Nautical Monogram Tutorial

I'm in the midst of creating a gallery wall for my play-guest-room makeover, and I was brainstorming ways to incorporate some kind of monogram into it. I have seen all kinds of beautiful ways to decorate arabic letters, but none in particular were jumping out at me as "the one" for our playroom. I also wanted to keep a kind of nautical theme going in the room, and I was thinking of ways to incorporate that with out going "overboard" (har de har har)...Maybe rope? Some kind of sailboat pattern? Nothing seemed right. And then it hit me...use nautical letter flags to make something!

I had some fun thinking about making a word, a name, or something else...but then I found out that these flags, when used in an actual nautical situation, are not really used for spelling, but more like call letters on a radio station. So, a monogram it was after all. I wanted at least two, though, so I decided to start with my sons' first initials: A and C.
I began with two little wooden plaques from Michael's. ($1.99 each).

Using a little bit of wood stain and a rag, I gave them two quick coats of stain.

I didn't worry too much about getting the stain on evenly.

After they were dry, I painted on two coats of off white acrylic craft paint. Again, I wasn't particularly careful to cover everything.

 

After about an hour of drying, I used a sanding block to distress the top and sides. Just enough that the stain would poke through.

Enter some scrapbooking paper in nautical colors. 

I cut them to match the shape of the plaques using my sliding paper cutter and some little scissors. I didn't get anything exactly lined up so the distressed edges would show through.

Then, the Mod Podge!

This was my first time using Mod Podge and I am hooked. Great stuff.

 

The plaques are skewing a little patriotic right now, but if I add some more letters, I think that will cure it. The "R", which is the first letter of our family name, might be a nice choice to balance it out with some red and yellow. I'm pleased with the way they turned out!

 

I put them on the shelf for temporary display, but I plan to mount them and include them in a new gallery wall eventually. They work both horizontally and vertically. Decisions, decisions.

Overall, this was a really easy and fun project! Excluding the drying time, I think I spent about 10-15 minutes on each one! If you already own some Mod Podge, each plaque costs less than $3 to make. Less, if you have a Michael's coupon handy. 

 

If I had one of those fancy Silhouette cutters I keep reading about, I might consider adding an arabic letter over each plaque. What would you think about that? I'm sure I could find the patience to use my scissors for this if I really wanted...

I'm looking forward to making at least one more of these, and then setting up our gallery wall! The playroom is coming together! I plan on having the "big reveal" pretty soon. See you again soon!

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