Christmas mantel

I decided this year that I wanted to change up my mantel for Christmas.

I have to tell you that I was going to show you what my mantel has looked like the past 4 years, but looking back through all my pictures, I never took a picture of my mantel at Christmas. So, I guess I’m going to have to explain it to you and you’ll have to use your imagination…

Here’s a picture after I put up the garland this year…

Remember my wonderful coffee filter wreath??? I just couldn’t take it down. Usually the mirror comes down a big Christmasy wreath goes up. The garland is lit with white lights, and Max sometimes likes to hide there. I also use to put black chunky candle sticks with red candles – two on either side.

It was pretty simple but I liked it that way. This year I decided to change it up and I wanted to make some decorations, so off to Michael’s I went.

And, this is what I bought…

You can’t see, but the angel has sparkly wings and the deer is a little sparkly too. Can’t be too fancy, right???

The first thing I did was paint the J O Y letters.

I found this green glitter spray paint and just had to have it. I painted the letters, but quickly found that the paint was not sticking well. I let it dry and then sanded it a bit. I found some light green paint in the garage and spray painted the letters again…take two.

Once the green paint dried, I lightly re-sprayed with the glitter. They dried and I hot glued them stacking on top of each other.

Cute, huh?

Next I took the small canvas and got an idea from a fellow blogger.

http://southernlovely.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-canvas.html

I gathered my things and got busy. I painted the canvas with kaki color first and let it dry. Next, I lightly painted on the bronze glaze and wiped some off with a paper towel.

Once all that was dry I taped off the bottom to make the stripes.

I didn’t want to copy totally the one canvas so I decided to come up with a different saying. I search the Silhouette website and found an adorable way to say “jolly”; and, that’s what I went with….

I hadn’t received my vinyl in the mail yet so I had to go to plan B. I printed out on cardstock and pulled out some Modge Podge.

I had not used it before and was a little nervous, but it worked great. I love the stuff!

And here’s the finished product…

The last thing I made was a felt Styrofoam tree.

First I cut out two different sized circles in cardstock….2 and 3 inches.

I traced the circles on the felt and started cutting.

I heated up the glue gun and once heated I started placing in overlapping pattern.

It didn’t take but a few minutes and it was finished.

And there you have it…three easy peasy craft projects to make for Christmas décor.

Once finished, I added a couple other things to the mantel and it was finished. I’m very pleased with it…and it just makes me happy.