Felt Letters

I've been lusting after some adorable felt stuff on Etsy lately. Specifically, I was loving the letters. E is starting to learn some letters and the bright colors are great too. They are really expensive though. I mean, really. So,  I convinced myself that I can totally make my own. And, I can. And, I did.

I admit, this took me about three weeks to do. I'd do a letter or two each night when I had time. It's a craft that needs to be saved until after children are in bed because rambunctious 18 month olds and mommies with needles in hand is not a good combo.

But, it was super easy.

I spent a little time on Word searching for a good blocky font. I chose super basic Arial Black, used all caps and bolded it. My font size was 330 pt. This meant I could get 2-3 letters per page. I printed them in a light gray so I could just see them to cut out and to not use up all the black ink in my printer. I did all the printing and paper cutting at once.

I had 9 colors of felt that I wanted to use. I don't think you could have 26 different colored letters, but I could be wrong. To cut out each letter, I taped the paper letter to the felt. I even used more tape than necessary because cutting through the tape ensured that I was cutting good lines. 

I finished one letter at a time. First, I cut two of each letter. And then I used matching embroidery floss to sew up the edges. This could be fancied up with contrasting colors, light/dark colors, or whatever pleases ya! I stuffed some poly fill in each letter as I went. I tried to use a little strategery with the sewing. For example, I'd start at the top or bottom of the E, then sew around the legs so I was left with just the back open. That enabled me to wait until I got to the very last side to do the stuffing. Shapes like the S and the Q weren't quite as easy to strategize. 

Three weeks later, I finished up my 26 letters. Are they perfect? Heck no! But they still look pretty darn good. And E won't know any difference. 

Then, in a fit of craft craziness. I decided that he needed a bag for his letters. So, this happened. 

And it holds his letters perfectly. The square on the bottom is 5in x 5in and it's about 7.5in tall. 

Best of all, this used eleven 8.5x11 sheets of felt. At $0.25 each, that's a whopping $2.75 in felt and maybe a couple dollars worth of embroidery floss and poly fill, but I actually already had that stuff. Compare that to at least $30 for a set of letters on Etsy. Blam!