How to Make your own Burlap Monogram

Just as promised, here's how I created our Burlap Monogram above our bed. I started with a little inspiration and how-to. I picked up a few yards of burlap at the fabric store. I ended up only using less than a yard.

I had an unused painting canvas at the house, but only one. So I headed out to the closest place,Walmart to pick up some more. Only they didn't have any in the size I wanted. Then I checked out their artwork for sale, to see if I could pick up any cheap artwork. Nothing for less than 15$ a piece. So I headed to Target only to find they didn't have any either. But then I stumbled on this pack of 4 cork tiles for about 5$ total and thought, hmm.. that could be perfect. I picked up a few decorative nails from Target as well.

I picked up some black and white acrylic paint at 2$ a bottle and a 3" sponge paint roller from A.C. Moore. When I was at World Market I found these hooks and fell in love.  I couldn't decide which color would be better being that the bedroom's main color is green, but the grey hooks were just so darn pretty. So I brought home 3 of both colors. (To be returned later..)  These were the most expensive, at $5.99 a pop. But soo worth it! And that's all the materials I had to buy.

 I had some ribbon at home, leftover from the wedding. When it came to stencils, I printed out letters in "Edwardian Script ITC" font. Then I pseudo - traced them onto a whole foods bag. I say pseudo because the letters I printed weren't actually large enough and I couldn't get them to print out any larger on one page. So I kind of 'winged in' and drew the letters on the bag larger than the prints. So I really didn't trace them.  Surprisingly, they turned out great.

After having all my materials, I got started. First, I cut the burlap about 1.5" larger on every side than the cork tile. Then just stapled the burlap to the cork. Initially, I had a hard time getting the staples to stick. Then I started stapling 'harder'. Then I got cocky and started going really fast. Then I slammed my finger under the stapler. Twice. Then I continued to staple hard, just less cocky, and slower.

After that was the real fun. I mixed the black and white paint to be a dark grey. Placed the 'stencil' on the burlap which was now stapled to the cork board, and rolled the paint over. Then I stuck decorative nails in the corners. Two on the left corners of the 'M', above and below the 'K' and two on the right corners of the 'T' to bring all three pieces together.

After quite a while attempting to tie a bow out of the wedding ribbon, I eventually gave up and went with a knot. I'm still not sure if I like this, but I don't have any better ideas at the moment. Then I stapled the other end of the ribbon to the back of the cork as well. Then I hung them up. Only to realize that cork weighs nothing and the hooks are pretty big, so the monograms kind of dangled and danced around in the air, not even touching the wall. Not pretty.

I happened to have some mounting strips in the house. So after putting a few strips on the back of each letter, we were in business!

And here's what it looks like now. Like I said, I'm still not crazy about the ribbon. I also can't decide if the 'K' being so skinny looks good or awkward. That was a stenciling mishap, but I think it separates itself more from the 'm' and 't', which I kind of like.

And a shot with a little bit of the bed (not made). I hope you enjoyed it!