I seriously love Christmas, every aspect of it—the decorations, music, food, lights and gifts (both giving and receiving). As soon as Thanksgiving comes and goes, I bust out my boxes and boxes of decorations, turn on some holiday tunes and get to making my home a festive haven full of twinkly lights and holiday eye candy. There’s also something about the holidays that inspires me to get crafty, usually incorporating glitter in some way, shape or form. What can I say, I love me some sparkles!
The only holiday-themed bunting I have is from a free DIY template I printed out, cut up and strung together with yarn. It’s simple and festive, but since it’s made of paper it has taken a beating over the years. So, I thought I’d create something equally festive and a little hardier…crafting my own “happy holidays” banner.
What you’ll need:
– ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape
– Snowflake Punch (I used this one by Martha Stewart)
– 20 Wooden Discs
– Wood Stain
– Alphabet Stencils (I used these by Martha Stewart)
– Paint (I used Antique Silver and Bright Aqua Green)
– Paint Brushes
– Old Magazine
– Drill
– Ribbon
Let’s get started…
The first thing I did was stain my wooden discs. I like a darker wood than the discs came in, so I stained them with a walnut wood finish to get the shade I was looking for. It really didn’t take much stain at all.
Using my hole punch and ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape, I set out to make my snowflake stencils. I’m not gonna lie, I experienced some frustration with this process. Putting the tape directly in the hole punch led to a sticky mess of misshaped snowflakes and broken dreams. Luckily, my boyfriend suggested that we double or even triple the tape up to make it more hardy, and it worked! I still had to use tweezers to clear some of the tape out of the hole punch, but it was manageable.
He also suggested that we apply the double-layered tape to the pages of a glossy magazine before punching it. Another brilliant idea that totally worked.
Armed with my tape stencils, I applied them to seven (7) of newly stained wooden discs. These snowflake discs would go on the ends of my banner.
Once the stencils were set, I grabbed my glitter paint and applied a thick layer of the sparkly goodness. I found that removing the tape stencils while the glitter paint was still tacky was far easier and made for cleaner results than waiting until the paint was completely dry.
Using my stencils I grabbed the remaining 13 wooden discs and started painting on my letters, spelling out “happy holidays.”
Once all of my discs had dried, my boyfriend drilled small holes on opposing sides of the discs so we would have a way to string them together.
Once I had all my discs connected, I strung them up above my fireplace using some red ribbon. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. What do you think?
This post is a collaboration with ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape. To join the creative community, visit www.facebook.com/ScotchBlue.
