You’ve seen a lot of rustic decorations for JOY but have you seen how to make a glitzy JOY Christmas decoration? I love sparkly gold decorations at Christmas and that inspired this beautiful display! The more rustic look might not be our cup of tea but this just fits perfectly with the rest of the decor.
JOY Christmas Decoration How-To
Supplies:
- Paper Mache Letters
- Grapevine Wreath
- Decorative gold Christmas Picks
- Design Master 24 kt Gold Spray Paint
- Gold acrylic craft paint
- Gold glitter
- Mod Podge or white glue
- Fairy Lights – battery operated
- Wire cutter
- Foam brush
- Florist wire
or white glue
– battery operated
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The paper mache letters bought for this were 16″ but you could use 12″ or even 8″. The battery pack might be a little harder to hide with the 8″ wreath though.
Paint
The first step for creating this ‘JOY’ decor is to paint the paper mache letters and the wreath. Paint the grapevine wreath with the spray paint. Spray paint the entire surface of the letters, front, back, and sides of the wreath. If you are placing it somewhere that both sides will be visible, this is really important.
Two light coats on each side should be sufficient. The paint dries very quickly.
Using the foam brush, paint the paper mache letters gold with the acrylic craft paint. One good coat should cover well enough. Cover each of the letters completely with paint. If you like, you can just spray paint the paper mache letters. I had the craft paint and chose to use it.
Attaching the gold Christmas picks
After the paint has dried on the wreath, cut the Christmas pick where the branches meet the stems. Place them on the wreath where you wish. I followed the grapevine pieces that wrapped around the bulk of the grapevine, essentially holding it all together. The cut pieces are bent slightly to follow the curve of the grapevine pieces.
You can see that the stems are placed right over top of the grapevine pieces that wrap the wreath.
We could stop here. The JOY Christmas decoration already looks good, doesn’t it? Yes, but a little more glitz is what I have in mind.
Applying The Glitter To The Letters
Using the foam brush, apply a coat of Mod Podge on one side of the letter J and then pour the gold glitter all over it. You can use white glue for this but I like the Mod Podge. Use newspaper to capture any excess. You can pour the excess back into the jar then. Repeat on the opposite side.
On the larger surfaces, brush the Mod Podge on to a smaller area, pour the glitter over the Mod Podge but leave about an inch of the wet glue. Then, brush on the remaining area so you have the foam brush brushing into the wet Mod Podge and not the glitter. Add more glitter, allow that section to dry and repeat until all surfaces are covered in glitter.
Attaching The Fairy Lights
Back to the grapevine wreath, wrap the fairy lights around the wreath following the slant of the stems already glued to the wreath. I started at the bottom and ended up putting more on the right side than the left and had to adjust them. In retrospect, I should have divided the length of cord in half, started at the top and wrapped it around each side from the center.
Anyway, using florist wire, attach the battery pack on the back at the base of the wreath with florist wire. I threaded a wire through the grapevine on both ends of the pack, wrapped the wires around it, and then twisted both wires together to hold it more securely. Attach the battery pack so that the switch is on the bottom, easily accessible.
The Finished JOY Christmas Decoration!
It is finished and ready to be displayed for Christmas but that decorating doesn’t start until the day after Thanksgiving. My plan was to display this on the stair banister but wouldn’t it look nice on the fireplace mantel? Hmmm…
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