Today’s DIY Letter Board has been a LONG time in coming. I’ve had this idea in my head for quite a while, and now that the Christmas season is approaching I thought it would be fun to try and make what was in my head a reality. So with that said, here’s my tutorial for an oversized letter board wall with a giant DIY holiday wreath.

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. But I only recommend products I love & think you will too. 

I’ve been gravitating towards more simple, minimalistic decor lately. Simplicity feeds my soul & calms my spirit. I think it’s probably just that my life can get pretty crazy with my three little ones. So the less clutter & things I have to keep up, the less stressed out I am.

Backstory: So like I said, I’ve been obsessed with the look of letter boards for a LONG time, and when we installed shiplap in our kitchen I just knew that it would make all my decor dreams come true. I mean, you can basically leave those walls blank and they are a masterpiece.

Haha! Enough with my crush on shiplap. I wanted to do a big statement piece on this wall for Christmas. An oversized wreath was floating around in my mind, along with my never ending need to switch things up occasionally… so I just KNEW a letter board-wreath was the perfect solution!

One thing I love about this particular project is that I could easily get the kids involved. And they can pick out quotes (bible verses, songs, or even spelling words- aren’t I super fun?) and things that they want up on the wall too. It’s super easy to switch out the letters.

I used this Letter Board Set from House Hathaway. It comes with the letters & white shelf letter ledges.

I wanted the whole piece to flow with the space, and I am so happy with how it all looks.

So now for the tutorial. Each shelf ledge has a groove cut into it. This allowed the letter tiles to stand upright in the groove.

The House Hathaway set comes with 4 ledges, each measuring 36″ long.

Next, I hug them up on my shiplap wall. One thing I love about shiplap is that all the horizontal lines are level & evenly spaced… so I don’t need to worry about measuring. I literally nailed into the studs in the cracks between my shiplap & just rested the shelf boards on top of the long nails I used. The ledges have sawtooth hardware attatched on the backs, so you can hang them with that option as well.

Lots of you have asked me about the wreath part. First off, I wanted to go with real greenery, but I knew that faux was the only way to go if I wanted to keep it up for an extended period of time. So I scooted myself to Hobby Lobby & bought two vine garlands. They are the ones with the small leaves in my arrangement.

How I Made The Wreath:

• I cut one of the vines and made it shorter (you could also just fold it over onto itself, and wind it together to make it shorter)
• Next I attatched the portion I cut off to the larger vine.
• Lastly, I ordered some faux eucalyptus from amazon & wove all my branches together to create a two part circle. I just added the eucalyptus in the places I wanted a thicker section. Don’t be afraid to cut your florals either! I added small branches with leaves here and there throughout the arrangement.

 

Then I secured it to the wall wrapping the wire vines on a couple of nails I added to the shiplap.

Next I went outside and grabbed some real bradford pear tree branches from our front yard & added them to the garland. A couple tips on using real branches:

• Incorporating something that is real and has imperfections side by side with faux florals will make your arrangement look more authentic.
• Use real tree branches that have thicker, more glossy leaves. These type of branches will dry out better and wilt less. Evergreen type plants work best for this method.
• Incorporate the real branches while they are still fresh. Weave & mold them into your display. This allows them to dry in a realistic position & look the most natural.
• I didn’t do anything special to the branches to preserve them. They will just dry out naturally. It’s also cold outside here, so having heat on in the house makes everything dry out faster.

 

Once I had the wreath and shelves all lined up, I leveled out the edges of my four shelves to make sure they were centered.

This photo is a little washed out, but I thought the angle showed the construction of the wreath better.

Now for some tips on how to line up your lettering.

I made a pencil mark on the exact center of each shelf to help me align all my letters. I always count how many letters there are per line (blank spaces between words count as one letters) and then would center it according to that marking. When writing out my text, I like to place a tile between each letter (and one sideways for a blank space) so that all the measurements are precise & even.

The hardest part is locating all the letters in the piles of tiles.

I didn’t want to use Christmas greenery for this wreath simply becuase I wanted the option to keep this display up all year if needed.

My little helpers love the assembly part of the process.

I updated this post to share photos of some of the quotes I’ve used this year so far. You can see more Christmas ones HERE & some Valentines Day ones HERE.

I love playing around with the spacing and quotes. This letter board wreath wall is truly eye candy for any time of the year.

I do miss my barnwood gather artwork, but this is so unique & simplistic that it makes my heart happy every time I walk by it.

I can’t wait to share my house all decked out for Christmas with you all! So stay tuned. Also, if you create a version of this letterboard I want to see it! Tag me up on Instagram: @welivedhappilyeverafter

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