Diy Lighted Holiday Marquee

This project came to be because I wanted to check out theHome Depot do it herself workshop a few weeks back.  They were featuring Anna White's DIY holiday lighted marquee.  My friends Elizabeth & Myra came with me and boy were we disappointed!  We thought we would get hands on practice making this diy project but all we got was a booklet on what to buy to literally diy at home.  

I had read reviews on the do it herself workshops and most said they were able to do the craft in store as a group but not everyone got to take them home.  Other reviews said their 'instructors' precut the wood pieces so speed things along.  I had high hopes but as I already stated we were disappointed since we only got to see an already finished project done by an employee of the Home Depot. 

However this workshop did inspire us to make our own!  Being as resourceful as we were with the pbk inspired wooden advent tree we looked around to see what we had.  We all had our own Christmas lights (or if you prefer you can pick up battery powered lights).  I had a can of silver spray paint, Elizabeth had white paint, and Myra had plywood.  We went around the neighborhood and found a big scrap piece of oriented strand board that we cut up into three pieces to use as the backboard.  

I printed out JOY and cut them out so we could trace the letters onto the plywood.  We used a jigsaw to cut out the letters and then sanded the edges.  

Next we marked where we wanted our lights to be.  Then we drilled through the plywood letters and the backboard.  

Then we painted the oriented sand board white and spray painted the letters silver.  

Finally we sepersted the lights to push them through the holes and then connected them.  

It wasn't as easy or quick of a project as we thought it would be but I love it!  I decided to put it just outside my front door where it's looking pretty and definitely adds a bit of fun to my holiday decor.

Myra decided to prop it up against her front window.