DIY LETTERING {without a fancy cutting machine or stencil} NOEL BLOCKS

I want a Silhouette machine. Or a Circuit would do. But I don't have one and I don't have funds for one right now. So I make do. I recently figured out  a new way to do lettering-which I used on my "Save the Date Blocks". No vinyl. No cutting out Freezer Paper stencils. Just printing off letters. This is super easy and anyone can do it.

DIY LETTERING:

1. PRINT OUT YOUR LETTERS ON THE COMPUTER.

I used a very large font size, about 300; and used an outline style letter, so that I did not waste all my computer ink. The blocks I made here, were about 5-6 inches high.

2.TAPE THE LETTER TO YOUR BLOCK. Paint the block and let it dry before putting your letters on the blocks.

3. TRACE YOUR LETTER WITH A BALL POINT PEN- PRESSING HARD.

Now your block should have a light outline of your letter on the wood block.

4. REMOVE THE PAPER.

5. PAINT IN THE LETTER. I used my old tole- painting brushes- some had flat bristles and others were very small and fine. You could probably use your child's watercolor brushes if you did not have anything else.

To paint these blocks, I used acrylic craft paints.

 When you are done painting your letters, they will look something like this:

Not perfect, so an easy solution to make them look better, is to distress them a bit with some sandpaper. After that, they look like this:

And that is it. No special letter cutting machine, no stencils, just a font from your computer.

The possibilities are endless- but I'm sure if I did something more complicated, I would prefer a stencil or vinyl. But for now, this works great!

Happy Holidays!