Do you ever get a craft idea in your head and decide to make it and it goes smoothly from start to finish? Yeah, me either. I always end up with so many bumps in the road and have to rethink and reimagine and take apart and redo. This Christmas JOY sign was no exception.
BUT, I will show you all of my mistakes and mishaps, so you can make your Christmas JOY sign easy from start to finish!
This was the original location I planned on hanging the sign after I finished making it. Just a small little wall space between the end of our living room windows and the corner before walking into the kitchen. I ended up not liking that location, so I moved it. I will show the final location at the end of this post.
The image in my head at the beginning, was simply JOY spelled out on the glass frames, with nothing behind the glass. Just floating JOY on the wall. I already had Cricut red glitter iron-on, so I decided to use that. Then, I found these iridescent silver frames at Dollar tree. They are 4X4 and I thought they would be perfect for the JOY lettering.
First, I opened the frames and removed the glass and the backing and pins that secured the glass inside. Since I didn’t plan on using the backs, I would just glue the glass back inside.
Then I went to Cricut Design space, found a simple font I liked for JOY and printed it out. If you also use iron-on, make sure you put the shiny side down on your mat and check the box to mirror the image. Then weed your letters and place them on the frame. Center them how you want them.
Last Christmas, my husband got me the Cricut easypress mini. Before now, I have never used it. So he was happy I was finally using it. I’ve only used Cricut iron-on twice before and just used my regular iron for them. And let me tell you, this thing is awesome. It was so much simpler using this than my big, heavy, regular iron.
Next, I used the easypress mini on low and with a piece of parchment over the iron-on letters, I pressed them on the glass of the frames. Now, I don’t know if the parchment paper is needed or not, but I wasn’t sure how the glass was going to take the heat from the minipress. So I used that as an extra precaution.
After I had all the letters on the glass. I put them back in the frames and that is when I got the idea to use ribbon. I thought it would look great with a bow at the top and the ribbon connecting the frames with a tail at the bottom.
I began making a bow and hot glued the ribbon to the edges of the frames. Now remember, I wanted JOY to just float in the frames and didn’t want to see the ribbon behind it. This is when I really realized my mistake in the whole idea because of the frames I had chosen. The frames are so narrow, and we usually use command strips to hang stuff on the walls. I knew command strips weren’t going to work, because the frames just didn’t have the thickness for a command stip. Then I thought, well we can use some small little nails for them. Double uh oh. There really is no edge or lip on the frame to sit on a nail.
This is when I asked my husband for help.
I told him I needed him to help me figure out a way to hang these on the wall. I showed him the dilemma with using command strips and nails. He figured we could use command strips, just cut them smaller. So he started cutting the command strips down and attaching them to the edges of the frames. Then, we realized the command strips would cause a gap between the wall and the ribbon. So we were going to use a different ribbon, so the command strips wouldn’t be visible like they would under the red ribbon. And we would just attach the ribbon separately to the wall and then hang the frames over it. My husband then saw me trying to ‘eyeball’ keeping everything straight and got a straight edge out for me.
As you can see in the above picture, the tiny little command strips we tried to use to hang them on the wall. My husband was getting frustrated because everytime he picked the frames up, he could see the command strips through the glass. So he said to give him a few minutes to regroup and figure out another way to hang them.
At this time, I want to point out that these are not sturdy wood frames. They are more plastic like and it is really easy to touch it wrong and a little chunk fall off of it. So we couldn’t put a picture hanger on it with a hammer. And really, with the glass staying in it, I would prefer not to use something attached with hot glue to hang it.
So I had this striped Christmas cardstock and grabbed a piece and put it under one of the frames. My husband looked at it and said, “hey, that looks really good”. So, even though my original idea was to have the JOY floating on the frames. I cut the cardstock to size and used hot glue in the corners and a very thin line around the sides and put it in the frames. Then I went back to the original red ribbon I was going to use, because the black, red and white plaid ribbon did NOT go with the cardstock. Although I did make a different bow.
Now the lighting isn’t very good in my house, plus it was super late at night when I actually hung this on the wall. But as you can see, I moved it from that small little spot beside my living room windows. Also, since I added the cardstock to the back, I didn’t need to hide the command strips, so I could use the whole strip and not have to cut it down. I glued the bow to the ribbon and then hung it on the wall using a command strip. Then I used two command strips on each side of each frame and hung the frames over the ribbon.
Really, the lighting in my house does not do this justice. The cardstock is kind of shimmery as is the ribbon and bow. And of course, the glitter iron on is very glittery.
I actually decided to hang this beside the Reindeer names post I did last week. So here they are together.
So take it from mistakes and either, choose a different, easily hangable frame. Or go ahead and use cardstock. Now I love how it looks and even though, I really wanted the floating on the frame look, I am very happy with the end result.
Let me know if you have any tips or ideas on how I could’ve still made it work. Comments, suggestions and ideas are always welcome!
Looking for other Christmas wall decor and crafts to do?
Beautiful (and Easy!) Christmas Scene using Giftbags and Frames
Love this!! Switched it up and secured it around the front door. Went with a winter/snowy palette of blues and silvers to match my gray siding..Turned out simple and elegant, no one has anything like it and the compliments keep rolling in from the neighbors.
Sounds gorgeous with those colors! I’m so glad you made it and love it!