From nurseries and dorm rooms to wedding gifts and everyday gifts, or even your own photo gallery, a rolled paper monogram is a fun way to personalize any given space. For today’s tutorial, we paired one of our chipboard monograms with the beautiful Grateful Heart paper collection.

Step One: What are you making and in what colors?

The very first thing to do is to figure out what you want to spell out, if not just a monogram, and in what color motif. For color coordination made easy, stick within one of our paper collections where the papers and accessories are purposefully designed using the same color palette. If you’re looking to mix things up—say you have some older papers from previous collections that you want to combine with some of your newer stash—the new Love of Color book is a great place to look for color combination ideas.

Step Two: Gathering your supplies.

For this project, other than paper and chipboard letters (and some basics like a ruler, paper trimmer, and hot glue gun), you will need a small dowel pin to wrap your paper around. The larger the dowel, the larger the paper rolls will be. As you are choosing a size, consider that tight rolls are not only harder to achieve but will also create smaller straws, meaning you will need more paper to cover your letter(s). In our example F, we achieved those tight rolls you see using a 3/16″ dowel. It took a total of 40 straws to cover the entire letter.

Step Three: Cutting your paper.

To know what size to cut your paper, measure the width of the letter(s) you are covering and then add 1/8″. Our F has three different widths at three different points. The long side is 2 3/8″, so those papers were cut 2½” wide. The top rung is 4 7/8″ wide, so those papers were cut 5″ wide. And the pieces for the bottom rung were cut at 4¾” because the letter itself measures 4 5/8″ wide. You don’t need very much paper to roll, lengthwise, so be conservative and stick around 2″. Our final pieces measure 2½” x 2″, 5″ x 2″, and 4¾” x 2″. A little tip for when you are cutting your paper, think about the pattern orientation. Make sure that when it’s time to roll your paper the pattern will face in the direction you want it to.

Step 4: Rolling your Paper.

We’re up to the fun part! Grab your pieces of paper and roll away, one by one. Start by wrapping your paper around the dowel and then, while holding the ends with your fingers, rolling it into a straw. If you are using a small dowel, you will want to have a misting pen handy. When the roll is too tight you run the risk of cracking the paper and exposing the white core. If you see this happening, and it’s not the look you are going for, lightly (lightly!) mist your paper with a little bit of water to give it some flexibility.

When you get to the end of your roll, secure the paper in place with hot glue. Hold it for a few seconds as it bonds and then carefully remove the dowel.

Repeat until all of your paper is rolled into a bunch of colorful gorgeous straws.

Step 5: Attaching your rolled paper.

With a hot glue gun, attach each of your rolled paper straws, one at a time, starting at the top and work your way down.

Your straws don’t have to be perfectly rolled or exactly the same size for the end product to still look awesome. Take a look at this side view of our perfectly imperfect F.

Have we got your creative juices flowing with this one? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

Recipe

Monogram F
X7237B Grateful Heart Paper Packet, X6027 White Daisy Cardstock, X6002 Espresso Cardstock, Z3238 Gold Glitter Paper, X7237C Grateful Heart Complements, Z3418 Chipboard Monogram—F, Z3386 Thin Cuts—Block Alphabet, 3/16″ Dowel, Hot Glue Gun

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