DIY Christmas Mantel Decor

As Christmas approaches, I’m adding the finishing touches to our Christmas decor. We don’t have a fireplace mantel, but I still want a place to hang our stockings. On top of my love for doing crafts, I enjoy saving the money. So I “texturized” wooden letters (the first letter of each of our names) with yarn and placed it next to the mantel hooks for hanging the stockings. If your stockings have the person’s name, then you can make “NOEL” or “JOY” instead.

You Need:

• Wooden letters (I think larger ones look the best, but it depends on the size of your space and surrounding decor)
• Yard, twine, or other fabric to wrap around your letters
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Mantel hooks to hang stockings
• Circular wooden pieces to keep letters upright
• Patience
• Sleeping toddlers

Let’s Do This
Let me start off saying that this is not hard. I was surprised how easy it is to wrap the yarn around these letters without it looking mummified. The only tricky part are the letters with the extra “limbs.” For example, the letter “N” was a pain in my butt. I found myself wishing my kids’ names were Ian and Indigo. However, “J” and “D” were easy. “T” was a little harder because I needed to figure out a way to cover the top, middle part. But you just need to play around with the yarn, and you’ll be able to make it look nice.

Start at the Ends

I recommend starting with the end of the letter versus the middle. You can place the end of the yarn in the center of the “limb” and start wrapping over it to keep it in place. I highly recommend keeping the bottom of the letters bare. You don’t want to interfere with the wood so it can keep standing on its own, or so it can easily glue to the wooden piece you’ll be gluing it on (to keep it standing). I didn’t think this through with my “J” and had to use packing tape to keep it stuck to the media console. You’ll see its “character” in my final picture.

Tip for the Corners

If you need a way to help cover the corners of the letters, or some other area that needs some extra coverage, you can create an extra layer. I did this by cutting an extra piece of yarn and wrapping the corner. If the letter is symmetrical, do it on the other side as well. You can see where I did this for my letter “D.”

As for the letter “T,” I ended up criss-crossing the top middle in order to cover that space. Again, I just used an extra piece of yarn, placed the starting piece in back and middle part of the letter, and criss-crossed until it covered all the visible wood.

Tuck + Glue

God made glue guns for a reason. Just kidding. With my finished yarn ends, I tucked them under other strands and glued it down. The gun also came in handy with those imperfect pieces of yarn popping out.

Glue the Bottoms

Now you can glue on the bottoms when you’re done. Remember you need a wooden piece for each limb. For example, “N” needs two to hold it up. But also make sure the letter is right-side up. I messed this up, which you’ll also see in my final picture. Go me...

Voila!

And now you’re done and ready to set up your letters, mantel hooks, and stockings! Obviously, mine aren’t “Pinterest Perfect,” but that’s not the point... they make the house more festive and it was a fun craft!

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