Soccer Themed Name Letters

Finally finished Little Man's name letters. He had a bit of a hard time deciding what he wanted. At first, he said soccer. But then he wanted Hunger Games themed letters. Wasn't sure what I was going to do for that, but said okay. Then, we found some cool Minecraft stickers so he changed his mind again. THEN he thought Minecraft Hunger Games would be cool...with the Os in his name soccer themed. Luckily, he went back to soccer themed for all his letters. Made life a little easier ;-)

Or so I thought LOL Things are never as easy for me as I assume they will be.

As usual, I found a picture online that I could print out and use as a stencil. I took his letters (which were dark green and brown with dinosaur stickers) and painted them white. And then put my stencil over the letter and started tracing. With a ballpoint pen.

Don't ever do this.

Because if you mess up, you are stuck. This is after five...that's right FIVE...coats of white paint. It was a black ball point, so the black went away but those blue lines...yeah, there was nothing I could do to cover those puppies.

My solution...I decided to paint the Os black. It ended up being a happy accident because the Os ended up looking great breaking up the soccer ball pattern of the other letters.

I went back and forth over adding the soccer ball pattern on the black Os in white, which I think would have looked really cool. But we found some fun 3D stickers and in the end, I think it ended up looking really good :-)

Then, back over to the white letters. This time I traced the pattern in pencil. Worked MUCH better. Black paint for the little inside bits and a fine-tipped Sharpie for the lines and I had some soccer ball-looking letters :D

Name Letters

When decorating my kids' rooms, one thing I always like to have up on the walls is their name. You can get the block letters fairly cheaply at any craft store, even at Walmart, and decorating is a blast :)

I've seen some pretty elaborate designs and I'd love to try to get a little more fancy, but you can create really cute letters with very little time or money. I just redid my daughter's letters. She did have a princess theme:

These were created very simply by painting the letters in the colors of her choice, and then adding those 3D puffy stickers. A little ribbon stapled to the back and we have a cute set of letters for her wall :)

However, I was recently informed that she is now 8 years old, almost 9, and that means she is a big girl and doesn't want princess stuff anymore :) So, she chose a new color and theme (gymnastics and peace signs, her two favorite things in the world). Again, very simple, just paint and stickers, but they turned out so cute :)

For my stepson's adorable baby, I went a little more elaborate. His nursery is jungle themed, so I printed out a zebra stencil and painted the pattern onto his letters. It's  hard to tell (if I did these again I'd probably alternate designs, making half a giraffe pattern or just polka dots or something) but the A, T, and N are painted brown with white stripes, and the X and O are white with brown stripes. A few jungle stickers and some giraffe print ribbon and Axton's letters were ready to go :)

At the moment, my son has a dinosaur theme. 

He'd like to change his, but he couldn't make up his mind between soccer and The Hunger Games lol So, we are going to combine them (his idea) and make the O's in his name soccer balls and the other letters Hunger Games themed. I'm still working on these, but I'll post them when I'm finished :)

Doing these letters really is a lot of fun, and it's an inexpensive way to jazz up a room. You can get really elaborate with them, either painting more complicated patterns or using wallpaper or contact paper to cover them, add feathers, glitter, jewels, ribbon, or any number of the fun pins/medallions/charms, etc that craft stores carry, to make these really special and one-of-a-kind. Or go simple with a coat of paint and a few stickers and you still end up with something cute to go on the wall.

And what's nice is that these are super easy to redesign when your kiddo decides he or she wants a change. Just peel off the old stickers or materials, repaint, and add new bling. The letters can be up to $8 a piece, depending on the size and style you want. But since you can redesign them over and over, they aren't a bad decorating investment :)