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 :)

Burlap Stocking How-To

 

I saw a picture on a blog a while back that showed burlap stockings and they were SO SO cute!! I've never bought our family "official" stockings because, let's be honest, they're usually pretty pricey if you want cute ones (unless you find ridiculous deals at Pottery Barn, like my mother in law did last year... I'm still so jealous!).

Anyway, burlap is awesomely cheap so I decided to make them myself... finally! I'm pretty excited about how they turned out, nothing fancy or frilly, just simple and cute...

Let me just apologize before hand about lack of how-to pictures, my camera (which is only a year old) broke over Thanksgiving- not that I was ever a professional photographer anyway, we all know that!

How-To

1. I used a decorative wall stocking that I have to make a pattern, but you can just draw one out. I did mine a little larger, so I just traced it about an inch bigger. I placed the stocking on wax paper, drew around it, and cut out.

2. Pin your wax paper stencil to your fabric and cut out...

(Don't mind the writing, I was just playing!)

3. If you want to add any pieces to the outside of the stocking (like I did on the toe and heel) do it now before you sew the front and back pieces together. I didn't use any pattern for this, just cut as I went. Remember it's burlap so it doesn't have to be perfect! Pin your heal/toe pieces to the stocking front and sew.

4. Sew the front and back pieces of your stocking together.

*Don't turn the stocking inside-out yet.

5. For the top of the stocking fold your burlap piece in half.  Iron it to make it easier. When you buy burlap it comes folded in half, so I used as much as I had of that. (I haven't gotten much sleep lately so as of right now I can't think of how to say that better! Ha, sorry!)

6. Cut your top piece to fit your stocking. (Use your measuring tape to see how long you need it.) Mine ended up being about 7" wide x20" long.

7.  Fold the piece in half and sew on the very edge (about 1/4").

Your piece should look like this:

8. Place the sleeve inside your stocking - Like this picture, except put the piece inside the stocking - and sew on the top edge only.

9. Turn your right side out.

10. Sew on something to be able to hang your stockings by. I used this rope/hemp looking stuff from Hobby Lobby...

Sew it in the, let me think how to put this... Upper corner of the left side on the inside of the stocking. Wow that makes no sense, but I think you know what I'm talking about, yes? :) It's a little bit tricky, but I thought this was easier to do it this way then having to add it before the top of the stocking. You just have to maneuver your stocking around your sewing machine.

11. Add decorative pieces. I wanted the boys stockings to be simple and I couldn't find any buttons I liked so I went with these...

Yes, bottle caps :). You can use real caps, but they actually sell these at Hobby Lobby in the scrapbooking section.

For the ladies stockings I went with a prettier look. I followed a SUPER cute idea HERE  from Under the Table and Dreaming to make the flower thingys for mine and Taya's stockings...

I attached the flower thingy's (just get used to me saying "thingy's because it's going to happen a lot!) by gluing a piece of cardboard to the bottom of the foam, then I hot glued them onto the burlap. The cardboard was just to protect the foam so it wouldn't melt at all. Then I added some doily's for extra pizazz... do people still use that word? Make sure you put something in between where you're hot-gluing so you don't accidentally glue your stocking together.

12. Add your letters. I used my Cricut machine to cut the stencils, then taped them together and taped her name to the burlap. The tape is nice just in case you get any paint around the edges! Wait until it dries a little to peel off the stencil, but don't wait too long or the paper will stick and might rip up some of your paint. You can also just buy stencils if you want!

13. Pin your name to the stocking and sew around it. Again, it's a little difficult to maneuver your stocking around the machine, but I waited until the end to do this because I wanted to be able to see the exact placement.

Done!

Here's some close ups:

 

And on our fireplace...

Hope you like them!

Christmas Stockings!!!

I know, I'm a little over excited about them! Unfortunately I've been extremely busy lately and have no time to post the how-to, but here's a few pictures just because I can't stand it any longer :) ...

Ma & Pops...

The kiddos...

I love how vintagey they ended up looking!
(Vintagey- it's a word.)

 **Sorry about the pictures, my camera has been having issues and is now offically broken :(

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!!

It's that time again!!! I LOVE Christmas. Everything about it. Especially the decor. As I mentioned in my previous post, Kym, is going to start selling her awesome crafty things on this blog. She makes the cutest Christmas things and came up with this idea...

*****

FOR SALE

These are Christmas Countdown Blocks.  The blocks are about 3 inches square.  They come gift wrapped in cellophane. Cost is $10 per set. They are great for gifts!

                                                                                               -KYM

*****

***And can I just add that this is an AWESOME price for these blocks. Again, I've seen these in person and they're adorable!

If you'd like to purchase a set or two (or 18 for that matter) leave a comment or email bk_woodward@msn.com

(for those of you that don't know, we're located in Utah County, Utah)