I've always loved the monograms made with crayon or colored pencils. My girls and I decided to make our own version as Teacher thank you gifts.
A is for Mrs. Arment.......B is for Mrs. Butler
We knew their favorite colors and used that for the patterned background paper. Mrs. Butler also had butterflies in her classroom, so we chose the Flying Beauties Spellbinders die, and the Daisy die for Mrs. Arment.
Here's a quick tutorial of how we made the project:
We purchased 8x10 black frames and 2 boxes of 24 Crayola crayons. We selected each teacher's patterned paper in a shade of their favorite color. We also used the paper trimmer and E600 glue with a fine tip on the end of it.
Next we used our handy dandy Leatherman tool with the serrated blade to cut many of the crayons in half. I found the best way to preplan is to look at a Helvetica type letter on the computer in large font to get an idea of what lengths you might need for each section of the letter. Rolling the crayon while you cut will give you a clean cut instead of tearing the paper around the crayon.
Arianna Faith assembled the crayons for me while I did the cutting. The B was easier for us to do since we found a reference picture on-line. Once we had an idea of how to lay them out, we began to glue each crayon down with E6000 industrial strength glue. (you can purchase it at most hardware or discount stores)
E6000 glue takes a few hours to dry, so make sure to allow time for this. Take out glass and mat board from each frame, then glue the patterned paper to the backing board with extra strength double sided tape. I use a tape gun I got from Rocky Mountain Framing and Gallery.
Get out your Spellbinders Wizard, dies, ribbon and Colorbox fluid chalk ink. Cut and emboss your chosen dies out of white paper. Use a sponge or other applicator to apply the chalk ink, using the die as a stencil.
Adhere your die cuts and ribbon with E6000. I tucked the ribbon under the inside of the frame for a cleaner look. We used the fluid chalk ink on the edges of the tag die cut and hand wrote "Mrs. Arment" and "Mrs. Butler" with a COPIC multiliner pen. (gorgeous results with those pens!)
Hope you enjoyed our Teacher Monogram gift project! Have a great weekend.
