Ideas for Decorating Wall Plaques – Fabric & Paper Monogram

Happy Monday Everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend!

Let’s talk about wall plaques, shall we? (Random, I know!) It’s just that I know you’ve seen them around craft stores (especially lately, in all sorts of shapes and sizes!), and maybe wondered what you could do with them! Or perhaps you have some in your craft stash, and your are waiting for inspiration to strike in order to give them the star treatment! Since I recently used a few of these babies on my niece’s gallery wall, I thought it would be fun to give you some (hopefully) new ideas on how to use these craft gems!

So….today I am kicking off a three part series: Ideas for Decorating Wall Plaques!

…and first up is this monogram plaque using two mediums: fabric and paper!

Let me show you how I did it!

1. Clean up the plaque. I bought my plaques (with coupons) at JoAnn’s. Before getting started, peel off and clean any stickers or tags, and sand down the edges if they are rough.

2. Paint the edges of the plaque. Because the fabric will cover the front of the plaque, you only need to paint the edges (you may certainly paint the entire thing if you wish!). Using a sponge or paint brush, cover the edges with craft paint – do two or three coats to get nice even coverage. Be sure to paint 1/4″ or so onto the top surface of the plaque so there is no wood color peaking through if your fabric isn’t cut just right!

3. Prep and cut the fabric. (You can skip this first part if you wish!). I first ironed my fabric to fusible web. Not only did this give me a paper surface to trace on, but it also allowed me to iron my fabric on to the wood (yes, that actually works!). Once fused, I turned my plaque top-side-down onto the wrong side of my fabric. With a pencil, I then traced as close to the top of the plaque as I could. Once fully traced, I simply cut out my shape! (NOTE – this is not a perfect process! Even with tracing, I still had to go back and trim here and there to make sure it fit on top of my plaque just right! Play with it until you have no fabric hanging over the top edge). 

4. Secure the fabric to the plaque. Because I used fusible web, I just ironed my fabric right onto my wooden plaque. To ensure that it didn’t come off however, I went back around the edges with matte Modge Podge. If you don’t want to bother with the fusible web, you can secure your fabric with craft glue or Modge Podge. (NOTE – I wouldn’t use hot glue because it creates lines and bumps once it dries!). Now, set your plaque aside.

4. Create the wooden monogram. Repeat the paint/trace process with the small wooden letter. I painted the edges of my letter “M” with white craft paint, and then traced the letter onto coordinating scrapbook paper. You could certainly use fabric here as well, but I really liked the differences in texture. (However, I do think a tone-on-tone approach would look really neat too!). Wait…don’t adhere your decorative covering to your letter just yet!

5. Glitter the edges of the wooden letter. To give the letter a little glam around the rim, cover the edge (all the way around) with craft glue. Lightly sprinkle glitter to cover the edges. This is simple to do, and really adds a lot once the plaque is up on the wall!

7. Assemble your plaque. Using craft glue, attach your scrapbook cut out to your wooden letter, and then attach the letter to the fabric-covered plaque using hot glue. In order to hang it on the wall, I made a “wall hanger” out of a pop top from a soda can.

There you have it! Pretty simple and simply a pretty addition to any wall! I’ll be back on Wednesday with another tutorial for you! Until then, have a great start to your week!