Moss Letters "How To"

As you can see, I decided on the moss letters for the bride & groom chairs.
I've gotten a lot of feedback asking how to make them, so here it is!

{Final Product - minus the hanging ribbon}

This project is actually pretty messy - I would recommend opening up a plastic trash bag, almost like you would for a Christmas tree, and doing all of your cutting and gluing on top of that. It makes cleanup MUCH faster! Put your cutting board or a piece of cardboard inside it and bring the bag up around it.


This is what you will need: paper and a printer to print out your letter, florist foam, moss cloth, sharpie, scissors, tape, utility knife, hot glue gun, florist pins, ribbon, free time, and a big glass of wine.


I used instant green moss cloth instead of the usual free form moss for a clean, modern look. It's also much more green than ordinary moss.


I used a simple helvetica font (which has a lot of straight lines) - it makes cutting much easier. I printed mine 10" tall on regular copy paper, but you could also use cardstock. I would avoid script fonts unless you have a lot of free time on your hands. :)


Cut out your letter and tape it to the foam. Then use your sharpie to trace the outline onto the foam.


If you put a straight side of your letter up against a side of the foam, you don't have to cut that side. Time saver! Ex: I put the left side and bottom of my B in the left, bottom corner of the foam.


Cut in straight lines. Don't try to make your blade curve - it won't happen. Cut off your negative space to get closer to the letter. Notice how the garbage bag catches all of the excess. :)


Then make small cuts away from your letter so that when you begin cutting along your letter's edge, these pieces will fall away. It keeps your edge much cleaner. Make sure to change your blade pretty often. You will notice that if your blade get's dull, you will get a jagged edge instead of a clean cut.


Then you have your beautiful foam letters. Don't worry if your lines aren't completely smooth, you'll be covering them up with moss anyway. This project is very forgiving. If you accidentally take out a large chunk of foam. Stick it back on with a toothpick and hot glue... no one will know.


Spread out your moss cloth and center your letter face down. This will make the front of your letter completely smooth. Each of my 10" letters used one package of moss. (Total of 2 packages.)


Cut slits in your moss out away from your letter so that it will wrap around without folding.


Start on the more straight sides and fold the moss up and over your letter. Hot glue it to the foam and secure the larger pieces with a florist pin. We will hide these later. Continue around the letter, piece by piece. Cut the strips to fit up against each other like a puzzle.




It's ok if you can see lines. When you are finished, take your utility knife and gently scrape away some of the overlap so that the pieces blend into each other.


Use some of the scrap pieces to fill in the inside of the letter where your folded pieces didn't reach. Blend them into each other like above.


When your letter is complete, push a florist's pin (about 3/4 of the way in) into the back of your letter. Loop your ribbon through, then push it the rest of the way in. For my letters, I used two pins each, about 2" from the top of the letter.


You then use the ribbon to hang your letters! (Back shown)

Overall, it's a pretty easy project - just more time consuming than I had thought.
It's a great personal touch to your wedding decor!

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