J-O-Y - with decoupage... | Midwestern Girl

I originally shared this project over on Lines Across My Face as part of Rachel's The 13 Crafts of Christmas series...but I wanted to run it again, just in case you may have missed it...(smile)...

Today I want to share a little project I did to spruce up some cardboard letters I had left over from my kids' Christmas card photo shoot...

These are the letters pre-makeover...they are about 24" tall and are made of cardboard (I got them at Jo-Ann)...I had spray-painted them white for the photos, but they got kind of nicked up and dirty from being outside for the photos...

I knew I wanted to add some design and color to them, but I wasn't quite sure how...I CAN NOT hand-paint anything (except walls and stuff that can be messy...painted details ain't my thang)...so I knew I would probably have to decoupage them. But with what paper? These letters are big...and paper's not...hmmm...AHA!!! Wrapping paper! The perfect sized-paper for the big ol' things! And I had just the stuff...

We were at IKEA last week and I picked up some of the most darling Christmas items...including this fantastic wrapping paper...

See it over there on the left? It's really cute...white w/charcoal grey snowflakes...
I also gathered up my white acrylic paint & decoupage...both by DecoArt...and my repositionable spray adhesive from Krylon...

I spread out the wrapping paper and laid each letter face down...make sure you lay the letters face down if you are tracing onto the white side of the paper...that way you can ensure that you cut the printed side so that it fits the letter...

After you finish tracing all of the letters, cut them out...don't worry about fussy-cutting, the edges won't really matter.

I then sprayed each of my letters with adhesive and laid my cut-out letters on top. I do this only because I find it easier to just lift up a corner of the paper and spread on some decoupage, rather than try to spread the glue all over the piece and then struggle to get the paper on right...

Decoupage your paper cut-outs onto your cardboard letters following the directions on the bottle...I ADORE the DecoArt Decoupage because it comes in a squeeze bottle...I just squeeze some of the glue directly onto my project...no need to pour a bunch into a bowl to work with. This decoupage is also a little thinner than some, so I've found I don't need to water it down at all to get it to spread nicely...

Once the decoupage dried, I turned my letters over, and, with a craft knife, I cut the hangy-over paper off...(now you see why fussy-cutting is not necessary)...

Next I took one of my little cheap paint brushes and dry-brushed the white paint over the edges of the letters...this gives them the effect of age and wear...