Decorated Marquee Letters & Gallery Wall

If you’ve been to Michaels in the past few months then you’ve seen those awesome little marquee letters by Heidi Swapp. You know, the customizable ones? The cute little bulbs? I’ve passed by them so many times, my iron will wavering, since I already have a problem spending too much money at the craft store. I don’t buy shoes or clothes or makeup… I buy craft supplies. A lot of craft supplies. I’ll admit it. This is basically me:

And even with my craft store addiction I still couldn’t justify spending 13 bucks a pop on those pretty, customizable marquee letters. So I walked by, week after week, admiring them, picking up the boxes, and oogling the pretty shapes and letters, and brushing away a single tear. But last week they were FINALLY ON SALE! 50% off! Combined with a coupon for a percentage off my entire purchase (including sale items, score!) the marquee letters were finally at a price I would feel comfortable spending! Huzzah! So I eagerly snatched up an ‘N’ (for my husband, Nate), an ampersand, and an ‘E’ for me.

Since these letters are customizable, I also picked up some awesome brick scrapbook paper to give my letters a rustic/industrial/modern feel.

The super handy-dandy thing about the Heidi Swapp marquee love letters is that they come with a template so you can trace it onto whatever paper or filler you want! Which is much easier and produces a MUCH better result than if I tried to freehand it. Seriously.

After tracing the letters and the little holes where the bulbs go, I cut out each letter carefully with a pair of scissors. To minimize the pain-in-the-buttedness of trying to cut out all the tiny light bulb holes, I opted instead to take my craft knife and cut an X through the middle of each circle so that I could just push the bulb through. Like so:

After I popped in my brick paper it was then just a simple process of butting the light bulb covers (which are plastic, thank goodness) through the holes and then sticking the little lights through the back. The letters also come with a little diagram so you know where to put each of the lights on the strand. Handy dandy, I tell you!

I just repeated the process for each of the letters (the ampersand was a little harder to make fit into the marquee because of all the curves and my cutting isn’t always so precise). But a little while later I had my beautiful letters all finished and ready to be hung up in my bedroom gallery wall 🙂 They are so fun, aren’t they?

There is a little bit of wall above the gas fireplace in our bedroom, and I knew it needed a little bit of a facelift, so I decided to hang up these marquee letters there and turn it into a mini gallery wall about me and my husband. I think it turned out quite cute for such a small space!

My little mason jar terrarium even found a home underneath this gallery wall! I wanted this wall to be all about our love, so I put up my first ever Silhouette project (the globe) and a sweet love quotes canvas that I found at Marshall’s. All of these things definitely capture how my husband and I feel about each other! 🙂

This little dinosaur/geode is one of my husband’s most prized possessions from his childhood. Dinosaurs are quirky and awesome and I’m a big fan of the sparkly purple crystals!

I used mostly white in this gallery wall as the space is so small and I didn’t want to overwhelm it with too many colors. I did incorporate some different patterns/textures for interest, like the brick marquee letters and the little wood frame (a Homegoods find) with a picture of us from a summer trip to Leavenworth last year.

The marquee letters are just sitting on some tacks, so they are super easy to take on and off when we want the lights to glow! The lights are actually super bright and have a more white/blue hue to them than traditional yellowy incandescent bulbs. I think they look neat just hanging there, even if they aren’t turned on!

This wall feels so much more finished now that I actually have things hanging on it! One step closer to a completed master bedroom 🙂 I love how it represents us and our marriage and is something that we can see from our bed for a great reminder every morning when we wake up.

Have any of you bought/used these adorable marquee letters? I’d love to see photos of how you customized them!