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Decorate your shutters as wrapped presents. Use jumbo-sized (28 inches by 47 inches) holiday print gift bags. Cut one or both side seams open so that you can place it on your shutter and wrap it around the sides. Tape the sides and the top with heavy-duty duct tape in a matching color, keeping the tape on the back of the shutter as much as possible. Add a large bow made from weather-resistant ribbon.
If you live in an area where strong winds aren't a problem, leave the top of the bag open and add a few large plastic toys or ornaments.
You can also use jumbo black lawn-and-leaf bags to create Halloween decorations. From poster board, cut out orange jack-o-lanterns and yellow features, yellow quarter-moon shapes, purple cats or witches, and gray tombstones. Tape them to the leaf bags with clear packaging tape, then attach the bags to the shutters in the same way as the gift bags. Use white trash bags with Easter shapes in pastel colors or Thanksgiving shapes in red, brown, orange, yellow and red. - Make your shutters look like holiday greeting cards. You can make themed cards for any holiday this way. Choose poster board in holiday colors, using traditional red or green for the Christmas season, orange and black for Halloween, pastel colors for Easter or orange and brown for Thanksgiving. Measure your shutters and trim the poster board to fit, or tape two sheets together, if necessary. Use large letter stencils to trace a greeting. Color in the letters with permanent markers. Stencil decorations on the card and paint them with craft paints or use colored markers. Make photo greeting cards by enlarging favorite photos, or taking them to a copy shop to be enlarged, and gluing them to the poster board. Add glitter glue or fabric trims around the outside borders of each card. Cover the poster board with clear contact paper, making sure any seams are secure. Attach the cards to your shutters with clear, heavy-duty packaging tape.
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Make candles or angels by cutting poster board to fit your shutters, or gluing two sheets together,if necessary. Trim the bottom of each sheet into an outward curve. For a candle, cut an oval from matching poster board and glue it to the top of the sheet. Cut three flame shapes, one each from red, yellow, and orange poster board. Place one on top of the other, allowing one-third of each color to show in the finished flame, and glue them together. Glue the flame to the oval. For an angel, cut a circle from matching poster board and glue it to the top of the sheet. Draw a mouth in an "O" shape and color it in with magic marker. Draw two semicircles to resemble lashes on closed eyes. Cut hair from brown poster board and a halo from yellow poster board and glue them to the circle. Cut open book shapes from various colors of poster board and glue them to the middles of the angels.
Cover the candles and angels with clear contact paper, making sure any seams are secure, and fasten them to your shutters with clear, heavy-duty packaging tape.
