Burlap Door Hanger Tutorial

   Hey guys, it’s a 3 day weekend yay!! Last Friday I did not post and a surprising amount of people pointed it out to me that I didn’t. Well today I am going to show you why. I decided that I wanted to make a craft post but I hadn’t done any crafting since we moved, so I went to the store and got materials and started this Burlap Door Hanger. It is pretty simple and fun to make it took me about two afternoons. So lets get started.

   I googled Burlap Door Hanger Letter and a bunch of pictures came up but most were etsy type links to buy one and not turtorials. I finally found these two, from Junque2Jewels which is based in Bentonville and this from Live a Little Wilder. I based mine of off the last one since it was a letter.

   I went to Hobby Lobby and got a yard of burlap for $3.99, a yard is a lot to much, so I would say half a yard would be plenty, I got tomato red and buttercream paint for my design, you could do any color or colors you wish. 

   The first thing you need to do was make a template to trace onto the burlap for the letter, I wanted it to be big enough for the front door so I taped 4 pieces of printer paper together, well actually I did it 3 times until I got the B the way I wanted it.  In the end I actually just used the half of the B that looked the best and traced it twice.

I was trying to figure out if it would look
right on the door.

   Then I made a template for the design, this part took me a while.  I’ve started to love the quarterfoil  pattern and thought it would look good. I printed out this pattern.

  And set to “cutting” it out, this involved an exacto knife and lots of patience.  Eventually I had only the gray lines left.

cut on top of something other then a table
because it will leave a mark. 

Next thing to do is trace your letter onto the burlap. I had to use a sharpie because nothing else was working on the burlap. I got my awesome hubby to give me a very straight line to start from, because even with a ruler I can’t make a straight line to save my life.

He's so helpful!

 Then I realized that tracing just one part of the B was the best way to make them even.  Then I cut them out, be sure that it is still folded in half like you got from the store so that when you cut you have your front and back at the same time.  Leave about an inch around your letter when you cut this gives you a cute little burlap border around your painted area.

The dots around the design were my guide for
about one inch.

I don't recommend doing a line in the middle if you do a B its hard to paint over.

pin together the two sides so that you can cut
them together easily. 

Don't forget to cut out the middle holes
I almost did, and of course realized it after
I took the pins out.

   

   After you get that done you need to paint it your background color. I had to use a couple layers, and be sure to paint on top of something that you don’t mind getting painted, I typically use newspaper but we didn’t have any so file folders worked just fine. Burlap is a little tricky to paint on sometimes it globs up on one spot and doesn’t want to spread around. But by time you do the second coat you’ll have it figured out and it will look awesome.

Of course a sonic shake makes everything better.

   Now you are ready to trace your pattern, which could be anything you like google image  search patterns will give you a lot of ideas, I just didn’t want to do chevron but it would have been a lot more simple I bet.  I was able to trace using a pen but had to make it darker than just one little pen stroke over it, but I wouldn’t use a sharpie if your using a white color since it’s hard/ to cover up.  

This took quite a while and a lot of what
felt like scribbling to get it dark enough

all done, I was pretty proud of it.

   

   Once the tracing was finally done I painted between the lines with the buttermilk color, one layer was good for it.  

that bottom one though wow haha
I couldn't find my lines.

   Now is time for the fun part stuffing and gluing. Line up your pieces and glue, I used hot glue, a section leaving room for stuffing. I used Walmart bags to stuff with and just ripped them so they were a little smaller. 

   I glued down the whole straight side and started stuffing using the hole in the middle as my guide. This will just depend on your letter how stuffing will be easiest.

I stuffed with the back facing up so I
could use the sharpie line as a guide for
the glue.

   This part I have not done yet because I can’t find my floral wire. Take floral wire and put into the back of your letter and string it to the other side so that you have a way to hang it on the door. Right now mine is just hanging on the doorknob of my bathroom.

And there you have it an awesome letter door hanger.

I will update as soon as it is hung on the door.

In hind sight:

I would have made it so the areas to be stuff were wider so that it would be more full.

I would have tried to get the Walmart bags to be more loosely crumbled so that they didn’t get so flat.

The good thing though on this is if you pull the glue will come apart and you can adjust your stuffing. And then just re glue where you need.

I would love to see yours if you make one. Leave a comment and let me know what pattern you would use.
Have a great and safe Labor Day weekend. Come back Monday for a recap of the first Razorback Football game party!!