Joy to the World!

Our mantle started out the season (you know all 7 days of it) looking like this:

It was okay, but I really wanted to do something more.  I thought about it for a bit and was inspired by two things.

Inspiration Number 1: My toenails after a wonderful pedicure with my sister over Turkey Day weekend. (Thanks, Mom!)  My sister and I got matching pedicures with the 'Christmas Special' (red sparkles over red polish).  The toddler foot in the picture belongs to Charm who saw me aiming my camera at my foot and decided to add his foot to the picture, as well.  Those precious toes!

Inspiration Number 2: The artwork of Camomile Hixon, which was featured on an episode of Home by Novogratz on HGTV.

Off to work I went using this canvas that was collecting dust in our basement utility room:

I had painted it several years ago for Lucky's room in our old house.  It was cute then, but it doesn't work in her room now.  So I took a picture of it for Lucky to see down the road, and got out my painting supplies and turned it back into a plain white canvas with Lucky's help.  (I was feeling brave that day!) 

We just rolled on flat white paint.

It was like new white with a bit of texture remaining from the last work of art.

Next, I cut out some letters from posterboard to use as stencils.  The scale of the letters was too large to use my computer to print off the letters, and I don't have a fancy craft machine like a Silhouette (maybe for my birthday next year and my half birthday and Christmas combined?), so I just did my best using a ruler and a compass as guides.

I traced the letters on to my newly white canvas with a pencil.

Then it was modge podge and glitter time!  I used a paint brush around the edges of each letter and worked in sections to complete the job before the modge podge dried up.

The Final Product:

I love it!!  And using an old canvas, along with paint, glitter and modge podge that we had on hand already it was FREE!  Check back later today to see another version of this project I created using homemade wreaths and the remnants from this project!

Linking up to Southern Hospitality.

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