HOPEFUL WANDERING: Marquee Letter DIY

I was cleaning my room at around 11pm this past friday night.
I know...I'm such a fun person...you don't have to tell me!!

What's even better is i was watching Mary Poppins while cleaning.
And i don't know about you but when i watch Mary Poppins i just get
this cleaning bug and i can have my whole room sparkling in under an hour!!
It's just a magical movie...

Anyways...
I would occasionally take a break to watch the movie or peruse the web
and while perusing i saw a lady who was making a Marquee Letter.
It was seriously the coolest thing ever and after i saw that it was all i could think of.

I've had my big letter E for years now.
It's just been decorated with some sparkly ribbon...
But after i saw that picture i decided that my big letter E was
destined for greater things than some simple sparkly ribbon.

So after I finished cleaning I took the letter
off of my wall and started brainstorming how i could make
my own Marquee letter.

I didn't look at any DIY's when making this...i just kind of did it
and it worked really really well...so well that i wanted to share it with you!!

First of all you'll need these supplies

Paper Mache Letter {Can be found here}

Bulb lights {Can be found here}

Box cutter

Pen

Ruler

Then just follow these steps

First take your letter and lay it down in the correct way it should face. You'll be cutting the face off of the letter. Take your box cutter and go around the corners of the letter so that you're ONLY cutting the top layer of the letter off...That way your letter is open and hollow.

Like this!!

After you have cut the face of the letter off you'll want to turn it over and measure the entire back side of the letter. So take a ruler and lay it on every part of the back of the letter so that you know how much room you have to work with when putting in your lights. Ex. My letter was 66inches

After you've measured your letter count the number of bulbs you have on your strand. My letter was 66 inches and i had 25 bulbs. So I divided 25 from 66 and had 2.64 inches to spread out for each bulb. So i put a Pen mark where i wanted my first bulb to go, then i measured approximately 2.5 inches and marked my next spot...and so on and on until my entire letter had 25 evenly spaced dots on the back.

So now that your dots are placed you will need to unscrew your bulb from the strand, then make a little hole over your dot so that the light strand will poke through, then screw your bulb in on the other side so you're not making a huge hole. I did some trial and error runs on my letter...so some of the holes look worse than the others, but i finally figured out a system and it worked perfectly!!

So now your letter will look like THIS...

Cool Right??!!! :)

As you can see there are wires sticking out, I just used a few zip ties to pull the wires out of the way so that they are placed nicely behind the letter. You don't want wires sticking out...It kind of ruins the look ;)

So now that all of that is done you're basically finished.

You just need to find the perfect place to hang this beauty. And you might need an extension cord since the plug is really close to the letter.

Warning - This is just a fun light to use for a minimal amount of time...since it is paper mache and it has lights on it i would be careful to not leave it on when no one is around...I'm not saying it will catch fire or anything like that but just be safe and only have it on if you're in the room.

And make sure the lights are evenly spaced and are not touching the sides :)

It really is such an easy little project and it has such an amazing effect once finished!! I am considering the idea of selling these if i get enough people interested....So far i've had multiple people asking so if you're interested feel free to message me about it :)

So there you have it...your very own inexpensive Marquee Letter Light :)