Halloween/Thanksgiving 2x4 Craft - Double Sided!

If it weren't for other people, I don't know if I'd manage to work in time for "fun" crafting very often - especially right now when I seem to spend most of my days in the garage working on drying racks or sorting through yet another closet or stack of boxes in an effort to pare down all the STUFF before we move.  However, I get pretty cranky when all I do is "work" so a couple months ago when I was asked to put together a craft for the women's group at a local church I was pretty quick to agree.  I love introducing people to one of my favorite hobbies!

It didn't take us long to decide on an easy (and hopefully quick!) 2x4 craft for Halloween and Thanksgiving - yes, it's double sided!    The easier it is to change out holiday decor and the less space it takes up in storage, the better, right?  The front side reads "BEWARE of little Monsters" and the back side says "THANKS for little Blessings."

We ended up with almost 30 people signed up for the craft - Yay!  I'm told most of them have never done anything crafty so I've been thinking extra hard about how to have it all go as smoothly as possible.  Over the last week or so I've pulled together a kit for everyone and while I was at it I figured, hey, why not pull together a quick How To for the blog.  I haven't done one of those in a while.

In the kit they will find the wooden blocks, vinyl lettering, patterned paper cut to size, a couple pieces of ribbon (which I forgot to put in the photo!) and even a nice little reference sheet.  I took the extra time to type up the reference sheet because 1) a few of the people won't be able to make it tomorrow but still wanted to make the craft and 2) with that many people they may not be able to have the example blocks right in front of them and I wanted them to at least have photos for reference and 3) some people learn better/retain things better if they can read it instead of just listening to a quick explanation.

*For those of you that are going to ask (and I know someone is going to ask!) here is a quick run through of the sizes for the wood pieces.  You can use a 2x4 for all pieces (I got 2-3 sets out of one 2x4).  Cut out two pieces 7 1/4" high, two pieces 4 1/8" high, and two pieces 3 1/2" high.  For the base block I cut it 14" long then ran it through the table saw (or rather, my awsome husband did) so that it was 2" high.

The rest of the process is pretty easy:
-paint all sides of all wooden pieces.  (Actually I would have preferred to stain them, but the stain has to dry overnight and it really messy so I figured paint was a much better option for craft day)  It will probably take two coats.
-cut your patterned paper slightly smaller than the size of the blocks.  Adhere patterned paper with Modge Podge or similar adhesive
-apply vinyl lettering
-apply another coat of Modge Podge over the top of everything, including the sides that are only painted (this keeps the finish consistantly glossy on all sides)
-when dry, attach ribbon embellishments using wood glue or a hot glue gun.

Told you it was easy! ;)  Now for the beauty shots.

The big craft day is tomorrow!  I've already been over to help set everything up - can't wait!  I'll let you know how it goes... ;)

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Wreaths with The Girls

 Craft day with The Girls!  I haven't been able to say that in a long time - since we moved, in fact.  Not the craft day - I've had a few craft days here and there (can you imagine how badly the withdrawals would be for me without some of those?!?).  It's the term, The Girls.  That's an official term in my head.  The Girls - a group of friends that get together to share some fun, which often involved crafting.  I had two of those back in Utah - one was a set of friends from high school.  We had a designated Saturday once a month, just for us.  And the other was my monthly card-making group.  I have missed both very much since we moved (almost 3 years ago now!).  So I'm very happy to have found a great group of ladies here that have quickly turned into my Go To buddies not only for hanging out at the pool or back yard BBQs, but will also join me in my crafty craziness. :)

Things just kind of fell together for us.  A neighbor wanted to make a wreath supporting her favorite football team before the season started but didn't know how to do it.  We very quickly had a nice little group that wanted to learn as well. 

We started with a fun little shopping trip to the craft store, having luckily been able to find a time when all the husbands could watch the kids.  And oh what fun that shopping trip was!  I can't imagine what the employees at the craft store thought as we spent the better part of two hours in the deco mesh section, full of big ideas and enthusiasm.  Plus deco mesh was on sale for only $5 a roll!  Everyone walked out of the store with supplies for at least two wreaths each.  And me - well I had enough for four different variations lol.  (And this after going in there thinking that I had a wreath for practically every holiday already)

Last Friday was our big craft day.  We went into it with lunch prepped ahead of time and kids either happily playing upstairs or home with their dads (gotta love any guy who will help us indulge our crafty craziness!) and spent the entire day making wreaths.  So fun!

5 ladies, 9 wreaths.  Awesome.  My favorite part is seeing how one method/theme can be interpreted differently by each person and they all turn out so different from each other.

There's wreath #9.  One friend had to leave early in order to set up for her daughter's bday party and her finished wreath didn't make it into the group shot at the end of the day.
So which one is mine?  And yes - I only finished one.  Host and teacher duties will do that to ya - not that I'm complaining.  I loved it and not finished up everything gives me an excuse for hosting another craft day :)

Anyway - this one is mine.  The funny part is we don't really even watch football LOL.  But the original inspiration wreath was really cute.  And it's kind of a joke between my husband and myself that with all of the Alabama fans in the neighborhood, we should show some sort of Utah spirit.

 

 I tried out a new look with this one - a combination of the poufy wreaths and the curly ones I've done in the past.  I really like the added texture and interest it gives to the wreath.

Cute right?  It makes me happy, even if I still have no real intention to sit down and watch a game.  Go Utah! ;)

New Spring Crafts!

T-minus two days 'til Easter!  And I just (as in about an hour ago I was glueing on the the final feathers) finished up a couple of fun Easter/Spring crafty projects - ha! 
I had big plans for having a craft day with friends on this one, but it just wasn't coming together with my schedule/time.  I did, however, manage to coordinate some crafty time with one friend over a couple of days this week (this kind of thing ALWAYS takes longer than expected - especially when it requires use of a jigsaw, which I don't think I've used since middle school shop class!) and I'm happy about that.

We ended up with a trio 2x4 Easter animals (original inspiration for these cuties found here)

 (the rabbit is my favorite!)

and a pair of fun flowers in pots.  (original inspiration found here) You can't see the detail very well in this shot (I know, I know - I rushed the photos, but if I hadn't I probably wouldn't have managed to blog about them at all) but we cut the flowers out of bead board with the jigsaw - all by ourselves! :P - and the centers are fabric rosettes.  Now I just need to figure out where to display them...
(it won't be that hard - I haven't taken the time to set out any of my spring décor yet *sigh*)

Craft Day - Deco Mesh Wreaths

Did everyone enjoy their Thanksgiving?  We had a pleasant day of it yesterday with good food and great company.  It was a great way to spend the holiday.  But with Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror I of course woke up with big plans for Christmas decorating, gifts, and some Elf antics (we do our own version of Elf on a Shelf) swirling in my head - such a fun time of year!  Unless there is something super-fantastic in the Black Friday stuff (Sam did spot a great deal on a TV but was too late to get in on the 4 they had in stock at Walmart last night *sigh*) we usually choose to avoid the crowds and instead spend the day after Thanksgiving at home putting up the Christmas tree.  So that's the plan for today - yay! 
Of course I'm up before the sun once again this morning.  My internal alarm clock seems to be set at 5AM or earlier the last few months.  It's still dark outside and if I start pulling out decoration boxes this early I'll wake the kids up so I thought I'd play a little catch up with the blog.  May I present a fun collection of Christmas wreaths from our nieghborhood/friend crafting session a couple weeks back :)

In October, a friend of mine had run across some great deco mesh wreath ideas and asked I could teach her how to make one.  It quckly turned into fun plans for a craft day with a few friends, including a shopping trip for supplies all together the week before - always so fun to have some time out with the girls.  It was very interesting to watch the creative process and see how the personalities of each individual showed throughout the whole process - how they decided on what kind of wreath to make and the embellisments for it, and the different methods of putting it together and all the different styles of wreaths we ended up with.
I went a slightly different route and tried out the curly version for the first time, making the base for a fall wreath for myself (which I posted about here yesterday).  My MIL had seen part of our planning photos and discussion on Facebook and requested a wreath of her own.  The result is the purple one above - her absolute favorite color is purple and this year she decided to change the decor on one of her Christmas trees (she has three I think :)  It's so great that her enthusiasm for Christmas carried over into my husband because it makes life so much more fun when he's just into all the Christmas fun as I am) to a purple theme.  I love the colors, but have to admit that it threw me for a loop.  Once I got the base done I struggled with how to make it read as a Christmas wreath instead of say, something for Spring or Easter.  Thus the addition of the Merry Christmas sign and the ornaments. 

As with my own fall wreath, I didn't finish the purple one on craft day.  My friends, however, did complete their own wreaths (it was a much longer crafting session than any of us had originally planned but it was worth it) so I was able to snap a few photos of their finished wreaths.

Cute right?  I love the color combination

I love this one too.  Great colors and I found myself wishing I had a use for that fantastic floral pick (above the bow) with the swirls and the glitter - too fun!

Ooooo I can't wait to go pull out the boxes and get my own Christmas decorations out...!

Getting in the mood for

Valentines! That's right, I'm trying to stick to my goals and get ahead of things and that means getting a jump on Valentines Day. I actually have all the Valentines for the kids' classmates ready to go out - but that's another blog post. Today I wanted to show off the crafty cuteness from yesterday's little get together with a couple of my friends. Actually it was our second attempt for the month. Life being as it is, our first craft day last week was kind of a no-go and our reschedule only worked for half of the ladies that were originally in on the plans. No worries, I'm learning to take whatever life gives me (and use the no shows as excuses to have fun one on one with them later) and roll with it. And we all know that crafty with buddies, be it one or ten, is always a lot of fun. Yesterday was no exception. I really enjoyed myself and the crafts turned out super cute.

I did 2x4 pumpkins for October, and trees for Christmas, so when a friend asked if we could do Valentines crafts this month my first thought was "what can we make with a 2x4?" :) This is what I came up with.

I always regret not taking out the camera before everyone goes home because each one has it's own special look. This time in particular I really loved how the other sets turned out too. Remind me to take photos next time, someone, please!
I like my set so much I'm pretty sure I need to list some on etsy and share the love, doncha think?

And for our second craft, a Valentines themed shadow box. I'm really in love with this concept. Don't be surprised if you see a green version in a couple of months...

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Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou

Craft Day!

UPDATE:  This has been such a popular post I decided I'd better move it to the new blog website.  You can view all the details, photos and tutorial HERE.  Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!