SPOOKY Letters

I have been out of town for 3 weeks (two weeks for work and one for vacation... yeah!).  So this week I am in the office catching up, I looked at the calendar and it hit me... PANIC... October is half over and I haven't done any Halloween decorations.  I had a goal to be the cool mom (like my mom was) and make each holiday a blast for my baby and I seem to be failing.  I had created some letters for my son's room to decorate it and love them, so here I am redoing them for Halloween.  I call them SPOOKY letters :)

So I started by buying some chunky wooden letters at my local craft store (I bought these at Joann's and used 40% off coupons with my sisters help).

Then I looked through my scrapbook papers and found some fun black and white plaids.  Since they would be free, I decided to use them instead of buying some Halloween specific prints.  I also gathered my Black acrylic paint and Mod Podge (a standard for any crafter's house).

I did a light sanding on the edges of the letters, then painted the edges black.  I made sure to cover about 1/4 inch of the top in case my paper wasn't cut exactly.

After the paint was dry, I turned the letter upside down and traced it on the back of the  scrapbook paper.  Then cut out all the letters just to the inside of the line so that they were not larger than the top of the letters.  When I do it again, I will actually cut about 1/4 inch to the inside of the letters so the black shows a little around the edge and there will be no spots where the paper is slightly hanging off.  These are seasonal decor, so I wasn't too picky :)

Then Mod Podge the scrapbook letters to the top of the wooden letters.  Put a layer of Mod Podge on the top of the wood, lay the paper on top of it and get it lined up QUICK, cause this stuff drys instantly.  Then put another layer of Mod Podge over the top of the paper.  Again, if I was doing these for non-season decor, I would have also Mod Podged the sides of the wood, but I decided not to on these ones.

Let them dry overnight.

Then you can hang them on your wall.  I like the off-kilter look for my SPOOKY letters.  You will have to imagine with me that the letters are hung really cute on my wall, because somewhere in my house is an entire bag of the new Command picture hanging strips that I cannot find.  I looked for over an hour yesterday, then again today, and will have to give in to buying more at the store to hang my Halloween decor (then I know they will immediately appear after I buy more).  So we are pretending my dinning table is a wall right now!

I also made some of these fabulous 3D pumpkin pictures from Eighteen25.  She is going crazy with Halloween ideas this year and got me all excited to decorate.  I used Dollar store frames and a couple pieces of purchased scrapbook paper (I needed paper with a creepy, vintagey vibe).

Here is a picture of the Safari letters that I did for my son's African animal inspired room.  For these letters, I stained the wood a dark brown to match the furnishings, then I tore the paper instead of cutting it (it was way harder but gave a really great effect).  I definitely Mod Podged the entire letter since they are staying up for a long time.

Hope you are having fun getting ready for Halloween, next I need to frantically make 3 costumes.  Wish me luck :)