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March 25, 2012

Farm~Fresh~Eggs Sign

TUTORIAL INCLUDED

I love signs so I decided that I needed something to put over my Kitchen Sink.

I had some wood left over from one of my pallet projects so I got out the jigsaw and cut the end of my board jagged like. I wanted it to look like the wood had broken off to give it some chippy character.

I like how the end turned out.


As usual I got excited about the project and did not take a before picture of the board before I cut and painted it.

For the paint I used rubbed oil bronze spray paint, love that stuff.

Then I printed out a cool font with the words FARM ~ FRESH ~ EGGS




I transfered my words onto the board with my chalk rub method to which you can find here in this post for the details. 



Now I painted and layered different colors by filling in the words



Yes, I was cooking dinner while painting my sign, wow go me the multi-tasker.

Actually this is an inside joke in my home, hubby kids me about "please do not multi task especially when cooking dinner. 

Cuz my timer may go off (smoke alarm) letting me know that the food is UH over-done.

OK now back to my sign.......


I finished it off with a layer of antique white, a little distressing, antiquing glaze and Wa-la there's you're sign

I found the perfect home for it over my kitchen sink.



So have you made any signs lately?  If so please share your love for sign making.


Until next time,
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March 22, 2012

Aw Snap! .....Canon T3I

Source Google

I did it, I took the plunge

I am now eagerly awaiting my new Canon T3I DSLR Camera. Woot!

I have been needing a nice camera that would allow me to be creative in video and photography for quiet some time.

My son Aaron is quiet the photographer doing this for side jobs, fun and such. 

So I called him up and picked his brain about what to buy.

Have you looked into buying a DSLR camera lately? My word, the choices and the lingo, it can be overwhelming to say the least.

Especially if you're like me and know very little about cameras.  

Doing a weeks worth of research and reviews I finally just said enough, the more I researched and reviewed the more confused I got.

The T3I got great reviews but the thing that sold me on this beginner DSLR in particular was the articulated LCD flip out viewfinder.

Source Google


Yep that's right the viewfinder, who would of thunk that the little rotating view finder would be my deciding factor. 

I really like different views and angles and this will make it easier for those low shots :)

Well the HD video helped out as well.

I am a program director for fundraising so I do video's for marketing fundraisers for the schools I run. So this will come in handy.

Now the trick will be learning to use this new camera. 

I stop by often and visit Amiee's Photography tips at Its Overflowing for her information on shooting pictures with a DSLR.  Check her post out.

Blogger friends what camera are you using? Point-n-Shoot, DSLR?

What tips can you share for taking great photos for our blog post?

Your comments are welcome here, I would love to hear from you, so share away.



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March 16, 2012

The Liebster Blog Award

I was just beside myself when I opened my email to find that I had been awarded......drum roll please

The Liebster Blog Award

{German word meaning "dearest or beloved"}

A sweet blogger Allison @ Cozy Home Interiors honored my little blog by giving me this Liebster blog award...

Singing the song while doing the Happy dance....

Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's Celebrate)
Celebrate good times, come on! (Let's Celebrate)

I want to give a shout out to Allison and thank her from the bottom of my heart for giving me this award. 

I feel so honored since I have only been blogging several months.


So you may ask what is this Liebster blog award?

So glad you ask, Let me share


It's an award in the blogging community given to an up and coming blog, having less than 200 followers. I fit in to that category for sure.....  I then nominate 5 blogs to receive the Liebster Blog Award.


Rules of the Award are:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog

2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you

3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog

4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed (see below)

I think following them would be a good thing to do as well.....just say'in

5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

Wow finding 5 blogs took me more time than I had thought


My Nominations Are

Meet

1. Kelly at "Here Come The Sun". Please visit her and follow along. I love tutorial's and she has some good ones!

Kelly's profile.....I am Kelly, a mom to two beautiful children, Madison Elizabeth and Cutter Austin. I have a love for crafting, design, photography, the beach and anything outdoors.I started this blog to share a bit about my everyday life as a stay-at-home mom. It has since morphed into an outlet for me to share the things that I love to do whether that be crafting, photography or adventuring with my family.

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2. Marcia at "In Stillness and Simplicity" I love the name of her blog...it is just calming isn't it! Her post are very inspiring.  Please visit her and follow along.

Marcia's profile.... Wife and mother, enjoying the privilege of making a home and sharing my Father's heart; writing, creating, and ever growing in grace. In my heart, always sitting by the sea.


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3. Sarah at "All Things Blogs" Give her a visit and leave comments and follow along.

Sarah's Profile.... She is 11 years old. All Things Blogs is my blog built to share other cute blogs! I love featuring bloggers. Also, I share linky parties, giveaways, anything in the blogosphere I think All Things Blogs readers would like to know about! 

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4. Candy at "Pickin and Paintin" I have been a follower of Candy and she has some great transformations, go and check her out and follow along.

Candy's profile.... I'm Mother to 2 wonderful sons and MiMi to 5 precious grandkids. I have a small gift and antiques shop, an ebay store and sometimes sneak away to go pickin' to keep the shop well stocked. Come along with me. We'll jump in my old red truck and travel the backroads of Tennessee and Alabama lookin' for treasures that we can repaint or repurpose, then bring into the shop. It's always fun to see the expressions on faces and hear comments that are made about pieces I've found. And, hopefully some of those folks will adopt some of the treasures I've found and give them a good home.


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5. Katie at  "Adventures Of A DIY Dork"  Katie has a great post on a lot of homemade cleaning products that would save you lots of cash.....I love thrifty.  Please visit her and follow along.

Katie's profile.... I am a twenty-something year old self-proclaimed dork who is learning how to reuse and re-purpose hand-me-downs and thrift store finds to achieve the "I bought this new in store look" on a second-hand budget. Join me on my journey as I learn the ins and outs of DIY decor and home improvement!


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So there you have my 5 nominees for the Liebster Blog Award.

The Blog community is so great about welcoming new comers like myself to blogging. Following any new blogger makes their day, I know it does mine!

So go out and visit my new found blogger friends and make their day a little brighter!!!!!!!!

Bloggers helping Bloggers!

Until next time,
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March 10, 2012

RE Words.......

In DIY land there is a lot of discussion of the RE words. 

Repurposed ~~~ Restored

Reform~~~Renew~~~Recreate 

I happen to love repurposing and restoring.....

 taking things that no one else sees value in, discarded things,

 thrown out on the side of the road things

via google


 old worn out, dinged up things that are consider useless 

pieces that have served their purpose some say at one time in it's life but now headed to the dump

a little rough around the edges maybe 

with all the eye candy worn off

Google

Webster definition of re-store

re-store: 

give back, return

to put or bring back into existence or use

to bring back to...or put back into a former or original start: RENEW

to put again in possession of something


wow now isn't that a beauty.....

beautifully restored
Google
It took the beholder of the piece to look past the ugly 

the old 

to see hope, to see beauty in something that no one else could see

knowing this was going to be hard work,

scraping, sanding, filling in the broken pieces

ah! but the blood sweat and tears was so worth the out come in the end.


Webster definition of re-purpose

to give a new purpose or use

via google

via google

you see the point of this post is not so much about restoring things as 

REstoring people
As mush as I love restoring things I love to see lives RESTORED

all the more!
There is so much more value in a person~~~~ in people 
but they can be discarded thrown to the side
seeming to be used up with no purpose in life
how sad


via google
There are countless numbers of hurting people in the world

with broken lives that feel there is no hope 

no reason worth living
NO Purpose


via google

But there is Hope 
There is a Master restorer
 He is the best at putting back together all the broken pieces
In scripture we can find RE words that give us purpose, give us a hope and a future.


If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 
Jesus beholds the beauty in each one of us
Roy Lessin put it so perfectly and I had to share his thoughts


Redeem
 means to be bought back, delivered, ransomed, or purchased. 

As our Redeemer, God has purchased our freedom in 

Christ from the slave market of sin, 

delivered us from Satan's power, and made us His own possession. 

We have been redeemed 

from a useless life

 to a fruitful life; 

from a life of bondage 

to a life of freedom; 

from a life of guilt, condemnation, and judgment 

to a life of forgiveness, justification, and peace..........



Restore means 

that God brings back and gives to us again 

what was once taken from us or lost to us. 

God assures us that what was lost can be found, 

what has ended can begin again, and what is no longer 

seen can be brought back into view. 

He can restore a broken relationship, 

lost health, 

a lost blessing, 

a broken heart, 

a former ministry, 

or a former joy.  R.L



You see, I have been 
restored~~~repurposed~~~renewed
I have been Redeemed!!!


Now those are shout-in words.

I know life is tough but no one has to walk it alone. 

My prayer for you today is that if you are hurting, depressed, hopeless, tired, weary, jobless,

that you will run to Jesus the one who can put all the broken pieces back together.

He alone can make al things new

I am thankful for his faithfulness

 his saving grace and putting my broken pieces back together.

What are you thankful for? 

I would love to hear.


PS: If anyone is ever in need of a friend or a ear to listen or to pray, I am an email away! 




Until next time,
Photobucket Linking Up To: SippyCupChroniclesFavoriteThingFriday

March 3, 2012

Trash to Photo Treasure....Wood Pallet Art Tutorial

  I finally got around to posting my reveal that I have been so excited to share.


I could never find the time to sit and get all the details out, hence the delay.


Remember the post I talked about my daughter-in-law Ashley?  
 If not, you can view it Here

She dreamt about me making her the pallet art frame that I had made for my home but did not want to ask me.  So my son told me all about her dream and I got busy making one for her. 



Well, my friends this is the reveal~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FAMILY, FRIENDS GATHER HERE

this lovely piece is the original one I made for myself...isn't it fun and big...makes a big statement and a great way to display pictures of family and friends.

I will walk you through the tutorial from the one I made for my daughter-in-law so you can find a pallet and make one for your home.

Who loves pallets? 

google sorce

Who likes to make cool stuff out of pallets?

 I  had some pallets in the back yard for some time.....

I had been wanting to make something fun out of them. So I got out the hammer & crow bar to tear those bad boys apart. (and bad they are)


Trying to get those boards off was like trying to climb Mt Everest walking backwards in a blizzard blindfolded!!!!

google source

alright! alright! I have never climbed Mt. Everest....... I'm just say'in....... it was really hard.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME

at least not without Mr. handy to help you.

So after an hour of huffing and puffing, straining, banging and pulling and breaking boards I threw in the towel and called for reinforcements.

My partner in DIY crime or "do it for your wife" DIFYW.........


Mr. CIS was happy to help me, within 15 mins he had all the boards off the pallet with no breaking or cutting them wow he made it look so easy, but I asure you it is not....

Oh yeah, I save the rusty nails that come out when puling them apart to reuse I just like the old rusty look mo better. CAUTION when handeling these, use safety.


.......So now you have picked out the boards you want to use.  I love pieces with holes and cracks it gives it so much character and chippy warmth!


You will need 5 boards for this project.  I picked  two wider boards when making Ashley's for the top and bottom and just regular size for the other 3. You will need your tape measure to get the board cut to the length and width you want your frame.


I did not want it to be exactly square shaped so I had him cut the length of the boards down and left the width alone. I think it was 40x32

 Now he was getting my piece of palett art squared up and ready for nailing.


Ok got it squared with the metal squaring tool my hubs is using. I would have just eyeballed it but that it what I have him for right to help me do it the correct way.  

Let the nailing begin!....now this beauty is starting to take on it's form. 



Once it was all nailed down, it was time for the fun to begin. I retrieved my handy sander from the shed and gave it a light sanding to get all the splinter off and smooth it out just a tad.




From there I started the layering....I chose special walnut I already had from another project and began staining. I let that dry overnight since it was already evening ;)


Then the next morning I started on it by adding a red paint over the stain


then the next layer of antique white



Now I took my sander and got to distressing it so that the red and the stain would peek through. Then with antiquing glaze brown and black I toned down the white with this process. And this is what we have.


The next step was to start the words....Family, Friends Gather here.

Now this part is time consuming but worth the out come. I dont have a fancy way to transfer but this way works better for me than stenciling. The one I made for myself I did use stencils and boy was that hard to get the letters perfectly straight and in line with each other.

So with the next one I used word to create and print out my font.  Great thing about using your computer is the font selections are limitless.  Get's me in trouble trying to decided on all the beautiful choices.  Of course I take into consideration how easy it will be to trace and paint inside the lines. 

It took me a few tries printing to get the font the correct size for the boards. The word family was printed on two sheets FAM....then ILY.



I get my center line on the board and the paper then draw the center lines to mark. I measure the width of the largest letter and start from the center of the word working out to find out where to place the word on the plank.  

Now this frustrates me because it is time consuming and I want to get the words on and start creating.  

But patience is a virtue and it pays off in the end.




I use the chalk transfer method to get my words onto the wood. After all my measuring, I flip the paper over on the wrong side and color it all over the back of the words with chalk.  I use this blue since I can see it well when the transfere is done.

Then I flip it back over chalk side on my board line up my markings and tape it down so it won't move around on me. Then all ya do is take a pencil and retrace each letter.



And there ya have your beautiful blue letters transfered onto the wood ready for painting




Now it's time to fill in the letters with our color.....I chose black.

I take this awesome Elmer's painter pen in black and go back over my blue outline, this just defines it so much better than my non artsy free hand ability.

Then all ya do is fill it in with your paint color!  how fun.

The embellishing can be limitless....let your creativity take over.

I chose to wrap the four corners in jute to give it some more texture.




I strung 3 strands of the jute across the width of the frame and stapled it to the back.  This allows for hanging pictures.



For mine I added these sconses I got at restore for 5.00 each to the sides.






For Ashley's I got these cute pieces at Hobby Lobby in the drawer knob section for 4.99..... 2 for the price of one...I love their 50% off sales.


I added these to each side and hung these cute green lanterns with tea lights I got at Ben Franklin Crafts..... both for $2.40 on sale.



are they not just too cute and perfect for a pop of color and some ambiance at night.

Lastly I made two fabric flowers out of muslin and 1 fabric flower out of burlap.


They were hot glued to the top board in a cozy threesome


And now Ashley's finished pallet art picture frame for her home.


here is a look again at the one I have hung in my home




So what are you doing with pallets?  

What have you turned into a treasure for your home or loved one?

Please share your love for pallets!!

PS: If you enjoyed reading my tutorial please consider joining Color It Simple. 

Thanks for stopping in.


Please check out this fabulous WEBSITE with 35 Creative Ways to recycle Wooden Pallets by DESIGNRULZ

35 Creative Ways To Recycle Wooden Pallets by Designrulz

Until next time,
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