just.about.life: Ho Ho Ho how-to

Don't you just love how a day turns into almost a week. Sorry about that, it just got really busy around here.

So here is the how-to.

Items needed: computer/printer with a Word program, foam board, paint, glue, glitter, and ribbon.

First thing you need to do is to find a font you like in Word (or whichever program you choose to use) and print out the word HO. I used the font "Harrington" for this project. Next I cut out the letters so I could trace them onto my poster board. Here they are after cutting them out.

This is the type of board I used. It's 3/16" foam board. I've used thicker for other projects and it works just fine (actually, they look even more like the real wood letters the thicker your board is).

Then just trace the letters on however you choose. Make sure you trace 3 H's and 3 O's! I like to squeeze them on there so I have a good amount of scraps left, you never know what you can use it for.

Here are my letters all cut out and ready to be painted. I used an exacto knife to get a nice clean edge.

I chose to do a trick I learned from Pinterest (originally from this blog). Basically, you just insert tacks to the back of your project so when you paint the front it's raised off of the table, resulting in no sticking. I would say it worked just about as good as I thought it would. Although it's not a necessary step.

Sorry I don't have any pictures from the painting/ gluing stages. All I did was paint the edges red and I used my homemade "mod podge" (from this blog) to apply the glitter. The glitter did need two coats so I made sure the first was dry before I applied the second. The end result is nice and thick. Once they were completely dry I decided I wanted to attach each H to an O. To do this I just used a hot glue gun. At the same time I used the hot glue to add my ribbon to the bottom of each letter. I used red and white, alternating for each letter. Therefore, each H had a red ribbon attached and each O had a white one. I also just guessed the length of each ribbon (although now I wish I had made them longer). After all of that, it was time to hang them. I just used a small nail and drove it though the center of the H, near where I had glued the two letters together.

Here they are all hung up on the wall. Cute, huh? There's just one problem. Can you see it? It's not too noticeable from this angle so lets get a closer look.

Ah, there it is. Since I nailed them in the center they were bowing out on the sides. So what did I use to fix this..? Just some scotch tape attached to each letter where it was coming off of the wall. Did it work? Yep, it sure did. I've used scotch tape on my walls a few times (most recently for A's photo timeline for her party). I'm not exactly sure why it holds so well (I had to pry A's pictures off when it was time to take them down) but I'm not complaining. Nothing could be easier than using scotch tape.

Here they are in all of their glory. Displaying all of my past/ current Christmas cards. I think it looks really cute and fits into my space quite nice.