I am so excited about my latest project, I’m not even sure where to begin!  If you’re like me, you’ve now become totally addicted to Pinterest.  It’s total eye-candy and inspiration for all of my crafty kindred spirits out there.  The trick to it though is actually following through on some of the ideas it generates.

On my ever-growing idea list, I re-pinned a fabulous pin for an awesome tutorial on how to make faux industrial/metal letters from the blog Retropolitan and I knew I needed to make some for myself.  The only thing was I wasn’t sure what I needed them for or where I’d even put them.  At the same time, I had also been trying forever to come up with some art for our breakfast nook…I could do the word “EAT” but that was too boring and then in a moment of sheer genius Yiddishism, it came to me, “NOSH.”

I had seen these super size 23″ paper mache letters at Joann that would be perfect for the faux metal finish.  I won’t go into how to get the finish, you can check out Retropolitan’s tutorial here – her technique is simple and brilliant and I totally agree with all of her suggestions, especially the brad detail!

I will give you a few hints for working with these super-sized letters:

• Be sure to check them carefully at the store – some are really weak at the seams.  I had to go to two different stores to find letters that were fully intact. The best “H” still had minor damage that I patched with blue painter’s tape which worked just fine and was hidden by the paint.
• I think because of their size, these letters are actually a bit more fragile than the ones in the tutorial so you need to take a little extra care when piercing them (I used a paper piercing tool) for the brads or you will be back to my first hint.
• To hang the letters, I highly recommend the 3M Picture Hanging Strips.

Here is the final result, fun and inexpensive art for our breakfast nook with a Yiddish twist:

I LOVE the result!  Wonder what other Yiddish words I can turn into art…