This Letter ‘E’ and the letter ‘R’ were both originally designed as a part of my logo that spells out the word “PAPER.”

But, when I was designing the letters, I intentionally made them so that each one could be used individually, framed and sold separately to display on a shelf or to hang on a wall.

The letter ‘E’ is made up of a colorful array of flowers with a butterfly and a little bee on it. It is a beautiful way to highlight one of your initials. To make up this Letter ‘E,’ I individually cut by hand each little flower.

After the flower is cut out, I then paint it in watercolor and gouache. This letter ‘E’ contains over 50 hand-cut and hand-painted flowers. Each petal is individually cut by hand, glued together to form the flower and then painted. The butterfly is “flying” just above the flowers, looking like it is about to land. The little bee in the bottom left hand corner is very busy checking out the gorgeous pink gerbera daisy.

For the letter ‘R,’  I wanted to highlight a bird in honor of a close friend of mine who enjoys taking bird photos. No matter where he goes he manages to find a bird to photograph — even when no one else can even see any wildlife in the vicinity, he will find one!

For this letter, I chose a blue heron, since they are also a very popular bird in my home state of Maryland. Here is just one of my friend’s many reference photos he generously let me use to make this tall, statuesque bird.

This letter ‘R’ was a little trickier to make than the flowery letter ‘E.’ Flowers can pretty easily transform into any of the letters of the alphabet. On the other hand, the blue heron and the tree shape had to conform to the shape of the letter ‘R.’ I added a couple of other birds in the tree and a cute little box turtle is sitting at the base of the tree on the left-hand side.

This three-dimensional letter is all made out of paper. I included a behind-the-scenes photo of the hand-drawn letters and you can also see the blue heron, all in white, before he got painted in watercolor and gouache.

Both letters are framed inside a custom wood shadowbox frame. The frame measures 10.75” L x 9” W x 2.5” D. Please contact Melinda Fabian if you would like to purchase either of the framed letters.

You can also custom order a personalized letter, which can include items that are important to you or your loved one, if you’d like to give it as a gift. Send me an email at melinda@MelindaFabian.com to discuss your custom letter initial.