the DIY: MARQUEE LETTERS/ NUMBERS

So glad I finally got around to making these letters/ numbers. We've had the supplies forever! We can't afford the beautiful metal marquee letters that shops and restaurants have so I made a budget friendly version. Here's what you will need to make your own:
- Poster board, I used about 3 sheets
- Foam board, I used 2 of these
- Pencil
- Scissors
- X-acto knife & cutting board
- Hot glue
- Spray Paint
- Strand of Christmas lights

Start off by drawing your letters or numbers on your foam board. I just hand drew our numbers but you could print out a stencil from your computer if you'd like.

Cut out the numbers with the X-acto knife.

Here are ours all cut out.

Draw lines on your poster board with 4 inches in between each line.

Cut out the strips.

Hot glue the middle of the strips to the sides of the foam board shapes.

Here's a better picture of how the poster board strips have 2 inches on both sides of the foam board.

Here is the "8" finished. This part takes patience.

Spray paint the number and mark with a Sharpie where you want the lights to be. Our bulbs are smaller so we want to have a good amount of lights in each number.

Use the X-acto knife to poke a hole where the Sharpie marks are and twist the knife to make the holes big enough for a light to push through.

Push the light bulb through the hole from the back.

It should look something like this, a.k.a. kind of messy.

Here's what it looks like in the front...

And all lit up!

You could leave your letters all white if you'd like but these are going in our kitchen. Our kitchen is extremely colorful so it only seemed right for these to be colored.

See what I mean? hah.