Crafty Fun!

I've been in a crafty mood lately!  I made a couple fun little things to add to our kitchen and wanted to share them with you! I first saw these family rules canvas' over at The Pleated Poppy. I fell in love with the idea of having a set of rules or values that we can all share as a family.  Maybe it's the teacher in me, but I think rules are good things! :)  Ours are more like things we are trying to teach our children, and it's helpful for us to have them displayed so Ben and I are reminded daily to teach them by example!  Here is what I came up with!

Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out!  It's not perfect, but I've yet to find a perfect family or a perfect house, so it fits in just fine around here!  I love that it brings in a few different colors!  If you want to make one of these for your family, all you need is a canvas, some scrapbook paper, and mod podge.  Be careful when choosing your papers that you don't get anything too dark.  It's hard to say no to some of those gorgeous papers out there, but keep in mind what color your words will be so they will show up.  I cut the papers into strips using my "fancy scissors." (the kind with decorative blades.) Brush some mod podge on the canvas and smooth the strip on, working out the air bubbles as you go.  Once you've covered the whole canvas, it's time to add your rules!  I googled fonts and just tried to copy them the best I could.  Once you are done, put a couple layers of mod podge on top of the paper to seal the whole thing and make it nice and shiny!  Here are our rules in case you can't read them.  I stole a few from a favorite song, took a few I liked from other canvas' I've seen, and came up with some on my own.  Whatever you feel fits your family!

*Tell the truth at all times
*Be quick to forgive and overuse "I love you"
*Never let your praying knees get lazy
*Chase your dreams
*Bless your food-thank God for this life, this family, this home
*Work hard, do your best, it's ok if you mess up
*Don't outsmart your common sense
*Husbands-hug your wife daily.  Wives-always be his biggest fan
*Support your siblings, share in their joy
*Love the Lord your God

While I had the mod podge out, I covered these letters to display in my new hutch.

We also did a fun little Valentine's Day craft yesterday!  Have you ever made salt dough ornaments?  They are really easy to make, and you will most likely have everything you need right in your pantry!  There are lots of recipes, but the one I use is 1 cup of flour, mixed well with 1/2 cup of salt.  After mixing, stir in 1/2 cup of warm water.

After mixing, play with your dough and make a mess all over the floor and barstools.  Get dough up to your elbows and dust your face with flour.  Oh wait, maybe that's just how Audrey likes to do things.

Make your shapes with cookie cutters, or just form them yourselves.  Lay them out on a cookie sheet.



I cut little pieces of picture wire to stick a little loop in the top so you can hang them.  Do this before you bake them of course!



Bake at 325 for an hour or two.  DON'T get on the treadmill while they are in there and forget about them.  They'll burn.  :)  After they cool, paint them and decorate as you please!  Then find a cute place to hang them!  We chose the light over our table so our valentine's dinner would be "fancy."  :)

Crafts

I told you last time that I was working on a new project! It's been a while since I have had any time to work on something!!  The room in our house that bothers me the most is definitely our "study."  It's a pretty good sized room, and considering that neither Ben nor myself have any REAL reason for a study, it's kind of wasted space that just houses all the junk in our house!!  If you know me, you know I love a good craft!!  I am a scrapbookaholic, but I also love to sew, paint, crochet, mod podge, and just about anything else!  Basically, I never met a craft I didn't like!  So, you can imagine the nice little collection of "stuff" I have accumulated for all my crafts!  I really wanted some type of storage unit to house it all.  The other issue I had is the only place we really have for me to work is the dining room table.  Now, as much as Ben LOVES coming home to a table piled up with junk and being told he has to stand while eating his dinner because I'm in the middle of a project, I really wanted a real craft space!

Enter Ana White.  Have you been to her site?  Oh my word, it's amazing.  I think Ben and my dad may ban me from it for a while so I'll stop dreaming up projects!  If you've never heard of Ana from Knock-Off Wood, she is a carpenter who takes the furniture from expensive places like the glorious Pottery Barn and draws up the plans so you can build it yourself!  I was looking through her plans when I ran across this.

Ohhhhh, I love it!!  A craft table that neatly houses all my junk and looks pretty at the same time!  So, I set out to build my first piece of furniture!  It went something like this...
Step 1:  Print out lumber list and drag Ben to Lowes.
Step 2:  Take lumber to dad's house to cut for me because we don't have a garage and it rains pretty much every day during the summer.
Step 3:  Dad and I start to build.  We got 1 side built in about 30 min!  Not too bad.  We just used an air powered nail gun with little finishing nails and wood glue.
Step 4:  Go to mom and dad's 1 afternoon and find my craft table completely built and set up in the garage!!!  Haha!  Yes, I have to admit, dad did all the work.  He even went back and screwed it all together for extra support, and put brackets under all the shelves!  Everything was perfect and neatly caulked.  Love that man! :)

I don't have pictures of the finished product yet because I wasn't expecting it to be finished, and didn't have my camera!  Ben did snap a few on my phone the day that I actually helped dad start the table!

I like these because it looks like I did a lot....haha!

Check back soon for the finished project! I just have to get it primed and painted!  Unless dad has already done that too!  :)

P.S.  You can find the plans for this table here.