A is for Abby

The downside of being the youngest is that Abby's was made second, so she had to wait longer for hers. The upside is that I was able to make hers better because I had learned from all of my mistakes on the first one. I used the font Headline News and made my letter size 600. I knew I would be using an 8"x10" frame so I then adjusted the dimensions of my letter to 7"x8.5" in my Silhouette program. Pick a font you like and then play around with the sizes to get one that fits with your frame. I cut out my letter using the Silhouette and then traced it using a pencil onto an 8"x10" piece of white foamcore board. I just traced it lightly this time and used a dashed pencil line. Less erasing that way. Another change was the foamcore board. This worked really, really well because my push pin embellishments went right in but not though it and it held them in tightly too. Buttons were a bag of brights from Wal-Mart. And I used the jewelled thumbtacks and half pearls from the dollar store as well as some rhinestone gems this time. And my flower brads too. I again used American Crafts adhesive runner for the bottom buttons, until I ran out. Then I used Elmer's Craft Bond Foam Glue for the rest of the bottom buttons and all of the top row. This worked SOOO much better than hot glue. You do have to wait longer for it to dry but it actually works and there is no burns trying to hot glue tiny buttons! And even if your button does shift a bit while drying, it dries clear so that's a plus too. This time I wasn't as picky about filling in all the spots on the bottom row because I knew one big button on top would fill in any bottom spaces. Another difference was that I used the little gemstones on both the bottom and the top row to fill in spaces this time. Erased my dashed lines as I went. Remove the glass from your frame and put your foam core letter right in. Put the back on, mine fit absolutely perfectly with the foamcore, and you are done.
My lessons learned: If you use a very thick button, it will be very hard to fill in around it because there is not a level surface on top to put another button on. This is where my brads and thumbtacks really came in handy. It is also a good idea to put two buttons of similar heights together so that you do have something level to glue the top row to.