Quilled Monogram Plaques

I decided to make gifts for my cousins this Christmas, for no other reason than I'm crazy.  I think they were a hit Christmas morning, so maybe I did something right.  I made 10 total, and they were all completely different, but of course, I didn't get a picture of all of them, so here are a couple.

I started with blank wood plaques I got at JoAnn for a couple bucks (rectangular for the boys, curvy for the girls).  On some of them, I painted the wood opaque white before painting the edge a color, but on most some of them, I just did a light whitewash with a sponge roller.  Then I painted the edge with one of the acrylic paints I had in my stash, and distressed them a little.

I created the monograms in Photoshop (using Rockwell font), printed them, traced the smaller initials onto the plaque, and the larger initial onto fancy scrapbook paper.

Hmm, my first attempt at cutting out an S didn't turn out so well.  I didn't realize I had to trace the reverse onto the paper since I was cutting it out from the back side.  Duh!

Much better the second time around!

I painted the first and middle initials onto the wood using black acrylic.

When I traced the initials onto the wood, I made marks at the top and bottom of the big initial for placement later.  I just Mod Podged it on.

I did some simple quilling, and voila!

After all the quilling was done, I sprayed a glossy clear sealant on them to protect the paper.  You can see from this picture that I started out doing more intricate designs, but each of those took three hours each, and I decided I didn't have enough time for that, so I simplified my design.  I still think they look pretty good, though.

The finished product included a ribbon for hanging!

Here's a close-up of one of the more intricate ones.

I love quilling. It is so fun and rewarding, but time consuming. Remind me to start making my gifts in October next year.

FYI: I've added these to my shop.