More Family Hand Turkey blocks!

So many fun color schemes!!

[family of 6]
   

[Families of 3 & 4, and a DIY set!]
 

Find these Family Hand Turkeys available at my Remembories shop.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Lucky Break – custom logo sign

This is a recently custom ordered sign from my Remembories etsy shop. The original logo is show on the top right of the photo below, and the custom handmade sign is pictured. It is made from home-milled, beetle-kill pine lumber (from Montana), and is about 1” x 6.25” x 18”. It’s painted in metallic gold & has black vinyl lettering “consulting”.

For more hand crafted and custom order signs, visit my Remembories shop.

Every child is an artist - Picasso

I’ve been working on an art wall for a little while now and wanted to add this [prefect] quote by Picasso.

First, pick out a board or canvas you want the quote on. I used a chunk of particle board I had laying around, but you can easily use a canvas or even some cardstock for this project. Let your little artist paint away. I love the sporadic, crazy painting that he did over the letters. It’s perfect for the art wall & for the quote!

We used Crayola washable paints, but obviously any paint will do (as long as you trust your kiddo with it!)

My first thought was Pink lettering. Didn’t like it.

Instead I went with white vinyl. MUCH better!

OR…! You can just order one of these sweet little wood blocks with the same quote -

Available at Remembories (pick your own color)!

Both make for a great addition to our art wall, I’m using the one my little B painted. I still have a few finishing touches to add to the wall, but it’s almost done!

Hanging Hearts – Valentines door decor

With Valentines Day just around the corner, I decided to make some hanging hearts for my front door. I’m not a huge fan of wreaths, and only can stand to use them once in a while, so I try to come up with something different for my front door instead.

I started with 4 different sizes of hearts – I printed the outline of them from my computer, random sizes, and cut them out by hand. Then I traced them onto some lumber. All of our lumber is hand milled (by my husband Grant), but of course you can just go to the lumber or hardware store and pick up a piece. You don’t need very much for these hearts (depending on their size). I used about 1.5-2’ of lumber.

After tracing them, CUT. I love, love, love my scroll saw!

The cut hearts

And just a picture to show the rough, home milled wood I like to use. Most of the time I’ll plane it before I use it, but I purposefully left it pretty rough, so that when I sanded, after I painted, it would have a worn, rustic look.

On to painting. Since I cut 4 hearts, I went with 4 different colors. I’m a huge fan of Rustoleum 2x coverage spray paint. The colors I used = Berry pink, Apple red, White, & Grape.

Sanding comes next. Like I said before, I left my hearts rough so that when I finally sanded them smooth they had a worn, rustic finished look. And I purposefully sanded the edges more than the rest. Next I applied a final coat of clear coat (matte or gloss, it’s up to you. I used matte because I have a bunch of it around).

You can either stop there & tie a rope/cord around the hearts for a table/shelf display (see picture below), or you can keep going (like I did with my hanging hearts).

The rest of this project is determined by how & where you want them to hang. I drilled a hole in the hearts (either the top center or off to the top side), a little bigger than the rope I found. I like to keep things sporadic & random, so I couldn’t tell you exactly where I drilled on each heart.

The rope I used was found at a local hardware/ranch store, and it’s almost more of a twine than a rope. It’s about 1/4” thick. I cut two 5’ sections of the twine (from a 40’ roll) and tied them in a “bow” in the middle. I’m not an expert “bow-tier” but I did my best ;)

Each heart was then tied to one of the dangling pieces of rope/twine, at different heights. I didn’t use any specific knots, just tied it on and made sure it stayed. Actually, I made sure it REALLY stayed by dabbing some E6000 around all the knots, including the big bow (in the back).

And there you have it. A fun, cute & non-wreath Valentine’s door hanger!

 

 

 

FEATURED ON:

‘Christmas Present’ coin banks

I recently made some super cute ‘Christmas Present’ banks for my boys, and they (ages 4.5 & 2.5) are about to get their first lesson in saving & spending wisely!

The idea behind it is to earn money (by doing work around the house!) and save it in their present bank until it’s time to buy Christmas Presents for each other. They do have piggy banks, which are collecting quite the savings, but those are not to be opened or touched until we, their parents, deem it necessary! But these Christmas present banks are reserved for the sole purpose of buying presents for Christmas!

I know my boys are still very young, but when it comes down to it, money is a big deal (unfortunately). They love finding money & holding it. They love being able to buy candy in a candy machine. But more importantly, there are many lessons to be learned with money; instant gratification or long-term happiness, debt or savings, etc. I don’t think there is a “too young” when it comes to learning how to treat money?

Not only money (and saving) but the act of giving on Christmas. I hope these boys, with the money they earn and save over the next while, will find joy in the act of giving. No, it doesn’t have to be store bought, but there is a lot to be said about a little child that can give up hard earned, saved money in order to give a gift, especially to their sibling [trust me, I have 7 siblings]!

I hope that giving gifts on Christmas (bought, homemade or as simple and kind as a hug) will become something they look forward to every year, and all the time for that matter.

And with that, here is my ‘Christmas Present’ coin bank HOW-TO --->

{what you need}

• wood (I used pine and my dimensions are approximately 5 1/2”W x 7 3/4”H x 3/4”D –and- 7 1/2”W x 6”H x 3/4”D)
• scroll saw
• sander
• drill (handheld or press)
• plexiglass (picture frame quality)
• sharpie
• Dremel (or you can use a handheld drill)
• spray paint (colors you want & clear coat)
• masking tape
• tiny little screws (smallest I could find at the hardware store)
• screwdriver

Okay, lets get started! [Beware: lots of cell phone pictures, taken at night…didn’t want to get my good camera full of saw dust!]

First I drew out a couple sketches of what I wanted the banks to look like. Not the best quality picture, but you get the idea (if you can see the lines!). I drew it the exact size I wanted it & then measured about an inch for the width of the bank walls.

I cut out those sketches & used them as a stencil for the actual bank. I like to tape it down on the wood & use a little bit of spray paint to make a quick outline. You could always just trace it thought. Take it to the scroll saw & get to cutting! Make sure the bottom edge of the bank is flat – as in, it is level and can sit on the counter.

To cut out the inside of the bank, I drilled a hole (using the drill press, but you could use a handheld drill), then I had to take out the scroll saw blade, put it through the hole I just made & tighten it back up. Then I was able to cut out the inside block.

Next came the plexiglass cutting. I laid a piece of plexiglass on the cut bank and made sure it was about 1/4” bigger than the inside of the bank walls. It was just a hand drawn line, and I made one for each side of the bank. Next, I took them to the scroll saw & cut them out too.

Then came the coin slot. I REALLY wanted a coin slot at the top, like a regular bank, but because of the height of the bow on top of the present, it made for a very difficult process. I’ll have to collaborate with Grant (my husband) to figure out a better way to do this part, but I’m not really sure there is an easier way to do it due to the width of the wood I was drilling through. What I did was, using the drill press, drilled multiple holes (slightly thicker than the width of a nickel and just over the length of a quarter). Even then, I was only able to get through about 3/4 of the wood.

The rest of the process was tackled with the Dremel (using the same drill bit). [**By the way, Back Friday is coming up and that is when we got this Dremel, years ago. Totally worth it!!]. I did some drilling from the bottom of the slot (or where I guessed the bottom would be). It doesn’t look pretty from the bottom, but the coin slot works!

  

After that drilling endeavor the painting began. I always use Rustoleum 2x coverage spray paint (primer included). I painted the ‘ribbon’ parts first, on both sides of the presents (drying in between). These colors are Apple Red & Sky Blue.

Once dry (24 hours-ish later) I used masking tape to take when I wanted the “ribbon” to stay & covered the bows. Then painted the rest of the presents in the other colors – Meadow Green & Deep Blue (Rustoleum).

Almost done!!

With the plexiglass I cut previously, I put them on the present & drilled holes through, and barely into the wood, for the tiny little screws.

 

Screw on the plexiglass & DONE!

These boys are beyond excited about their new present banks! Now it’s time to start earning money!!! Which is also great, they are so much more helpful around the house now ;)