Decoupaged Letters as a Headboard

One of my guest rooms in my house is decorated in a Disney theme. The bathroom off this guest room is decorated in black and white, and features Mickey Mouse. Because the guest room is going to be used by my grandchildren when they come to visit, I am trying to use a variety of Disney characters that would appeal to both genders. There will of course be a picture somewhere in the room of the "Cars" characters, or my grandson may never stay in the room, lol.

In this room I am currently using a quilt made for my son from his hockey jerseys and will eventually replace that quilt with a comforter I will make that is Disney related. So, the first thing on my list was to make something to hang over the bed to replace the paintings my grandson helped me paint over a year ago.

Ready to start painting the front and sides of the letters.

I decided to buy 18 inch paper mache letters that spell SLEEP. I purchased the letters from Hobby Lobby while they were on sale. Then because the background of the letters were going to be black or red I also bought some acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby to paint them. I went to a used book store and bought some Disney children's books to use for decoupaging the fronts of the letters, similar to the letters I decoupaged for my Granddaughter's room ( 6/9/16 post).

First I painted three of the letters red and the other two letters black.

Painted sides red and black on alternating letters.

Disney Princesses!

Next, I picked which Disney stories, or characters I wanted to decoupage on each letter.
Snow White for the S.
The Lion King for the L.
The Disney Princesses for one E.
Bambi and 101 Dalmatians for the other E.
And Winnie the Pooh for the P.

Then it is the tedious job of cutting the pieces out of the book pages and laying them out on the front of the letters. You have to pick pictures/words and place then on the front of a letter in a logical and aesthetically pleasing order.  This is very time consuming and can be the most frustrating part of the process. It took me many hours and two days to get everything to look the way that I liked.

All the pictures are cut and laid in place. Whew, that was a lot of work!

101 Dalmatians!

Once all the pieces are laid in place, I go through with the decoupage glue, and glue them in place. When they are all in place, the glue is dried and the paper is trimmed where necessary with an exacto knife, I put a coat of decoupage glue on top of the papered letter fronts. When that coat is dry I put on a second coat. I apply the glue with a sponge brush and it is very difficult to get all the brush marks off of the application. This is also a delicate process because you need to make sure that the paper does not tear or move when putting on the top coat. When the glue dries it will have a glossy look to it even if you choose a non glare glue. No edge is perfect, there are spots that will be a little off or rough and you just have to get past it and realize that the surface you are putting the paper on is not smooth or have straight sides or corners. It gives the project "character".

Bambi shares a letter with the Dalmatians.

My kids loved Winnie the Pooh when they were little, so I had to include Pooh Bear. Sorry for the glare, it was unfortunately impossible to take a picture of the letters without the glare. Heaven knows I tried, lol. But you get the idea of just how cute they turned out.

I used Command Velcro hangers to hang the letters on the wall in a staggered pattern. The next step for this room will be making a comforter or duvet, but for now I am just going to admire this project.