Burlap Monogram Decorative Letter

Lately I've seen several cool posts about things people have made with burlap. Honestly I have never really been a big fan of burlap...I mean I like the texture but it smells kinda weird and frays and can be a little messy. With three kiddos, I probably have enough mess in my life. After trip to Hobby Lobby I decided to come home with a yard of burlap to fool around with. I had a plain paperboard hollow letter "C" hanging around and decided to get crafting. You will notice in my pictures I also started working on a letter "G" for a friend of mine as a surprise because she liked my "C" so much.

For each letter I used about a half yard of burlap and a dozen glue sticks.

Start by folding your burlap in half once.

Cut through both layers of burlap and make 2-inch strips. It doesn't have to be exact. The wonkiness only adds to the character of the finished product.

Start with about 10-12 strips of the burlap. I think I ended up using 14 strips. How many you use depends on how tightly you pack the squares of burlap together when gluing your project together.

Next cut all the strips of burlap into 2-inch x 2-inch squares. Again they don't need to be perfect.

...and continue cutting squares out of your strips of burlap. Make lots of piles and heat up your glue gun.

Time to get out your letter and remove any stickers or store tags.

Fold your burlap square in half. Put a dab of glue in the middle and fold in half again. The edges do not need to match up exact. In fact, you probably want to make sure some don't match up just to vary how the burlap flowerettes look. Be careful when folding with the hot glue because it can and does seep out and burn your fingers.

Now your flowerette is ready to be glued down onto the paperboard letter. There really is no method to my madness. Put on a dab of glue on the burlap and squish it onto the paperboard. Again be careful not to burn your fingers.

Try to vary which edge of the flowerette you glue to the letter. Be sure to also glue burlap to any edge that you will see. It is not necessary to glue to the back.

Here you can see the back edge of the letter.


Keep gluing! You can do it!

  It took me about an hour and a half to do all the gluing. The pads of my fingers were covered in dried hot glue and burlap pieces. My workspace and floor were covered in shedded fibers from the cutting and gluing. Once you get done it will probably be necessary to give your letter a "haircut" to get rid of the fullness in between the space in the middle of the letter in order to be able to tell which letter it is.

Here it is sitting on a shelf.

...and here resting in the nook of a bookcase with his friend the pineapple.

...and hanging as a simple wreath.

...and hanging as an embellished wreath.

What are you going to do with yours? Take a minute and leave me your idea in my comments below. Thanks for stopping by!

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