The Letter K

Today's post is brought to you by the letter K.

Apparently that is the magic letter now in my family.

My sister literally married a "Kay."

And now my other sister is married and her new last name starts with the letter K.

This just means that I HAVE to marry a guy with the last name that starts with K. If he doesn't it'll be a deal breaker. ;)

And WHEN I do...we'll be the KKKs. (Thanks, Cait, for pointing that out.)

Quite apropos when you consider that we were raised in the South. Just kidding. We do not support racism. Just so you know. And actually, extremists like that totally freak me out. In fact, once I saw a hilarious comedic play in West Yellowstone and there was a small bit at the end with members of the KKK and I totally freaked out. I can't handle it.

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, so one of the things I did for my baby sister that just got married was make her a large letter K. Kinda like the one I made here for my friend Summer.

So I learned from my first attempt. This time I used thinner cardboard. Actually, I used cereal boxes. I blew up the K in a font I liked (Storybook) and traced an outline. Then I actually redrew part of it because I wanted it taller. Then I cut it out twice and assembled it with 2 inch strips of more cereal box. I used masking tape and secured the inside and outside of the letters. Something that I would have done different this time is to add crumpled paper to help the cardboard hold it's shape better once it was wet with mod podge.

Once the letter was put together, I cut strips of newspaper and started paper-maching it on with mod podge. I learned that cut paper looks better than torn paper. I did lots of layers and this process took quite awhile to do. After a few layers, I noticed that the cereal boxes were starting to sag a bit (this is where the crumpled paper would have been handy) I used a lot of masking tape to re-create a level front. It actually worked pretty well. Then I paper-mached a few more layers.

When I was happy with the layers (okay, when I was tired of getting glue everywhere), I glued down large 2-3 inch strips of newspaper to cover it. I wanted to reduce the amount of visible lines on the letter. If I had really been thinking, I would have just traced the K and made it slightly larger and then just glued one piece on. Oh well.

But it did create a smoother surface which I liked. Once it was completely dry, I primed it by spraying a layer of white spray paint and then I spray painted it a lovely shade of green.

Then I started quilling. And quilling. And quilling. And watched 3 seasons of Lost. And quilled some more.

And then I was done. YAY! (And, "Finally!") And I also tied a cute pink ribbon bow so it would match the wedding colors.

We used it as a table decoration for the gifts table and I gave it to Erin and Jim as a present. I figure as poor college kids, they can't afford cute decorations, so they needed one as a present.

This was a lot of work and I don't think I'll make another one anytime soon. Or, at least not one with all the quilling.