B-O-O to you

In one of the crafting magazines I saw a variation on this project, using a pre-made kit. I found the idea (maybe) in August, but can't find the magazine now to give credit for the inspiration.

I started gathering materials so that I could make at least 2 wallhangings, picking up the paper-mâché letters at Michaels.

(We interrupt this blog post for a brief moment of humor; at one point I was traveling in the car with 2 B's & 2 O's. You do the spelling on THAT one!)

Most of the other materials I already had on hand, including the black acrylic paint, the designer paper and most of the ribbon, though that also got supplemented with another Michaels run. The embellishment-die cuts were either cut out using Sizzix dies (ghosts & pumpkin) or Cricut (spider).

The completed letters were linked together using black grosgrain ribbon. And that was possibly the HARDEST part of this whole project. Paper-mâché doesn't take staples very well. Several of the staple points in the end had to be glued down with white craft glue, then stapled multiple times with the staple gun (loaded with 1/2 inch staples).



SO..... first the letters were painted black on 3 sides.

Then each letter was traced onto the backside of a sheet of designer paper.

The paper letters were glued to the front of each paper-mâché letter with a glue stick.





Next the edges of the letter paper were lightly sanded with the white sanding blocks you can get at the beauty supply store.

After deciding which embellishment die cuts were to be used, those were each cut out of cardstock and decorated as needed. (The ghosts got black cardstock behind the eyes and mouth; the spider got yellow cardstock behind the eye holes; the pumpkin was touched up a bit with dried marigold distress ink, using a cut'n'dry nib from Ranger.)



Finally everything was assembled.

Ribbons were tied onto each letter. Grosgrain ribbon was stapled and glued and stapled and stapled and stapled to each letter. The die cut embellishments were attached with pop-dots.

Materials: Paper-mâché letters (Michaels); black acrylic paint (Making Memories); designer paper (Die Cuts with a View); cardstock for embellishments (Bazzill); glue (Mono-multi); dried marigold distress ink (Ranger); ribbons (Michaels).

This was a fun project. I've sent the first completed BOO set to my daughter in Japan for her family to enjoy. The second set will probably NOT be assembled as a wall-hanging but rather as separate letters for a shelf decoration.

Thanks for looking.