Now that you’ve seen the gorgeous photo, it’s confession time: this DIY project can get a bit pricey. The metal letter comes from the Land of Nod see it here and is $34. Then you’ll still have to buy moss, dried flowers, and a butterfly. Sorry! *hangs head in shame* Occasionally Amazon will have one of these letters on sale. They tend to call them “monogram cork holders” but they seem to only come in random letters, and still range in price from $25-$35.
The good news? We totally make up for the price by giving you a super easy project that will make your home feel like an indoor garden. You can complete this project in one naptime — promise. We know you’re busy. We get it. Not to mention, when people see this gorgeous accent in your home, they’re going to think you’re like a professional garden sculpture artist or something. (Is that a real job? It should be!)
Now that we’ve convinced you that this is going to be worth it. Let’s get started, shall we?
Supplies:
– Metal Letter
– Assorted Moss (we used reindeer moss in green and cream and dark lichen moss)
– Dried Flowers (we used Burgundy Broom Bloom, globe thistle, German Statice, and white Lepto)
– Tissue Paper (at least 10 full sheets)
– Glue (we used Elmer’s)
– Butterfly (ours is a Panacea Prola)
So again, the problem with this beautiful project is that it’s hard to find dried flowers and moss in the small and varied quantities that you’ll need to make your letter really beautiful. You’ll pay about $4-8 just for each bunch of dried flowers and $14 for 2 bags of moss to fill your letter. Umm… that’s at least $30 right there, and you haven’t even found a gorgeous butterfly yet. I can see it in your eyes, you’re about to give up…. please don’t!
The girls at Backyard Brilliant are coming to your rescue! We already have bunches of moss, dried flowers, and butterflies, so we’ve created a listing just for you, so you can get all the supplies for this project in one place and save yourself money, time, and effort in the process. If you’re looking to incorporate different colors into your creation, we’ll happily set up a custom listing for you with different dried flowers, mosses, and butterflies. Just let us know!
Ok, now we’re really ready to start!
Put lots of glue into the bottom of your metal letter.
Squinch (I’ve been told this isn’t a word, but I’m making it one!) up your tissue paper to fill the letter.
If I could do this project again. I would squish my tissue paper even tighter and make it fill more height in the letter – to at least 3/4th or more of the letter height so that you only need one layer of moss to fill and overflow the letter. It will save you time and gluing effort.
Once your tissue paper is in, you can start gluing your moss on top as long as you’re being gentle and careful. Everything can dry all at once at the end and it will be super secure, we promise.
This is the part where you get to have fun and be a floral designer. Grab different textures shapes and colors and just go crazy! We created our entire layer of moss first and then added the dried flowers after that.
Leave some stem on your flowers, then add a bit of glue to it and poke it into the moss and down into the tissue paper to anchor it in place.
Lastly, add your butterfly as the final finishing touch. The easiest way to do this is to add glue to the thorax (or body) of the butterfly and then gently press it into the moss. For this step, you may need to hold the butterfly in place for a minute or two until the glue starts to get gummy enough to hold it.
Let everything sit and dry for a good 24 hours before you attempt to display or hang this beauty on the wall.
Wasn’t that easy?
If you read this post, fell in love, but were totally bummed out by the price of the tin letter plus supplies, we’ve got a cheaper solution for you. You can buy a wooden letter for $6 and create something similar. We’ve created a supplies listing for the smaller letter design as well. So in this case, for $20 total, you can create a piece of adorable wall art. Sarah’s daughter Lilly (6) was a pro at crafting these beautiful letters. The white letter kind of gives the whole thing a garden party feel. Love it!
Is Lilly not the most adorable? This crafty girl is going to have her own etsy shop someday.
Let us know if you try out this mossy letter project or if you came up with your own idea for using dried elements in decor. We’d love to see it!
Check back on the blog Friday as we go on a walk to hunt for letters found in nature.
