My mom planned this project, got all the supplies and pretty much did it all with me helping a little bit. It was kind of a surprise project when she came to visit me when I had the baby and it was a nice distraction for the week we waited before I went into labor.
The base of each letter is a chunk of plywood. The backgrounds are the leftover fabrics from the quilt she made for the crib. Originally the zebra print didn't fit because the white was too bright compared to the rest, so she dyed it with a cheap tea bag. We used a hot glue gun to glue the fabric to the wood. The letters she got at Robert's crafts. The edges were painted red, then the whole letters were painted white. Sanding the edges showed the little red edge. We glued red gross-grain ribbon around the borders.