest picture, I had completed (well mostly) my letter E. I was proud I attempted it but it was definitely more work than I bargained for.
Then I get a message from my mom. “Look at my E” she said with a smiley emoji. And there it was, the most beautiful and perfect E, even better than Pinterest. At first I was jealous, but that soon passed when I realized how awesome it was going to look in my sons room. So what was different about hers…..”well she said, no frills grocery store was throwing out wooden pallets behind their store near the dump, so we picked up some scraps and your dad sawed and nailed together the letter E. Then I picked up some twigs from my back yard, glued them on and finished it with a light coating of spray paint to hide the glue and to give it a rustic look.” She made it sound so easy, and here I was spending hours cutting out cardboard and messing about with glue trying to line up the wooden sticks, what a disaster I was.
All in all, it was a good project for me, but I do have to admit, I prefer researching and coming up with the idea but leaving the actual craftiness to my mom. So yes I will admit mom, your E is better than my E.
How to make your own E (or whatever letter you want):
What you need:
- Crate or wooden boards
- Hammer, saw, nails
- Wooden sticks (you can find these on the ground or go to an arts and craft store like Michaels if you want to buy them)
- Glue gun
- Spray paint (my mom used white, and the wood colour came through giving it a really nice shiny silver look)
Start by building your letter (use the saw). Make sure you know how big you want your letter to be.
Nail the pieces together to complete your letter.
Take the sticks and break or saw them to fit the length of the letter.
Using your glue gun, glue each stick on (tip: make sure you have plenty of sticks as you will want to layer them). Don’t worry if the glue shows through, the spray paint will hide it.
Once the glue has set, light spray it until you are happy with the colour.
You can add a hook to the back of it if you want to hang it, or do what we did, put it on a shelf.
On the Thrift 