How To-zday: Joy, Joy, Joy~*

You will have to forgive me,  I wasn't able to get my weekend crafts finished this week!  I was too busy making owl families~*

They came out so sweet!  And they will be shipped to their new homes later this week.  But they did eat up my time, especially in combination with garland hanging, tree decorating & the usual household chores.

The tree decorating shall be the subject of a separate post all together-- and I do have tons of other decorating & gift crafts in store {this is the last week of class, finals week is a lot less busy, and then I'm off for a month}.  And I did get a few other things started...but they'll have to wait until I have time to finish 'em.

No worries, this post is not completely how-to-less~*

I did get going on the mantel...

Emperor Augustus got a new wreath of silver berries & clear "snow" crystals...

Multicolor fairy lights woven in with lush vintage turquoise tinsel...

silver beaded trees & vintage glass ornaments both loose and in tall iridescent glass candleholders...

a little matryoshka doll set that my hubs & I picked up last month...

& my JOY papier-mâché that I made last year.

And therein lies the craft for this week...

It couldn't have been easier to make.  I used two 2" x 12" styrofoam sheets for the "J" & the "Y", and a 3x4x9 floral foam block cut in half for the "O."  After cutting out the "J" & the "Y," I used sandpaper to round the edges.  

Thing 1 joined in for the next part of the project.

We cut some pages from my childhood Disney Encyclopedia set-- the books themselves had been ruined in storage, so I've been using them here & there in craft projects to preserve the memories.  The pages were cut in to several different size strips to accommodate the curves of the letters.  We made good ole fashioned flour paste {1 part flour, 2 parts water-- stir until it is the consistency of paste} and started covering the letters.  We stuck the paper strip in the paste until the paper started to soften, then layered it on to the styrofoam...

...be prepared!  It takes time, its very VERY messy & it takes a few days to dry.  We sat on the kitchen floor after laying out unopened garbage bags to act as our dropcloth~*

We set the letters aside for their drying time & I got to work on the "O."

For the "O" I cut the 3x4x9 floral foam block in two {making it roughly 3x4x4}.  Then I got busy making paper roses.

Like the rest of the craft, the roses are easy.  I did a paper roses tutorial last spring-- here's a pattern, which you can copy and print out in 3 sizes {small, medium, large}:

The rest is self-explanatory!

As an aside, the roses make great gift toppings, ornaments, or paper vase arrangements too!  For the "O" I made the roses out of the same book pages that we covered the "J" and the "Y" with.  I shoved a wire in the center of the rose, then placed them all over the floral block in a general "O"-ish shape~*

And there you go!

We could have painted it, decoupaged it or even varnished it {for a more antiqued look,} but I decided to just leave it raw and let it yellow in its own time.

Welp, there you go!

I may add things to the mantel here or there, but I wanted to keep it fairly simple given the bright colors of the banner & the rest of the room's decorations {which, as previously indicated, will be the subject of a later post!}

Phew!

What projects have you been working on?