DIY Jute Wrapped Letter with Flower Accent

This post was originally a guest post at White Lights on Wednesday for the Trading Blogs Series!

The project I am going to share to day I am very excited about. My husband and I bought a house last May and I have been working on DIY projects both large and small. I actually bought this letter "R" at Hobby Lobby back in May- just getting around to finishing it now!

 (Yes, my style is a little old fashioned- love me some (fake) Hummels!)

My original inspiration was this Yarn Wrapped Letter from Pictures of Happy and I thought I would wrap my letter in a pretty fluffy yarn.  But then I saw these DIY twine wrapped bottles at the Kurtz Corner and I knew I wanted some of that rustic goodness in my house!  So I merged the two projects and added a pretty felt flower for interest.  So here is the basic How-To:

DIY Jute Wrapped Letter with Flower Accent

What you will need for letter:

A wood letter, or other shape

Twine or Jute- I used jute- it is really fine (I bought 3 rolls- 1 was plenty!)

Hot Glue Gun

Patience

Flower:

Plain felt for backing

Green Felt for leaves

Colored felt for petals (I chose maroon!)

Yellow felt for flower center

Hot Glue Gun

Jute Wrapped Letter:

Start covering the letter by heating up hot glue gun and putting a dab of glue on the back of letter close to where you want to start wrapping.  I started on the upper left corner of the "R", but I don't think it matters where you start. Place end of jute in glue and hold until it is dry, careful not to burn your fingers. I also used a piece of scotch tape, just to make sure it stayed in place.

Run a line of glue parallel to the lines of the letter and lay jute across tight. Wrap jute around the back and lay close to the first line you laid down.  You will continue this process until the whole letter is covered.

Once you have the front covered you need to cover all of the edges that didn't get covered (Like the top of the letter, the bottom of the letter). This will vary from letter to letter.

Some Tips:

Take a break every once in a while- this is a tedious project!

To make it go faster I didn't glue down every line I did on the straight parts- I did about every 3rd-4th line. 

On the curved parts- like the top right part of the "R" I glued every line (and a dab of glue on the edge) so that it holds in place better.

If you are doing a mostly curved letter like "O" or "C" you may have to glue more.

Felt Flower Accent:

The sizes and amounts of the flower pieces will depend on how big you want your flower to be.

Cut out a small circle for the backing of the flower.

Cut out leaf shapes out of the green felt.

Cut out petals from your colored felt. Place a dab of hot glue  in the center of the petal and pinch together to give the petals a three dimensional shape.

Cut a small rectangle of yellow. Fold in half lengthwise. Cut small slits about 1/4" apart. Make about 3 of these.

Assemble the flower- gluing leaves on backing first, then petals, then middle section.

Attach the flower to the letter with hot glue.

Enjoy!!!

I am now looking for other objects to cover in jute! No decorations is safe :). 

Hope this inspires you to create something today!

I will be linking up with some of these parties!

Have a great day.