Wood Burning!

Don’t ask me where I got this crazy idea to wood burn the South Bay Church logo onto a California shaped cutting board. That is random at its finest! But we have some very good friends who were here with us in the trenches at South Bay from almost the very beginning and they were moving away! I had to do something special.

I have never used a wood burner before, and didn’t even know you could do it so easily. I thought I’d have to take it to a shop or something. But David did it as a kid and said he could get me one to borrow. Thanks to our good friend John Mark for lending it to us!

So here are some pics of the project. I grabbed a big chunk of firewood for my test . . . and quickly learned that this think worked just like a glue gun! You just plug it in, wait til it gets hot, and go for it! Addicting!

To draw the shape of the logo on the wood, I would have preferred to use carbon paper but I didn’t have any, so I just scribbled really dark on the back of the paper and traced the outlines of the logo directly onto the wood. Then I just started burning! Really didn’t expect it to be that great, but I was thrilled that it would be personal and I knew they would love it even if I messed up a little on it.

It came out pretty good! I can’t wait to make another project. I told David I would like a wood burner for my birthday or something soon! We will miss you Laura and Brad! Think of me when you cut your (very small) veggies!

DIY Vinyl Letter Painting

There is something peculiar I have noticed about myself. I am notorious for getting 80 percent done with a project and taking a year to finish the last 20 percent. I am sure it says something about my personality, so if you have a theory you can fill me in. I’d like to blame it on the fact that at this season in life I have two young kids, but I’m pretty sure its a quirk I’ve had my whole life. My roommate in college used to give me a hard time for being in the middle of 5 books and never finishing any. Still guilty.

This is one of those projects. I even hung it up on my wall in our bedroom 80 percent done and it stayed there for about a year. I will say in my defense, having two small kids does work against my hobby of getting paints out and spreading them all over the floor with brushes, paper plates and cups of water. The last thing I want is little fingers spreading blue acrylic all over the couch, Ikea or not.

So I had and evening when my husband was going to be out of town and I decided to seize that opportunity to take this one to 100 percent! I had some time to myself once the kids were asleep to get out the easel and drop cloths and get this thing done!

Here is the first 80 percent . . .

Yes, thats right, it hung on the wall like this for a year. You may be thinking it looks like its done, but its missing the Golden Gate Bridge and the text, which was the whole point of me doing this painting! When David and I got married, one of the songs we had in our wedding was Josh Turner’s “Would You Go With Me” and I wanted to put some of the lyrics in a painting with a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge because, well, it has significance for us. We left everything we had and raised support to travel to the Bay Area to join a team who had planted a church to change the world for Jesus. Read about it here.

Anyways, on with the project. In the past I used to have letters printed at a print shop on vinyl but for this one I went with a prepackaged set of letters from Michaels. Here are some pics to show how I did it.

After the letters were attached and I had put the gesso coating over them I knew I needed to let them dry well in order to do the second coat of gesso. It does dry quickly though.The other think to be mindful of is if you have just painted the under layer of paint, you might want to let it dry overnight if you can. For me, I had let it dry for a year so it was good to go. Its hard to be patient but you don’t want to jump the gun on an art project like this because you run the risk of ruining it for saving a few minutes. So as it was drying I worked on finishing the bridge on the other side of the canvas.

Once both coats of gesso are dry, you are free to begin covering over it with paint. Just be careful of two things:

One, if you cover too heavily or too hastily you will have some bleed through like you see below. Sometimes the paint comes through under the letters which is meh. You can paint over the bleed through with white if you have just white underneath, but on this one I couldn’t because the color underneath was a mixture of several blues and I knew there was no way to match it so I didn’t try. I just tried as best I could to cut out the excess paint with an exact knife without cutting the canvas. It works ok, but definitely better to just avoid the bleed-through altogether if possible.

Two, be careful to make sure you have enough color contrast on the paint. If you don’t have enough contrast, you will not be able to read the text when its done.

So here it is, the finished product. I included the pic I printed from Google images as my guide. And no, I did not include the dog. Sorry puppy but I don’t know who you are and you definitely don’t belong in my bedroom.

Romantic DIY Headboard Backlight

Don’t pack up all those Christmas mini lights! (Or if you did, buy some now for 75% off!)

Here is an extremely easy, quick, and inexpensive DIY project for your new year. A big bang for your buck. If you have the supplies you need you could do this job in 30 min. What could be better?

So you may have seen recent pics on Pinterest of curtains hung behind headboards with lights in them, sort of trendy and cool way to spice up the bedroom vibe. We moved into a new place in May of this year and I did hang a curtain as you might remember from my previous DIY post. Well I’ve got a new idea for you, and the good news is it can work with or without a curtain behind your headboard.

Here is what you’ll need:

• A string of 100-150 mini Christmas lights (can be green or white cord, doesn’t matter)
• A pack of two adhesive hooks, you can get them at most stores for less than 5 bucks. I used Command Brand damage free hooks. Size large. They probably need to be at least an inch to get all your lights looped on there. You’ll see what I mean in the picture.
• An accessible electrical outlet nearby or an extension cord, if you’re at the store anyways, go ahead and grab one that has a foot switch like the one I’ve got in the pictures.

First, pull out your bed or couch far enough so you can walk behind it.
Second, mark on the wall the two places where you would like your hooks to go. *Be sure they will be well covered by the furniture when you push it back in place. You do not want them visible.
Third, open your pack of two adhesive wall hooks and read the instructions on the package to stick them to the wall, and then stick ’em! I just eye-balled mine and didn’t even measure because they won’t be seen anyways. I put mine about 2 feet off the ground and about 4 1/2 feet apart because we have a king bed. If you have a queen, etc, they may need to be closer together to stay hidden behind the headboard.

Fourth, string your lights by looping them back and forth between the hooks. They will be suspended off the ground this way, and will backlight the headboard by lighting the wall.

Fifth, plug them in with your foot switch extension cord. Easy to turn off as you climb into bed.

If you do decide to hang a curtain back there they will make the curtain glow and it is super pretty. The fabric should be pretty thin (not a blackout curtain!) in order for it to work. Maybe you just have artwork above your bed or a mirror or clock or something. This type of lighting makes everything look better! Plus you would use it when it’s dark in the room anyways so the bed can become the focal point. The pic below was taken during the day, but you can see how much light there is already. After dark it looks pretty dang awesome.

The best thing too is that no one would ever know it was there, so it can be your little secret (that is, unless you blog about it). Why not create a little New Years surprise for your husband? Or even Valentines Day? He’ll love it, especially when he realizes it cost less than a date to Chipotle! Happy New Year!

Cheap and Easy DIY Curtain Rod

So I got this idea from another blog called House of Hepworths, but I’ll give you a brief tutorial of how I did it. She has a ton of pictures on hers so if you need more details just click the link and read her post . . . I’ll make it short and sweet because this is the simplest thing you can do if you need a curtain rod quick!

Materials:

• set of 2 or 3 brackets (these are cheap from target or walmart, etc. I went with black.
• piece of electrical conduit (10 feet for like 2 dollars at lowes or home depot!)
• spray paint (I used back Rustoleum flat protective enamel)
• 2 wire coat hangars
• curtains (I used 3 panels)

Measure the window or section of wall you want the curtain to cover, and go buy your electrical conduit at the hardware store. You can even have them cut it there for you, I got mine at Lowes and they didn’t even charge me to cut it with their heavy duty pipe cutter.

Spray paint it outside, and you are welcome to use my husband’s genius idea of suspending it over the grass with 2 wire coat hangars. (See picture) It allows you to paint the whole thing without getting your fingers in it or smudging the paint by trying to turn it. You probably want to allow a day for it to dry, at least 6-8 hours. This is the hard part for me!

Hang your brackets, make sure you use a level and get them in the wall really snug. Don’t want any curtains falling on babies or furniture!! Here are the pics . . .

There you go! Its done! I didn’t worry about the ends of my curtain rod being open because as you will see in my next post, its so high that you don’t even notice that the ends are open, especially because its black (I spray painted inside as best I could to make it dark). But if you want something on the end, you can use your imagination. A ball, a round piece of wood or cardboard painted the same color as the rod, a large gem glued on there . . . be creative!

I know there are no pics of the finished product yet, and that is because for me there is more to do! For my next DIY I will show you how to use cheap and easy lighting to spice up your curtains!

Canvas Flowers

I have completed my first DIY art project for our new place. We’ve been in this house now for about 2 months and there is hardly anything on the walls!! It’s driving me crazy. We decided to change the look of our decor from our last place. We went from Southern/Kirkland/Mission theme to a Contemporary/Colorful/Modern look. I have to change things in our home. I get so sick of the same colors and wall art. It’s in my blood. The most difficult thing about that is finding the money to make a change! That’s why this spring we’ve had a purging party. We did 2 yard sales and sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist to make a few bones for the home decor pot.

DIY projects can be so inexpensive. First, here is a list of what you’ll need. You can buy all these supplies at Michael’s or your local art/craft store.

• Canvas (you can find them 40 or 50 percent off at Michaels or bring in a coupon. They also have a Michael’s iphone app now for scanning coupons at check out. I bought two 24″ x 36″ size for about 20 bucks each because they were half off.)
• Acrylic Paint (around 1 to 2 dollars per bottle)
• Brushes of varying sizes (1/2 inch wide up to 2 inches wide, you can get a pack of 3 decent ones for around 8 or 10 bucks)
• Scrapbook paper of varying colors/prints (anywhere from .40 to 1.50 each)
• Mod Podge (This serves as your glue and your top coat. I used matte finish, I think it was like 6 dollars for a 16 oz bottle)

To get started, you’ll need to paint your canvas. I used purple and yellow because those are the secondary and tertiary colors in my living room. Hint: In a room you want to have approximately these proportions of color:

• 60-70% main color
• 20-40% secondary color
• 10-15% tertiary color

For my living room, these are green, yellow, and a plum-ish purple.

Here are the paints. These are 2 oz bottles and I used almost a whole bottle per canvas. You want to be sure you have good coverage and no white is showing through. I also did a sort of textured finish with my top coat. Sort of a purposeful sloppiness 🙂
My little apprentice.From this angle you can see the texture a bit. I just did it with my brush full of paint and sort of slapped it on there in swirly motions.
I always have a few small canvases around to test colors/textures and clear coats. I use them over and over. Here, I used a piece of the scrapbook paper as a test to see how the Mod Podge would do since I had never done this before. I glued it to the canvas with the Mod Podge and then coated it on top to make sure it would dry clear. It did! Also wanted to make sure after I sealed it that it wouldn’t peal up. Next, choose which colors and patterns you want to use for your design. After your canvas has had time to completely dry, cut and arrange the scrapbook paper on your canvas just the way you want it. Be patient and try different things, because once you apply the Mod Podge, you’re committed.When you have the arrangement complete, its time to begin glueing them to the canvas. I would recommend glueing one or two shapes at a time, because if you clear all of them off you may forget the way you had arranged them! The other option is to take a picture and use that image to guide your placement while glueing. Put some Mod Podge on a paper plate or other disposable surface and start by glueing one end or side of your flower stem. Put the Mod Podge first on the canvas, not on the back of the paper. Its ok if you spread it out too far because remember, it will dry clear.

*The danger here is that you may end up with bubbles if you aren’t careful. Scrapbook paper comes in regular paper weight which is super thin and then a “not quite cardstock but thicker than paper” weight. A little thicker is better because it won’t bubble as easy. Have you ever seen someone’s car who tried to tint their own windows and it looks like the glass has boils? Not good. You don’t want that to happen so use your finger or a flat edge to gradually stick it down from one end to the other. Circles have to be done differently but we’ll get to that in minute and I’ll show a picture of that too . . . Cover the stems with a thin coat of Mod Podge.Next, the bigger shapes. I’ve got all circles of varying sizes, and one square. Do it the same way as the stems, applying the Mod Podge to the canvas first. What’s different here though is that you want to cover the entire area at one time and then place the circle on top. Use your finger(s) to start in the center and work your way out with a circular motion. Press it down going all the way to the edges to avoid bubbles.Lastly, after the designs have been glued to the canvas and have had 15-20 minutes to dry, cover your entire canvas with the Mod Podge. It will look very cloudy and messy but don’t freak out! It dries clear! This stuff is amazing.There you have it. A pair of paintings that can add color and creativity to any space. And the best part is you have total control over what picture you create, what colors you use, how busy or tame you want it to be. Here is what I did with my finished product: