I know you've seen them all over Pinterest, because Crayon initials are super cute! It seems like most of the ones on Pinterest are for teachers (and I sure wish someone would make me one), but I also like making them for baby gifts. One of my best friends is expecting her first child in October. It's a girl!!! I'm super excited for her! Since they've already picked out the name (let's hope they don't change their minds now), I made her one for Mother's Day. The baby will be called Shakespeare, and I think this will be super cute in her room.
I thought some other people might want to know how to make a Crayon initial. They do make super cute teacher appreciation gifts, end-of-the-year gifts, and baby shower gifts!
Here's the materials you need:
You also need a sharp knife (but I forgot to add that in the pic). I got my shadow boxes at Michaels. They had a pack of 3 for $9.99, and teachers get 15% off!
*One other word of advice, you may not want to leave the tube of Tacky Glue in a plastic bag where your puppy could dig it out and get glue all over herself (right after a bath), a dress, and a robe....just FYI.
Here's the template that I used. It's a powerpoint file that I'm attaching. I used the Curlz MT font which can be found here for free. If you don't have that font, it will show up as a different font on your computer. You can change the font to whatever you want. The S is the AbcPrint font which can be found here for free.
Click on the template to get your own free copy.
Here's some tips that I learned from the 3 of these that I've made so far:
1. Make sure you spell the name right BEFORE you glue half the crayons down. I learned this the hard way. :/
2. My shadow boxes were smaller than a typical frame, so I had to cut the paper down to fit. It was a little difficult to get mine just right. The back of my shadowbox had these little curved sections that I had to cut around. Much easier to do that BEFORE you glue a bunch of crayons down.
3. Curved sections (especially an S) can be real tricky. You may want to cut out the crayons and lay them down before you glue.
4. Check to make sure that you when you put the final product back into the shadowbox that it's not too high or too low. I also learned this hard the way after I made mistake #1 of spelling the name wrong.
5. If you make a mistake after the crayons are all glued down on the initial, it is possible to cut the initial out and glue it onto another piece of paper.
6. Try to make sure your crayons cover the template initial completely. That's also why I made the initial gray, so it's not so easy to spot.
If you want to see how other people made these or look at different initials, I made a WHOLE Pinterest board of nothing but Crayon initials. You can find it here. There you go, happy crafting!!!
