Last month's occasional, we had these "Winter Sale" letters hanging in the windows. I snapped pic's as I was creating them, so you could see my process.
Incorporating words into your home is so popular right now. It's a great way to remind yourself of the important things in life. Putting the word, "Blessed" "Family", "Kindness", or "Love" creates an emotional mood in your home. I also thought these hooped letters would be fun for a birthday party, with the special person's name on them! Using a patterned background fabric, instead of this plain white would punch up the whole look!
The first step is to find a font you like. I have quite a few already in my computer, but if you don't, there are many places to download them on the internet, for free, or for a small price. I chose one with chunky, fun letters that could be seen clearly in the window. I used a mixture of lower case and upper case letters. I purchased wooden embroidery hoops from the fabric store, in a variety of sizes. They're very cheap! In a word document, I typed out an individual letter, and increased the percentage size, until it was big enough to fit in it's designated hoop. My letters were in the 150-300% range. I then copied them off on my printer and cut them out.
I pinned them to my fabric and cut around them. You could also trace around them, but I was trying to be quick (this isn't a money making project for me, just a part of store ownership :) I cut out squares of the white fabric, big enough for the hoops. If you've never used these hoops before, they're very easy. They are in 2 parts, an inner hoop and an outer, with a tightening screw at the top. To get the fabric into it, you loosen the screw and lay your fabric on the inside hoop. The bigger hoop gets put over, and you tighten the screw, pulling the fabric taut as you go. But...before you go ahead and do this, get the letter attached!
I could have used heat-n-bond to attach these, but good old tacky glue was quicker and easier. I just wanted the letters to stay put while I was zig-zag stitching around them. If you're not a sewer, you could skip this step, hand sew something, or even use puffy paint. I just like the folksy look of zig-zag stitching, but it's a lot of presser foot work to go around letters, if you know what I mean!
Once all your letters are attached, you can place them in the hoops. I also put some glue on the outside of the inside hoop, so the fabric would be quite attached. Pull the fabric as taut as you can get it, and tighten that screw. Trim away any excess fabric. I decided to add a few white buttons, to simulate snowflakes. I just glued them on and let them dry.
I found this beautiful colored, twisted Martha Stewart yarn at the fabric store, and doubled the length to hang them in the windows. I simply wound the yarn around the screw mechanism.
Some fun variations for this project would be to paint or Rit dye the hoops, to give them a pop of color, or put patterned washi tape around them. Use rick rack or cute ribbon to hang them, as another option.
If you make some, post them on our Facebook page! We'd love to see your version!
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