Using Up Those Alphas Tutorial by Melinda Spinks

Who doesn't have a stash of alphas with all the most used letter missing? It can be extremely frustrating at times when you have plans for a title and not enough of the same font to make it work. Personally I'm not a fan of having so many packets of alphas sitting around so I like to come up with ways to use them... and today I'm going to share how I put together this shadow box alpha heart.

Step 1 | I used one of the 8x8 Doodlebug shadow boxes in white and I emptied my drawer of every alpha sheet I had.

Step 2 | I measured the inner section of my shadow box and printed out a heart shape to fit the frame.

Step 3 | Using an embossing tool and a cork mat I traced around the heart onto my chosen piece of patterned paper. This creates an embossed line instead of using a pencil which would need to be rubbed out later.

Step 4 | Starting at the bottom of the heart I created random words using a selection of different alphas and rub-ons. I actually found quite a few existing words on some of my rub-ons that I hadn't used to it was great to start using up some of those too.

Step 5 | I continued working my way up the heart using an ombre effect in rainbow colours and choosing words that I could make with the left over alphas. Some of words didn't quite fit which resulted in a few gaps that I filled using a selection of the Doodlebug brads.

With subway art being so popular, it really is a wonderful time to start creating some home decor pieces that will help you use up that pile of alphas you've been hoarding. Thank you for stopping by today and I hope I've inspired you to have a little fun! - Melinda