FAUX METAL LETTERS FROM CARDBOARD

by Medina at Grillo Designs

I love industrial looking metal letters! However I'm not such a fan of the actual pricing of them. So recently I decided to be a little out there and try and make them from a cardboard box! Crazy idea huh? But I think I may have just pulled it off....
Here's the cardboard box I started with (yup it also happens to be an ikea box...my sofa got delivered in there..can you believe?!) I planned to display these letters in my dining room which is undergoing a huge makeover - CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT MY OTHER ROOM MAKEOVERS (Can you tell I love colour?)

MATERIALS USED:

TO BUILD:

Cardboard box from IKEA

My faithful glue gun

Tape

Scissors

Exacto knife and (optional)Mat and rotary cutter

Letter template: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD ON MY BLOG AT THE LINK BELOW

Glue – I always use this brand

Newspaper

TO PAINT:

Valspar flat light grey paint or any other acrylic type grey paint

Rustoleum white spray paint

Rustoleum Bronze paint

Silver spray paint

Art paint brush

Turmeric powder (yes the cooking kind) or you could use cinnamon powder

Rub N Buff Wax – this stuff is awesome when trying to achieve a metallic look. You can get the exact source list on my blog

HOW TO:

-Print off templates from my blog

Tape each template in place to your cardboard and cut around the outlines using your knife .

Now that you have your cardboard letters cut and ready , you need to add the ‘3D aspect’. To do this, cut long pieces of cardboard from your box and then stick them in place around your cardboard letters. You should end up with this

The cardboard I had used was quite thick so it had a jaggedly looking outline where it had been cut. I just knew it wouldn’t look good if I painted over it as it was. That’s where the idea to paper mache comes in.

Next paint..... now there is a method to this! Check out my blog link below to get the full details of how I PAINTED these letters to look galvanized.

Here's how they ended up looking! What do you think? I hung them on my HUGE CHALKBOARD WALL IN MY DINING ROOM - CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM

Dont forget to visit the link below for all the details!

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Frequently asked questions

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1 question

Angela Cole on Nov 22, 2017

I was actually just thinking of doing this when I happened to run across the project. Awesome! I'm also kinda thinking.. why not just leave the paper maché look? Could be very cute..

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