North Pole Sign

After I made my stocking sign, I still had PLENTY of wood left over, so I decided to make a North Pole directional sign as well. I've seen direction signs all over the internet and absolutely adore them, sooooo...

 Up close...

Sooo excited with how this one turned out also. Can't wait to put it by my front door!

And don't worry, there's still a huge stack of this wood left, so there will be plenty of projects left to make with this. :)

For the HOW TO of printing on wood, click HERE.

And again, a HUGE thanks to my friends Jake & Jourdan for helping me with this!!

The Stockings Were Hung...

In Arizona they don't have dumps where you can take all your large garbage to, they have this super awesome system where once a month you leave out anything on the street you want picked up by a truck. This works out great for two reasons. 1-You don't have to make trips to the dump- the dump comes to you. And 2- You get to look through other people's garbage to see if you want any of it! :) Last week as I was dropping my daughter off at preschool I drove by a house with a huge pile of wood to be trashed and immediately turned around and threw it in the back of my car. And don't worry, I went back twice more to get the rest. :) The wood is absolutely perfect and SO my style. Anyway...

We don't have a fireplace this year in the house we're renting, so I decided to make my own sign to hang our stockings...

 

Sorry about the background!

I LOVE how it turned out! Now I just need to add a couple holes and some ribbon or twine to hang it on my wall. 

HOW TO:

Items needed: 

wood

Citra Solv

Paint brush

Laser printer

1. Cut wood and assemble however you like.

A SUPER HUGE thanks to my awesome friends Jake & Jourdan for helping me with it! They have all the tools anyone could ever want, so I took it over to be cut and Jake totally cut and glued the entire thing for me!! So so nice of him!!

2. I found a way on Pinterest to transfer printer ink onto wood and it worked awesome! (click HERE for the full tutorial) This method I used only works with a laser printer, so make sure that's what you have before starting. I used Word to flip my letters because you have to flip the paper over to transfer the ink...make sense? If you're using Word also, go to create word art, choose lettering and use the formatting palette (the side bar) to flip your image. Press the rotate button and flip horizontal.

3. Once you have your image printed, line it up on the board and make sure it's exactly how you want it, then turn your image over, ink side down.

4.  Citra Solv is a natural degreaser that can be found in natural food stores, I found mine at Whole Foods. Pour a small amount of Citra Solv in a bowl and using a paint brush, paint on just enough Citra Solv to wet the letters just slightly. Turn your paint brush around and scratch each letter with the handle of the brush. Don't scratch too hard, just enough to help the ink rub off onto the wood. Make sure to work in sections, I painted the Citra Solv on about 4 letters at a time. And don't use too much or the ink will bleed and not stick nicely. Hold the paper with your fingers firmly in place so you don't move the letters or ink around at all.

 5. When you're finished, remove the paper and let it dry.

 6. These knobs are from Hobby Lobby. I LOVE them, but they were a little too white for the wood...

 So I rubbed a little stain over them to darken them up a bit...

Then I measured, drilled holes and put the four knobs in the wood. 

 That's it. Done. So easy and SO cheap. I think the knobs were $10 from 50% off, the wood was free, and the bottle of Citra Solve was $6.99 (which I only used about 2 Tablespoons of. 

 Click HERE for the tutorial of the stockings I made last year.

So sorry if this post is a little scatter-brained!! It's been a long week :)

Yellow

My husband would probably tell you I'm awesome at starting projects and not-so-awesome at finishing them... eh... oh well. I bought this credenza back in Utah for $40 or $50, which, usually would seem like a little much, but in this case the thing probably weighs 300lbs and is SOLID so it was totally worth it. I wanted to use it as a dresser for under my tv (yes, I already have one, but why not switch it up already?) so eventually that will be the case. I'm still waiting to decide what to do with the middle part... You'll see what I mean....

Before

After

I can't decide if I want to cut out a section of the cabinet doors so that we can put our cable box, x-box, etc. inside and still be able to use the remotes with the doors shut. Make sense? So let me think about it for a few more months THEN maybe I'll finish it :) Ideas or thoughts anyone?

 Love, love, love the handles from good ol' Hobby Lobby for 50% off...

I just noticed my daughter wrote on the dresser with marker the other day. Can you spot it in the picture? Yes, she got in trouble. Will it happen again? You can sure count on it.

Sorry for showing you, yet, another unfinished piece. But let's be honest, it might be a while before the thing is FULLY finished, so I decided to post it already. :)

Cutting Your Little Boys Hair

So here's the thing... I'm not going to encourage you to do this, because I'm a hair stylist and that's what we do, but let's be honest, everyone does it. Soo ya might as well know how to do it if you're doing to do it anyway. 

A while back my sister called me and asked if I would fix her little boys hair after their attempt to buzz it and it made me think maybe people might want a little advice before running into a screaming toddler that has to be held down to finish the job...

A Few Tips:

1. Get FULLY ready before you put your kid in his/her haircut chair. 

2. Portable DVD players, TV's, laptops are always a great distraction.

3. Have snacks ready just in case. I don't like to start off with them though, just in case hair gets in them- the kid just ends up super angry!

4. START the haircut in the BACK... very important. You want to keep as little hair on their face as possible.

5. Do the entire haircut EXCEPT for close to the face first, then finish off with around the face and top of head. Make sure the top is nice and wet though (if you're using scissors). I can't stress enough how important it is to keep hair away from their face! :)

6. When shaving their neck and around their ears have someone help you hold their head so they don't move and end up with a bald spot... unless that's what you're going for.

7. As soon as you're done put the poor kid in the bath and wash off all that hair :)

Questions?

(Sorry this was TOTALLY off topic tonight, I just cut my son's hair a few hours ago and had it on my mind!)

Next Up...

Isn't she pretty? :)