WONDERLAND marquee

Today I got up at a pretty reasonable hour for an open Saturday and got right to work on my Halloween craft projects!

First up: those paper mache letters I blogged about here. After much deliberation, I decided to paint the edges black (to create maximum contrast with my walls and show the depth) and the fronts a slightly aged red. I'm planning on having the first half of my living room all in the red/black/white/gold color scheme of the card suits.


I used cheap craft paint (these jugs are $4 at Michael's, and I barely used an inch of it - grossly overestimated how much I'll need, but I'm sure I'll use it up eventually).

I started with the outside edges, and while it was still a little wet I did the faces red. That allowed me to "muddy up" the color on the front by dragging in a little of the wet black from the edges. Then once it was dry enough to handle again, I did the inside edges black as well. I skipped the back - since they're going to be against a wall, no need to go to all that extra work.

I think the effect looks pretty cool!

I toyed with adding some gold glitter, but I kind of want to keep the dirty/aged look for my "twisted" element, as hard as it is for me to resist glitter :)

These are going to hang on my wall over the couch in our living room, sort of a "marquee" to set the tone. One big project done, a million more to go!