Vinyl wording on mantle for Christmas

  I don't know if it was my lack of cooking skills that scared the children away from baking cookies tonight or if it was the homework. In either case, all the kids, including my daughter, did not want to participate in baking cookies.  Bummer, because they really are the best cookies.  I made them last year and my family talked about them for days.

So I thought I would share one of my Christmas projects.  We are changing our Christmas theme this year  We usually do the traditional colors.  My daughter has asked for a Cindy Lou Who Christmas for years.  So this year we were taking the plunge on a budget.

My first project was the mantle.  I wanted to take a quote from The Grinch and have it across the mantle in Grinch green.  So I bought some paint...kidding.  Years ago, while window shopping at Home Depot (it must have been date night), I saw these vinyl wall pops on clearance.  They were on clearance for $2.00 each. So I bought some in each color.  I knew they would come in handy some day...even if that day was 700 days later.

This isn't all of it but you get the idea.  It came in squares and rolls.  I wish I could say I pulled out my Silhouette, found a Grinch font and cut it on my Silhouette.  But I don't have one.  So I pulled out Cricut Expression and my Gypsy and started to design.  I decided one of the fonts on Lyrical Letters would look the closest to a Grinch style font.  If you have never cut vinyl on a Cricut, I find it is best to change the pressure to 3 and let the Gypsy choose the speed.  This will cut the vinyl but not the backing.  Once you cut the letters, pull off the extra vinyl on your mat, so that all that is left are your letters and/or words.  They place your transfer paper over the words.

Trust me, it is worth getting transfer paper to transfer items from the mat to the mantle. I gently rub the paper over my words.  Because my quote was longer than my mat, I cut the transfer paper into word size strips.  Then when I got to the mantle I gently pressed the paper against the mantle until I had all the pieces lined up.  Once they were lined up I pressed the letters onto the mantle.

If I had this to do again, I would have chosen to make the font larger. I think this one is less than 3 inches tall.  It kind of gets lost in the final look...to come later.