Joy to the World Christmas pallet project

I finished my JOY to the World Christmas pallet project for my front steps!!!!  I’m obsessed with the word JOY.  “The JOY of the Lord is my strength,” says Nehemiah 8:10.  Joy is a choice.  And I want to be covered in it!  LITERALLY.

**Note this post does contain affiliate links. I may receive a small commission for any products you order through this post.

I used my new favorite red paint color, Engine No. 9, to paint the pallet. (Note: Heirloom Traditions discontinued its Vintiques product line so use Americana instead.) After it dried,  I went over it with Heirloom Traditions Jet Black wax on a wet sponge. It’s fast and easy! Grab a good quality chalk paint brush – these are my favorite when working with chalk paints. It’s a great investment for your DIY projects!

The Mad Stencilist designed the “Joy to the World” stencil for my pallet.  You can find it HERE for sale. I love that it’s BIG!!!!  If you teach classes, hold workshops, etc…. get these huge stencils!!!! They make life so much easier and are so quick and can be reused a jillion times.

I always use 3M 77 adhesive spray on my stencils.  This helps to eliminate bleeding.

One of my minor irritations is when people don’t “fix their bridges” on their word stencils.  It’s such a quick step and makes a huge difference in how professional your stencil looks. This video makes it easy to see what I’m talking about.  Ignore my scary face and voice at the end.

After I stenciled it all in Cinder, I shifted the stencil slightly up and to the side so the black would be a shadow and then I RE-STENCILED it all in this Farmhouse color.  It’s thick and covers in one coat!  Notice in this picture that they wind had just picked up and my paint bowl is literally standing up on its edge. Classic.

Here’s a demo on stencil shadowing!!!!!!!  Also, please notice my imaginary thigh gap.  xoxo

Then I laid the stencil on one last time and stenciled the word JOY in gold and immediately dumped gold glitter from Hobby Lobby on it.

You need to wait for the glitter to dry before you “whisk” off the extra glitter, but I have no patience for that.  I was having Mr. Magic “secure the pallet” before the paint had even dried.  Do note that pallets are heavy and if they are leaning, they need to be tied down to something so the wind doesn’t catch behind them, crash it onto the steps, and scare the heck out of your wife when she is home alone during the day.  #hotmess #keepingitreal

When I showed this project on my Facebook page, I think people were as excited about my spray painted mums as they were about the pallet.   Listen, dead mums are easy for me to come by.  Any dead plants are easy for me to find. I kill things.  Don’t try to teach me to water them, it will never happen.

Here is a video on how I spray painted them:

Isn’t that genius?  My BFF Laura did it a few years ago.  So quick and fun.

I put it out on my front steps with the following:

• Dead mums
• Dead mums inside of an urn which is on top of an upside down urn
• That was a fall wreath that I spray painted red to make “Christmas’y”.
• Garage sale paper mache deer. I put pearls on one to make him fancy.
• The tall tree was in my garage sale pile and I just wrapped some crystals around it.
• The pot of sticks and lights is a 3-minute project.  I shoved a garland down in the pot to make it look fancier.
• The pallet is actually my FALL pallet that I just reused the other side of

So most of these things I already had.   Half of the fun in decorating is what my friend Shauna calls “recession redecorating” —- reusing what you have.  Search your garage and basement!

Someone on my Facebook page said it looked a little plain.  I rarely take criticism to heart when it comes to decorating, but I thought I’d try to see how I liked it with snowflakes.   I hated it. They were cheesy and I don’t do cheesy unless it’s with grapes and wine! =)  It was way too busy for me, so I took them all back off. Yes, even the coffee filter ones Ava wanted me to use on it. Ha!

This is how it looks at night.  The lights and the JOY glow…….

It makes me happy every time I pull in the driveway.

I hope your holiday decorating is going well! I’d love to know what YOU are up to!

See more of my holiday painted pallet ideas here!

xoxo,

Jennifer