Well, I’m now past the half way mark and pretty surprised I’ve managed to keep up all the Christmas posts. Roman has a cold and a new crop of teeth coming through this week 🙁 He likes to get them in batches, which means we don’t get a lot of sleep during the weeks he gets new teeth. I’m being very productive in my down time though, and these festive crafts are lots of fun. Here’s the 7th day of Christmas.

I found these cardboard letters at a discount store for a few dollars each and though they were pretty cool, so picked a few up for this project.

These letters aren’t limited to Christmas either, I think they’d be great done up in a little girls’ favourite colour for her bedroom.

Glitter Letters

You’ll need:
Paper mache letters – mine are about 25cm (10″) tall
Acrylic paint
Glitter
Découpage Glue (Mod Podge)* – see below to make your own
Clear gloss spray paint

First, give your letters a couple of coats of the acrylic paint. Mine needed 2 coats.

When they are totally dry, you can add the glitter. Lay out a large sheet of paper to catch your glitter. I used an opened out cereal box, but newspaper would also work. Using the découpage glue, paint the sides of the letters. I left it for a minute to go tacky, then went over it again with an unloaded brush to make the layer nice and even. Shake the glitter onto the glue.

If you missed a spot, just carefully add some more glue and then sprinkle on more glitter. Let it dry.

Using a dry paintbrush, wipe off any glitter that is hanging around on the fronts of the letters (the un-glittered sides). Now, take to the outdoors and give the letters a couple of coats of clear gloss spray paint to make them nice and shiny, but most importantly to seal the glitter so that it doesn’t all fall off every time you touch it.

*To make your own Mod Podge, put some pva (white glue) into a jar and add half that amount of water. Put the lid on and shake to mix it evenly. The consistency should be like cream. It will keep in the jar for quite a while.