Fall Wooden Letters

Hurray! It is finally Fall! Ok, so I realize that most of the country is getting snow right now, but in northern California it finally feels like fall! The leaves are changing color and the air is getting colder and my house still looks exactly the same as it did all summer long. It is time to make my house look a bit more festive!

My daughter, who is 3 years old, is working on letter recognition. So, I thought this would be an easy craft that would help encourage her to learn her letters. Her favorite one: the yellow “A”.

You can buy premade wooden letters at any craft store, Wal-Mart, or I found mine at the Dollar Store. If they are rough, you will want to sand the edges down first. There are many ways to paint the letters but I choose to use 4 different colors of craft paint: burgundy, mustard yellow, forest green and navy blue. I used a foam sponge paint brush to paint each letter a different color. I painted several coats of paint on all sides of all letters.

(*Hint, if you have 4 different paint brushes, you can have each paint brush painting a different color and continually paint until they each have several coats of paint on them. It saves a lot of time!)

Let them completely dry. At this point, you can be done. They look great just like this…

But, I took it one step further.

After the letters were completely dry, I took a slightly moist foam sponge paint brush and dark brown craft paint. (Black would work also for a more dramatic effect.)

Then I quickly and haphazardly painted over the letters with the brown paint one side at a time. It is scary, I know!

(*Hint, for the lighter colored letters, I used more water on my brush so the brown would be a little less intense. For the darker painted letters, I almost painted the brown paint straight on. You can experiment with this on the backs of the letters until you get the look you want.)

Immediately after I painted one side, I took a paper towel and wiped it off, not worrying too much about getting it even. I continued to do this to all sides of all letters to give the letters a more worn and rustic look.