A {DIY} sign {with love}

So here's the thing: I've already said that my first priority when we moved into this house was the little girl's room.  And, although my timetable wasn't exactly realistic, we did eventually get it done(ish). 

My second priority was the baby's room.  (Even though it's still not remotely finished, I'm for sure standing by that story.)  Now, to be fair, the room looked like this when we moved in:

Floor to ceiling purple.  And by "ceiling," I mean that the ceiling was this same, very delightful (and only slightly maddening) shade of lavender. 

 

And so we painted.  The ceiling and mouldings are now white, and the walls are painted and decorated(ish).  Oh yeah, and carpet.  That was kind of important.

 

But, beyond that, I'm not especially happy with the way my special little guy's room is turning out.  It's alright.  A little cliche.  But mostly, there is simply nothing that sets it apart.

 

So, we set out to change that.  I'm a big fan of word artwork, particulary anything that states that name we so carefully selected. (Plus, when they get bigger and letters and spelling becomes a big deal, built in name-recognition practice.  Score!) 

 

I wanted something that felt very vintage and authentic, not steril and manufactured.  

Ta-Da!!!

First of all, please pardon all the bad pictures.  It's worth noting that pretty much this entire project was done after 11:00 at night when the kiddies were in bed...

The blue on Logan's wall is Behr's Light French Grey, so I already had that on hand.  I also ran to my favorite, go-to white, Behr's Decorator White (which we also had on hand since we're re-doing the kitchen).  We needed a few additional things:

 

 

We decided on a size that would go well over the crib (roughly 4x3, although Casey's math was slightly off so it wasn't quite that tall in reality) and purchased some loose white pine planks from Home Depot.  Hubby put them together, joining them together with two vertical planks at the back.

Then, I attacked it with stain in random places.  If I had it to do over again, I'd stain and paint the planks prior to joining them together to give it a bit more of that vintage feel, but I'm still satisfied with the outcome nonetheless.

Once the stain was dry, I covered the stained areas I wanted to remain exposed with Feed-n-Wax and painted on the white using a brush, making sure to give it a rough wipe with a cloth after painting.  Ta-da!  Instant age and authenticity.

Once the paint was dry, I used a projector to enlarge a printout of what I wanted on the board; in this case, Logan's name.  Because I'm a self-proclaimed font snob these days, I chose Fanwood Text to get the job done.  Beautiful, but not too fancy and lightly masculine. 

When I finished tracing, Casey and I added the letters in paint.

 

 

 

It was good, but I wasn't quite satisfied, so I went back and added a bit of interest and dimention to the letters with stain and a really tiny brush. 

Next, it was time to frame it out, a job Casey took on.  Once he had it framed, I went over the frame with a 50/50 mix of the two paints, hitting the grooves with a little bit of stain, and here we are:

We have a unique and special, handmade piece of art to hang above our little Logan's crib. 

I will admit, for a girl who doesn't classify herself as "crafty," I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.  I think it's the coolest thing I've ever made.  Besides these two cute things, of course.

I think I'll make another for the little girl's room.

Crafts for the Un-crafty

Alternately titled: "How to steal art and put Bible verses on it."

Let's just get this out of the way right now.  I am not an artist. 

I would never pretend to be.  Even my stick people look like horses.  Although I desperately whish I was, I'm not exactly "crafty" either.  While I'd like to think that I know how to arrange a bookshelf and throw a super cute birthday party, that's about where my creative juices end. 

A lot of my design inspiration comes from the internet.  (In fact, even when I think I've found a creative, original idea, I tend of discover through the glory of the web that I'm not original at all and someone's already done it.  Better than I could have, for that matter.)

As I was browsing recently, I came across this, this and this.

My first thought was, "Cute!"

Then I saw the price, and my next thought was, "You've got to be kidding me!  Who pays $65 for one tiny picture?!" 

But after looking at it for a few minutes, the wheels got to turning.  "That doesn't look so hard.  I bet I could do that."  And because I have a husband who tends to think that too, he agreed with me. 

It's totally my kind of crafty project - the kind that doesn't involve drawing, sketching, painting or anything which I will inevitably make look like a horse. 

So, with the help of my extremely handy hubby, google images and photoshop, we came up with these.

**The important thing here is that you have a high resolution image to start with.  If you use an image that is too low quality, the edges of your image will be pixelated and jagged. 

Step 1: Save the image to your computer from google and open in photoshop.
Step 2: Create a mask of the shape using the magic wand tool.  *This will only work if you use a sillhouette or other uniformly-colored image.  If you find an image you like with multiple colors, you'll have to go about it a different way. 
Step 3: Fill the mask with the desired color.  You can either use the color wheel or pull the color directly from another image.
Step 4: Add the text.  Preferably, all artsy and fancy like.

 

Casey took the document to Kinkos and had them printed on off-white card stock, and I found the frames on sale at Michaels (for half off, thankyouverymuch!).  For a grand total of about $25, we were able to replicate the original art work that I liked.

The best part is, this could be done with anything that you love.  Any image, any saying.   We chose Bible verses and stuck pretty close to the original since I liked it to begin with, but there is really no limit to what you can create.  Lyrics of a favorite song or poem, quotes from a book, movie or eccentric family member, family names and birthdates... anything! 

Happy (non)crafting!

Yep. We're still here.

The stomach flu.  Parent teacher conferences.  First trimester sleepies.  Husband out of town for a week.

Add it all up, and you've got a pretty good explanation of why it's been two weeks since I've had a blog post.

Besides that, as I find is true pretty much every February where birthing a baby is not imminent, I just don't have a lot to say in February.  I get a bit of a pre-spring slump, and it's definitely true this year. 

Just to be clear: I can't wait for spring.  Like, for reals.

We did celebrate Valentine's day, although it was pretty mellow since Casey spent the holiday working in Las Vegas.

Leah and I found time to decorate and make cupcakes, and sent Daddy a card.  Not the most romantic of holidays, but I've never been a huge fan of this particular one.

We even managed to keep the house clean.  Or, at least... we managed that between Friday and Tuesday.  Wednesday and Thursday were a total lost cause; not even the dishes got done. 

Poor Daddy.  It means that - yet again - he'll be coming home to a house that looks as if homeless people have nested there. 

But, I refuse to feel badly about it. 

Pregnant girls with two year olds get to skip doing the dishes one, er... two nights in a row.  Besides, I took the time to tie hearts together with ribbon.  And, I kept the child, the momma and both dogs alive while Daddy was out of town.  That counts for something.

Right?

Coming and going, and coming back again

It's just an ordinary weekend, but those are my very favorite kind.

Leah and I went on a bit of a shopping spree (thank you, Old Navy!) for a few much needed Mommy, Daddy and Leah items.  I am lucky to have such a great little shopping buddy!  She does fabulously when we go to any store, so it's always fun to take her along.  It's nice not to be that mom, with that screaming child (we've seen more than one of those parents out and about this weekend.  I'm sure my day is coming...) 

Bonus?  It resulted in my new favorite outfit:

...which we got to debut at Music Together class to wide approval.

We also tried to go to a local Scarecrow Festival, but since the weather looks like this:

that's 39 degrees and raining, in case you were wondering.

...it was postponed.  We went home and took a nap instead.  (BLISS!) 

Is there such a thing as fall cleaning?  I don't know if it was all the new clothes, or I've suddenly just got the bug, but I am itching to get things in our house tiddied up and organized.  I started here:

So long, 12 month clothes!  It was fun while it lasted!

Probably because I had to make room for these:

Hello, 18 months!

And, because the weather is so delightful awful, I'm making broccoli cheese soup and bread for dinner - a meal whose sheer yum-osity is off the scale.  We have every intention of finishing out the night with brownies and Halloween.

That's my kind of fall day!