Rosette Letters

Since voting is up over at Extreme Makeover, I thought I'd post the how-to for the rosette letters I made for my daughters name.  Did you know which one was mine?  I'm sort of in love with that tent that was made.  Man it's cute.  I can't wait to find out who made it.

Yup her name is Sophie.  I don't think I've ever told you that before.  I think I was nervous to share too much info on the web....but it's getting a little annoying to refer to her as "my little one."  So yeah...now you know.

Materials:

About 1/2 yard of 2 different fabrics for the rosettes (or 1 yard of the same color)

Another 1/2 yard to cover the cardboard letters  

Mod Podge

Glue Gun

Cardboard

Scissors

Marker

Construction:

1.  First, you need to cut out your letters.  I drew them on paper first and then traced them onto my cardboard.  I found it was easiest to cut them out using an exacto knife, but scissors would probably work as well.  

2.  Take your cardboard letter and lay it on top of your fabric (you actually want to do this so that you trace the reverse image onto your fabric, so put the front of your letter face down-I messed up the first time). 

3.  Trace your letter with a marker. 

4.  Clip around all the curves almost to the outline. 

5.  Using a brush, apply mod podge to front of the cardboard letter and press onto your fabric exactly in the outline drawn before.

6.  With your hot glue gun, fold the clipped fabric under and glue to the back of the letter.  Originally I thought I would use mod podge for this but it did not work well.  Trust me and use the glue gun.   

It looks a little scary because it's still wet from the mod podge and has hot glue, but you get the idea.   

Now you have this:

7.  Make your rosettes.    I used a mix of tutorials till I found one I liked.  I didn't like the look of raw edges poking out all over, so I kept the raw edges down as I wrapped.  You are going to need a whole bunch of 1" strips of fabric for your rosettes.  I think I made about 178 rosettes of all different sizes for about 10 inch letters.   My 'S' is about 10 inches the 'o' and 'e' were about 7 1/2 inches tall.

I don't have any more pictures of the rest of the process, but It's easy and quick once your rosettes are done. 

8.  Divide your rosettes into similar sized piles (I made 3 piles for small, medium, and large rosettes).  

9.  Start with the larger rosettes and glue them onto the letter by putting glue on the bottom of the rosette and then placing them where they look good visually.  If you are using more than one color, make sure you use some of both. 

10.  Fill in the gaps with the medium sized rosettes.  When you fill in the gaps you want to make sure to put glue on the sides that are touching other rosettes as well as the bottom.  

11.  Use the smallest rosettes to fill in any leftover gaps.  

A couple tips:

-The key is to really squeeze them together.  Don't distort the rosettes, but make sure you can't see the cardboard peeking through.  

-When it came to the edges, I did my best to conform the rosettes to the shape of the cardboard.  It was much easier than I thought it would be.  

My husband helped my hang them.  We inserted a nail between two if the rosettes and nailed it directly to the wall.

Good luck!  If you try this, please send me pictures.  I want to see them.

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