Large Valentine X’s and O’s made out of lathing strips

Large Valentine X’s and O’s made out of lathing strips

When it comes to home decorating there are hundreds of thousands of talented ladies out there.  I sit in amazement some days at the creativity of some women! What’s even more awesome is that these women are willing to share their talents with us. This big project of X’s and O’s came from a broadcast that was on KSL’s Studio 5.  The creator was Clockworkdesign. So far I haven’t found that she has a blog but she does do television segments with Brook Walker on studio 5.  Like always we instantly fell in love and had to have our own sets!

We started with a bundle of Lathing strips that you can purchase at any local hardware or building supply store.  A lath strip is usually a narrow and thin strip of wood. These are commonly used in lattice and trellis’s

As you can see from the pictures we cut the strip’s into several different lengths.  For the X’s after being cut each Lathing strip measures: 24″ tall.

For the O’s it gets a little more complicated. The side strips measure: 21″  While the corner strips measure 3″ and the top and bottom pieces of the O measure:  6″  in length.

We cut these wood lathing strips by hand using a jig saw. The Jig saw made it so they were both fast and easy cuts.  Once they were cut we painted them with a light pink color in which we applied very sparingly to give the strips a rather rustic look. We opted to glue our letters together as putting a small nail through them can cause these thin strips to crack.  We chose to use good old hot glue but I am sure you could use wood glue or E6000.  They take longer to dry and we just couldn’t wait to see them finished and put up!

My X’s and O’s letters sit arranged in a row on top of my fireplace mantle, I’ve already had so many comments on how fun and cute they are! Believe me they were a fast and really easy project.