thanksgiving, glitter, and turkeys--oh my!

Does anyone else find decorating for Thanksgiving difficult? There are so many ideas and options out there for decorating for Halloween or Christmas or even St. Patrick's Day, but ideas for Thanksgiving seem to be practically nonexistent! Just try searching in Pinterest and you'll find some pumpkins, candles, and leaves, but that's pretty much it. And even those things don't scream Thanksgiving as much as they perhaps scream fall. 

So this year, as I was browsing ideas, trying to find something for my holiday decor shelf, I came across this pin. It's not even for Thanksgiving--it's for Christmas! But definitely have enough Christmas decorations until I get a bigger place, so I had to think of some other way I could use this awesome idea. And BAM! It hit me--use the idea to make a decoration for Thanksgiving.

ta-da!

In case you want to make one, too, here's what you'll need:

• 12x12 canvas
• Mod podge
• Clear sealer (I accidentally used matte, but if you want your glitter to stay shinier, use gloss)
• Glitter (I got a 4 oz. bottle to be safe, but you could get a 2 oz. bottle and still have enough to work with)
• Sponge brush
• Vinyl
• Cricut or something similar

Total cost was less than $10 for me, but I already had mod podge, vinyl, a sponge brush, and the sealer, so if you have to buy everything new (with coupons) it will probably come out to about $30, but you'll have leftovers of everything but the canvas and sponge brush.

I first found an image that I liked and then turned it into a 12x12 PDF to get the right dimensions. Not sure if you could use this image or not, but give it a try!

I cut the turkey out of the paper. The image was pixely, but that doesn't matter for this project. Then I taped the turkey to the vinyl, and taped the vinyl to the counter top. 

I used an exacto knife to cut the turkey shape out of the vinyl. I started out cutting over cardboard, but eventually switched to a cut-proof mat thing which worked way better. During this portion of the project, make sure you keep the two little spots you cut out (near the wattle and between the legs)! Also, it is important that the OUTSIDE part of the vinyl looks good, more than the inside . . .

Because at the end, you'll stick your vinyl cut-out to the canvas like so. Before sticking the vinyl to the canvas, make sure you like the shape of how everything turned out. I found that cutting the little curves of the feathers often made crazy shapes, so I had to fine-tune those at the end.

I added "Turkey Thursday" to mine because I kept seeing stuff for Halloween on pinterest that centered around "31" since Halloween is on October 31st. I couldn't use a number for Thanksgiving since the date is always different, but Turkey Thursday seemed like a fun alternative. I used the Cricut to cut out these letters.

Make sure everything is centered and nice, and cover up any areas that didn't get covered with vinyl yet.

Use the sponge brush to put down a thick layer of Mod Podge. Make sure all of your vinyl is pressed down securely before adding the Mod Podge. Then put down a thick layer of glitter. I let my project sit in this state for maybe 30 minutes before I shook off the excess glitter (onto a plate, which I then used to put the glitter back in the canister). Then, about a day later, I removed the vinyl. I was so scared that glitter would have gotten under the vinyl, or that peeling the vinyl off would peel off some glitter, but luckily, neither one of those things happened! Then I sprayed down the whole canvas with the clear acrylic sealer. I gave it about 3 coats over 10 minutes, and it worked great to seal in the glitter so that the project doesn't glitter-ify everything. [My husband hates glitter, so I assured him I would make sure this project wouldn't leave glitter everywhere :)]

And viola! I am suuuper happy with how it turned out! Also, do you recognize those pumpkins? If you've been a long-time follower, you might have seen them when I posted about them Halloween 2013. Well, all I did was add some vinyl lettering and now they're reversible! Plain for Halloween, and "So Blessed" for Thanksgiving :)

What Thanksgiving crafts have you done or are you planning to do? I'm thinking I need one more [small/tall?] item for my Thanksgiving shelf . . . it's looking a little too orange for me!

Happy Crafting! :D