Jeweled Letter

As with many projects, this one started out as something different.  I wanted to make something unique for my grandmother's birthday.   I had planned to take this letter and put flowers on it, but when I realized my flowers were too big, I knew I was going to have to improvise.  Luckily, I remembered I had a huge bag of beads leftover from my mom.  I used them to decorate the letter and it ended up looking pretty awesome and being super easy.

I started out by spray painting the letter gold, because that's a color I had and I knew I wouldn't be using it for anything else. 

 

I don't know if it was the type of paint or what, but it didn't take any time to dry.  Once the paint did dry, I got out my clear glue and started gluing down beads.  I put a small dab of glue, threw some beads on top, and then added some more glue, and so on.  The smallest beads worked best.  I used a lot of 'seed' beads.  

 

All I did was just keep gluing and placing beads on top. I wanted a colorful look so I didn't do any pattern or even separate out the colors.

 

Once I covered the whole letter, I went back and filled in some bare spots.  I let it sit for a night, then the next day went back over a couple holes.  I then took the clear glue and put a small layer over the whole thing to 'lock' it all in.  I had a few drips over the sides, which I tried to clean up quickly because it ends up making a mark. 

 

I thought it turned out really pretty. It was a quick and easy project.  I'm thinking about making some for my house.  Maybe my initials or something.  I'm also playing around with the idea of doing more of a pattern, but that will require me to sort through my huge gallon bag of beads....not something I think I'll have the patience for right now.  :)