
I got frustrated at Hobby Lobby because the selection of wooden letters was pretty slim in terms of letter size, font, and even the letters I needed. I wanted to incorporate four words from our wedding vows, taken from I Corinthians 13:7.
At the height of my frustration at what seemed like a failed Plan A, in walks my brilliant friend who happened to be shopping at the same time! She suggested I look at chipboard letters a couple aisles over. Did I mention she's brilliant? I was able to get all I needed between a multi-pack of letters and one set of larger letters sold as a single-alphabet pack. Also purchased: a 20x20 inch canvas and white acrylic paint. I had satin varnish and glue at home.
Once home I punched out the letters I needed and played with various layouts as seen here. You can see in some of the pictures my freehand heart template I lightly penciled onto the canvas to guide me.




I used wood glue to stick the letters to the canvas only because I couldn't find my Elmer's glue! So I'm sure regular old glue would work great. As I started putting the letters in place with glue, I'd draw light guidelines on the canvas with pencil so I remembered where to start and end. The glue got a little tricky because it liked to ooze out from under the letters. I had a paper towel handy to wipe up oozes.
After everything was glued, I painted at least two if not three coats of white acrylic paint to everything - canvas and letters - making sure to get the sides of the letters covered too. Like the oozing glue, painting the letters proved a little tricky with paint globs that liked to pool up in the crevices of the letters. I just used my foam brush to even out the paint as well as I could.
The colored letters got another coat or two of paint until I couldn't see anymore color. Then as a finishing touch I used some satin varnish on the letters so they'd stand out shiny against a matte canvas.
And that was it! It took some time, especially waiting on paint to dry, but it was a pretty easy project.