I had bought this paper mache letter at JoAnns a while back in hopes that it would find a home somewhere in my house.  I loved the size of it.  It’s 23 1/2″ tall and makes a big statement.

You can find them here.  They are 9.99 a piece, but hopefully you have a coupon (They accept Michaels coupons as well!) and you can get it for $5.

Well, for almost the last year it found a home in my office, hiding, behind boxes….and boxes.  A month ago I pulled it out thinking I’d spray it yellow for spring and put it on my mantle.  So then it turned into this…

(Ha! I love my lil streaker in the background!)

The yellow was a bit off so I stopped spraying before the third coat, and put it back in the office.  Although it has been out of site, I still was thinking of ideas for her, I hadn’t given up:)  I went over to my friends the other day and she had bought some of the smaller letters and wrapped them in yarn for her baby girls room.  They were so cute!  So that’s when the light bulb went off.  I can take this letter and wrap it in jute.  It will cover the yellow I so do not like, and give it some texture:)

So I got my tools together and got to work….

I decided to use jute.  If you are looking for the cheapest jute, I have found it to be in the hardware department at Walmart.  You can get this roll for 1.97, way cheaper than the jewelry making stuff in the art dept.  It’s a little rougher, but I love that for projects because it gives it more texture yet!   Then I just grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and a scissors and I was ready.

I picked a spot to start on the back and glued it down.  After it was dried, I started the wrapping process…

I found the ends are obviously the hardest when doing this, because sometimes the jute slips, so I would go back and forth and try to wrap it so it would stay as tight as possible.  I liked the look of the criss cross lines at the end too.  There were some areas that I couldn’t get to stay tight without the jute slipping, so I just glued it in place.

This is how far 1 roll of jute got me.  And that’s all I had, so it was on hold til I made another walmart run:)  You can tell that around the ends it’s going to be chunkier because of how many times you have to wrap to cover everything.  Another side note though, if I hadn’t sprayed my letter yellow (ish) I could have used quite a bit less jute because the natural color of the letter would have blended in.  I just wanted to make sure NO yellow peeked through.

So, after another walmart run, I bought another 2 rolls, making sure I wouldn’t run out.  I used a whole full one and a little bit of another one. I think you could get away with using 2 if you don’t have to cover a color:)  Here’s the end result..

No yellow!!

I love the texture.

I also changed up the living room a bit.  I had this architectural wood piece hanging from my ceiling, and as I was laying in bed one night:) I realized it would be much cooler hanging on the wall like a shelf.  Duh!

So, I mounted 3 anchors in the wall and put in 3 inch screws so they stuck out far enough for the wood to rest on and ta da!!!

It’s now a shelf!  I’ts a little shallow so I’m still playing around with what will fit on it  I’m debating putting a board on top of it to make it a little deeper so I can layer a bit better:)

But for now it warms it up a bit.  I also moved my tv over so I could put a lamp in the living room.  Don’t ask my why I thought my tv HAD to be centered on a stand.  But I thought it did:)  I like it much better this way…

I’d rather not have a tv out, but we haven’t quite figured out how to go without one completely yet.

The “L” is a big though, makes a fun statement:)  They do have 12″ letters as well, and think of the possibilities of what you could do with those.  Initials, names, words…..

So, for $5 I got the letter, and I put another $5 into the jute.  Quite a large piece of art for $10 I’d say, plus it’s a diy so you feel so good after accomplishing something:):)