Summer of 60 Pins, #49: Framed Letters

#49? My contract officially starts on Monday. I am beginning to think that 50 pins might be my accomplishment this summer rather than 60.

Okay, so here's my latest project, framed letters for Jim's office. The SBMS are the initials of his school.

Here is what I wanted to do. I just keep going back to this pin from Dittle Dattle:

                          Source: dittledattle.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

I miscalculated and took Jim to IKEA on a Saturday. I also didn't tell him my plan until we were at the curtain rods department. Our afternoon went something like this:

At IKEA, we rubbed shoulders with a few new friends.
Me: Oh look - curtain rods!
Jim: I need to pull out of the fast lane.
Me: This rod is perfect! What ends do you want?
Jim: Huh? Whatever you like. What is this for?
Me: The big space above the desk in your office.
Jim: Oh. How are you making this?
Me: I'm going to frame the letters SBMS and hang them from the curtain rod.
Jim: How are you going to hang them?
Me: With ribbon!
Jim: I'm a guy. Can you use something else?
Me: No.

More walking until we finally get to frames.
Me: These will be perfect for the Mary Poppins quote!
Jim holds up bright red Tolsboy frames for 99 cents: Can we use these in my room instead?
Me: It won't be in proportion. You have a big space.
Jim: Please?
Me: Okay.

At home, I started looking at the frames. I had already decided to use chevron paper as the background, but Michael's didn't have any. It was 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night, and Hobby Lobby closes at 8 p.m. and is closed on Sunday. That's when I decided to try digital paper. I used my new resource, Teachers pay Teachers, and found this cute packet from Tammy Ferrell's store.

I'm not sure if this is how it's done, but after a quick download, I enlarged the pattern to a 6 x 8 square, printed it out onto two pages of card stock, trimmed the paper to 4 x 6 squares, and framed. So easy! Then, I used the Billionaire Cricut cartridge to cut 3-inch letters, inked them, glued them down, and had four done frames in about 30 minutes!

Here's a close-up of the M:

I just love how easy it was to complete this project with digital paper. Check out Tammy's Blog at 1 2 3 Teach with Me  and her cute clip art at Dots of Fun, where she's having a giveaway! Disclaimer - I don't know Tammy, although she seems very nice and super creative - in other words, I was planning on showing this project anyway and she is not paying me or anything. Just another great resource!