a busy weekend + JOY wall display

How are all my friends on this Monday morning?  Today, I have declared as a stay-in-our-jammies, snuggle-on-the-couch kind of Monday.  Well, it's cold outside for one, and I am exhausted from the weekend for another, and major reason... I have to work tonight, and the thought of it is making me tired...

Speaking of a busy weekend.. remember when I said I was going car shopping?
 OK are you ready for this?

BAM!  Be jelly!  A minivan driving momma!  It doesn't get much better than that.  I'll spare you the many reasons why this is good for our family from space, to expansion {no not currently}, to finances... I never thought I'd be sporting the minivan but for now, this is IT friends.  Awesome-sauce!

and since I took one for the team with my minivan purchase... I also got a little reward.

that's right, Christmas came early for me.. I had to convince my husband that it made entirely way more sense for me to start using this camera now instead of waiting until Christmas. I mean we wanted to take lovely photo's of us actually enjoying the holiday right.. So yes, I have been taking pictures of anything and everything in my path. and YES I am loving this upgrade.  and also, excited to brush up on my skills and hone in on my inner photographer. {right}


so Let's get down to business...

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continuing on my 12 days of DIY Christmas lovelies...

another sign/wall display/sits on a plate holder DIY
{mine is sitting beautifully on my mantle}

the JOY wall display

I had originally planned on making some sort of sign for my mantle that said JOY, however, the craft store was not cool with that, because they were out of O's.. OK, I am actually glad they were out because I improvised and replaced my O with a holly wreath and think its cuter...

first step... spray paint your letters. I love the metallic spray paint and I went with bronze. I think the metallic silver is bomb, but it just doesn't go with my house.. but either way will look great.

 I had a piece of thin MDF from home depot, that was left over from another project... so find a board, whatever size you want.. Or else ask the gentlemen at home depot to cut it to size, or in my case my handy dandy hubby cut mine... I would guess mine is 2 1/2 ft by 1 1/2 ft...

 I had {still do} a ton of left over red burlap from my Christmas skirt tutorial, you can read about here if you missed it {it's a good one}.. and I cut it a fuzz bigger than my MDF board

 pull the edges of the burlap around your board and staple them into place.  pull it tight as you go

 if it's not perfect, don't fret.. the burlap is really forgiving...

 tada! nice work..

staple your wreath in place, yes staple, don't worry it will still look OK...

 I stapled the wreath in place underneath where the leaves were, knowing that I would just dab some hot glue to keep those leaves down and hide my staples...

hot glue your letters in place.. and ...

display that baby for all to see...

You just made an easy peasy and absolutely adorable JOY sign...

cost:
MDF 6.77 per sheet {I only used about a quarter of mine}
burlap // on sale for 2.99 a yard... {you could get away with 1/2 yard for this project}
letters // on sale for 1.50 each
spray paint // I had laying around but you can get it for around 3.00 at home depot
holly wreath // 50% off at Joann 2.99

I'll be back tomorrow with some more goodies... until then, peace I'm out!