I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Some people have inquired about the Paint by Letter process.  I wish I had more pictures between the beginning and the end (maybe next project...), but here's a glimpse into how an order goes down.

When someone is interested, they send me an email with the letters and we settle pricing.  Then, they send me a link to the bedding/theme they want me to base the letter design on.  For instance, here's the bedding from my most recent project.  (PS, you can click on some of the pictures in this post to get a more close-up view, but you'll need to right-click and "open in new tab" to not be bumped off of the blog.)

Crazy adorable, no?

Then, I go to my favorite store, Michael's, and purchase the letters and any paint colors I don't already have.  Seriously, how awesome is Michael's?  It's like a mecca for crafty people.  I could spend all day in there, but when buying letters, it's all business.  I'm in and out in five minutes, tops.

Then comes the major planning.  What colors am I going to paint the letters?  Believe it or not, A LOT of planning goes into this.  Most of the time, I try to alternate colors, like the pinks and browns for Kailyn.

I also try to make sure the patterns alternate, so that you don't end up with similar patterns beside each other.  For instance, for Madelyn, I alternated flowers/monkeys with more geometric patterns.

Some short names, like Emma, end up having a pattern that stretches across the whole name rather than each letter standing alone.

So all of this planning happens before I ever start painting.  I move around the bottles of paint until I like the combination of colors.  I sketch/map out what I'm going to paint before I start, too.  Back to Audrey's project, here's a glimpse at my thought process.

Here's a close-up view:

Then, the "magic" begins.  Most letters get at least two basecoats, so I clean or run errands while waiting for the coats to dry.  Then, I just start painting.  There's no great method to this, though I'm getting better about figuring out what I need to paint first.  For instance, the birds and owls were very details with several layers, so they got painted early on.  Like I said earlier, I'll try to take more in-progress photos next time (along with some of my "studio"), but for those interested, here's the final product:

So there you go, start to finish, how a plan turns into letters for parents-to-be.  I went a bit over-the-top with patterns here, but the bedding was extremely detailed, so I wanted to stick with the theme.  You can see how the pink letters are far apart, the brown is beside a bold color, the heavily patterned letters alternate, as do the animals (bird, owl, butterfly, bird, owl, butterfly).  You may also notice (if you go back to the plan) that some letters don't look exactly like their sketch.  Some things do happen organically when I'm painting, especially if I see something needs to change.

I really do love painting letters, and I hope you enjoyed seeing how my plan comes to fruition.