When two great friends of mine recently got engaged (yay!!), I immediately started pondering what I could give them for engagement gifts that would be fun, personal and affordable.

I remembered the cross-stitched sachet that my sister made for me when I got engaged, and how excited I was to receive my first gift with an “H”, symbolic of what would be my new last name:

Perfect!!  I knew that my friends would be just as excited about their new last names as I was, so personalized initials seemed like the perfect engagement gift.  I whipped up my version of this great gift in an afternoon – here’s how they turned out:

Too cute, right??  You can make this awesome gift for your friends in no time.  Here’s what you need:

~ cardboard or wooden letters from the craft store

~ Elmer’s glue or Mod Podge

~ Exacto knife or craft knife

~ cutting board or craft mat

~ foam paint brush

~ fun craft paper

~ craft paint

~ spray adhesive (optional)

Once you’ve got all the goodies assembled, roll up your sleeves and get down to business!  Here’s how to make these cute little guys:

1.  Follow the lines.  The first step is to cut the craft paper into the shapes of the letter that you are using.  There are endless ways to go about this, such as tracing the letters with a pencil and then cutting them out with the Exacto knife, but here’s what I did – first, I sprayed the letters with a light coating of spray adhesive so that the craft paper would stick to the letters:

Then I laid the letters face down on the craft paper and cut around the letters with the Exacto knife.  The spray adhesive kept the letters from sliding around so that I could cut the craft paper as perfectly as possible – then I just peeled the craft paper off and cleaned up any ragged or uncut edges of the paper with the Exacto knife.

2.  Paint by numbers (um, I mean, letters). After I finished cutting out the shapes of the letters, I painted the sides and back of the cardboard letters with a foam brush dipped in craft paint.  Go ahead and use complementary colors for the sides and back for a little extra interest – I used brown for the sides and a robin’s egg blue for the back of the “R”.

I found that a couple of coats of paint were necessary to get an even look without any splotches.  Also, it’s helpful to paint the top edges of the letters to cover any “oopsies” just in case your Exacto knife skills aren’t perfect.  And be patient – it takes these suckers awhile to dry!

3.  Flash back to kindergarten.  Now it’s time to bust out the Elmer’s glue.  You can also use Mod Podge, but I like the Elmer’s since it’s so cheap and readily available.  Some people like to add a little water to the Elmer’s glue but I find that watery Elmer’s just makes the paper stretch out into funky shapes – not so great when you’re trying to make letters that actually look like letters.  Just dip your foam brush into the Elmer’s and brush a thin layer of glue over the unpainted top of your cardboard letter – then place the paper letter on top and smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles.  Easy!

4.  Protect and personalize.  I painted a thin coat of water-based, satin-finish polyurethane over my letters to protect them, and then wrote a little message to my friends on the back of each letter with a silver Sharpie.  You could also use some of the leftover paper from your project to make little gift tags for your letters (tied with a fun ribbon, of course), which would be pretty darn cute.

5.  Bask in the glory.  You’ve just made a fun, easy, and completely adorable gift to celebrate your newly-engaged friend.  Trust me, she’ll totally love it.

How’s that for a fun and personal gift?  And as a bonus, it’s totally affordable - each adorable finished letter cost less than 5 smackers.  It doesn’t get much better than that!  And don’t worry – if you want to do this project but you don’t have any newly-engaged friends to give these cuties to, they would be perfect to spell out a new baby’s name, spelling out “LAUNDRY” in the laundry rooom . . . you get the idea!

What do you think?  Are you ready to bust out the Elmer’s glue?