World Traveling Military Family

DIY Ruler Growth Chart

By: Mrs Bcomment

Once again I’ve been bitten by the Pinterst bug! I just knew had to make a Ruler Growth Chart 🙂
I started with a 2x10x8, which I cut down to 6 ft long. So the board is 6 feet tall and when hung 6 inches up from the floor it will be a 6.5 ft ruler
I used RustOleum Dark Walnut because I like the darker stained look, it’s also the same stain I used on my DIY planter centerpiece. I stained the sides and both sides of the boards, it took it a bit longer to dry since it was pretty cold the day I stained it…but I just couldn’t wait for warmer weather 😉
After staining I brought it into the house to work on putting on the ruler lines & numbers.
The HARDEST part was getting the template set up on my Silhouette Cameo so that the measurements were accurate! After finally getting the spacing right (1 inch apart) I was set to start with the 7 inch mark and then go up to 1 foot. I cut the lines out of contact paper so that I could stick it on the ruler and use it as a stencil! Above is the contact paper stencil before I applied it to the ruler
The specifics for the ruler lines. My lines were 1/4 inches wide.
The inch lines were 1/4 in wide by 2 in long
The quarter inches were 1/4 in wide by 3 in long
The foot lines were 1/4 in wide by 4 in long

I used a clear contact paper so that I could make sure that I could ‘see’ where I was lining things up, see the stencil on the left side?

Close up of the stencil on the board

Then I used a black acrylic paint and painted the lines of the stencil, I used 2 coats

All the lines painted and drying

Then I peeled the stencil off, see the first half of the ruler…

They were still drying when I peeled it off, as I’m a bit impatient 😉

Then I cut out the numbers 1-6 on contact paper and stuck them on the board, then painted the with black, also using 2 coats.
You can use any font/size that you want. I tried a few and found that I liked Adobe Fangsong Std R (I have a Mac) and my numbers were 3.2 in tall by 2 in wide.

All numbers painted and drying, and yes I did stain the top and bottom after I was done, I forgot to do it ahead of time

And the finished product! I LOVE it!
If you don’t have a Silhouette machine you can free hand the lines and put them on using a measuring tape to mark them out every 1 inch, or tracing them on, or using a stencil made out of card stock.
You can use any number stencils or free hand them, I am not that talented so I had to use a stencil.

Thumbtack Decor

By: Mrs Bcomment

Yep, that’s right, you can make decor with thumbtacks and it’s so very fun & addicting!
Of course as always I seen the idea on Pinterest from this blog and HAD to try it!
I ran out and grabbed several boxes of thumb tacks (300 count for $1 at the Dollar Store) and a 6 pk of 3″ Styrofoam balls from Hobby Lobby and I got to work!
I started with 3 boxes of silver thinking I’d only need 150 for each ball, instead I needed 300 per ball and had to have a friend get me three more boxes and they only had gold…which really didn’t matter since I’d be spray painting them anyways.

I made a line around the ball with the tacks

Then I started filling in, trying to not leave large spaces

Finished gold one

Close up

Gold & Silver, while I do LOVE the silver ones, I’m not so keen on the gold ones…just not a big fan of gold in general

I didn’t have any bamboo skewers so I made my own ‘post’ by shaving down some bamboo chopsticks, worked like a charm!

Spray painted with Valspar Gloss Tropical Oasis & the green below is Valspar Satin Leafy Rise

I decided on 2 of each color

Finished!

Funny enough they even happen to go with the decor on my Tibetan trunk!

Crafting craziness going on around here for sure!

Spray Paint is a HOOT

By: Mrs Bcomment

I have a new addiction…it’s spray painting! And I’m just getting started, LOL!
I found this owl at Kirkland’s
and while he was cute I wanted him to ‘pop’ so I decided to cover him with Valspar Tropical Oasis, originally I had planned on covering him all in blue BUT while I was spray painting him blue, I turned the can upside down while painting the side and it turned GREEN! I started to panic! I grabbed a paper towel to try to rub it off and then ran in for a wet rag. When I rubbed it off I found that I really LOVED how it looked and so here is my happy accident
I still have no idea why it turned green. I stopped and read the directions, shook the can for 1 minute and then tried again on a piece of paper and I still seen some green. I’ll give it another go here sometime in the near future and hope it doesn’t happen again! If it does I’ll stick to other brands of spray paint.
My remodeled owl with my planter

DIY Decorative Planter Centerpiece

By: Mrs Bcomment

I seen this super cute planter on this blog awhile back and wanted to make it, well a smaller version of it!
The one on the blog was 4 feet long but I wanted to use it for my newly refinished cabinet so I needed it to be only 1 1/2 feet long.
I started with some scraps of 2×4 and a 2x6x4 whiteboard that I cut for the sides, and the saw worked great! It was my first ‘self’ project using it.

I nailed it all together

The ‘shanty’ looking ends

I stained it and let it dry, then I added the upholstery tacks on the side for a decorative look

I bought some triangle shaped bottles and stem of red flowers from Hobby Lobby, I even ‘refinished’ the owl….but another post about him later 🙂

Planter on the cabinet

Loving the red flowers

LOVE the outcome! It was super easy and pretty quick to make!

Mini Drawer Facelift

By: Mrs B1 Comment

When I seen this small 3 drawer box at the flea market for $12 I just had to buy it, and knew I’d be giving it a much needed facelift.
I was in such a hurry to get it finished that I didn’t even take ‘before’ pictures…shame on me! Thankfully I had the above on on my cell phone that I’d sent to a friend.
I decided that I wanted it black so I grabbed some spray paint and got to work. Since it was my first spray painting project I had some trial and error with learing the ‘right’ technique. Thankfully I managed to figure out something that worked and now I have this beauty.

I planned on using it for the kids homework/notes from school, one for each kid. So far I haven’t put that into action but now that I’m thinking about it, I may just do it very soon….

Refinished Cabinet: From Run-Down to Repurposed

By: Mrs Bcomment

A while back I bought this cabinet at the flea market with visions of refinishing it, yesterday I finally completed that vision!

I do have to say that I did not do it alone, instead it was a tag-team effort with Mr. B 🙂 He sanded it down, cleaned it all up, and painted it the base coat for me. I did the vintage/distressed finish on it and I love it!

Now I know it looks kinda rough in the photo above but that didn’t stop me from seeing it’s potential!

When I bought it I had NO idea what colors to use, or even HOW I wanted to distress it, so this was all a trial by fire. I went to Walmart and feeling overwhelmed by the paint process I headed to the clearance section where I struck gold! I ended up with a Indian Painted for the base and Granite for the finish and at a greatly reduced price…now that’s my kinda deal! Instead of paying $20-30 each I paid $13-14 each and there is plenty left for other projects.

All sanded down thanks to Mr. B. I will say that I did start to sand it down when I had free time here and there but I was moving much to slow for Mr. B’s liking so he decided to just knock it out for me.

Me deciding if I liked the base color. While it was a bit ‘beige’ for my taste I knew it wouldn’t matter once I put the gray on top of it.

I decided that I would paint the whole thing in the base color and then use the 2nd color to give it the vintage/distressed look. After spending some time online researching I decided to just give it a go myself. I painted the Granite over the base coat and then I decided to use some old rags to wipe off a good portion of it. It was great because the finish picked up all the cervices and highlighted them. I wiped and painted until I got the look that I wanted…it was really pretty simple and only took me around 30 minutes to knock out the whole thing!
Mr. B mounted the new hardware and we brought it inside! Finished photos, please note the garage lighting is not the best and these were taken in the evening:

I love the hardware that Mr. B picked out, I had looked around at Hobby Lobby but didn’t see anything I really liked. When he was at Lowe’s buying the wood for the workbench he found this set, and it’s perfect!

See horrible lighting on this back picture. Like my Coca-Cola ‘painting’ signs? They were throwing them away at the shoppette and Boo asked if he could have them…he wanted to hang them in his room! They say 4/$10, LOL! They were perfect for using while painting for this project

Side view

Now that we got that little project under our belts I have the feeling it’s just the beginning 😉

DIY Workbench

By: Mrs B1 Comment

Finished workbench, as you can see it’s sitting on Bea’s driveway canvas for her chalk art 😉

We recently bought a miter saw from a friend and I’ve been chomping at the bit to put it to good use with all the amazing Pinterest projects out there, but first I really needed a workbench for it 🙂

Our new saw to make MANY projects with

This weekend Mr. B decided to make me a workbench, and it was able to knock it out in no time. I pretty much stood around handing him screws and provided moral support. I also got a tutorial on how to use the saw…which will be handy for some up coming projects, I won’t have to wait for Mr. B to cut the wood!

We got free plans from this awesome site where there are tons of plans for all kinds of projects, I have my eye on a few others!

We did have to make a few adjustments. Mr. B bought the wood listed on the shopping list and ended up with extra 2×4’s. Also the cut list was missing some cuts and the 12″ cuts should’ve been 16″ luckily with the extra wood we were able to fix the issues. Overall it was a good plan for a VERY sturdy & heavy workbench! I look forward to putting it to good use!

In the garage with the saw in place. Mr. B even mounted a power strip for the electrical cords, a hook to hold the electrical cords and a pencil holder that I made from an old shampoo bottle!
Now I’m ready to make some projects!

DIY Christmas Tree Decor

By: Mrs Bcomment

I’ve been wanting to make some Christmas Tree decor since Oct, I finally got around to it a few weeks ago…I know and I’m FINALLY blogging about it! In my defense I’ve been very busy during Christmas break trying to get ready for Christmas, Boo’s birthday, and having the kids at home 🙂
Back to the tree decor…
These are the completed trees, below is the process:
The candlesticks, I actually bought 2 of the glass ones to stack but ended up not making a 3rd tree yet so maybe I’ll add it next year or use them for another project…

I then bought 3 Styrofoam trees BUT found a crafty way to make the trees without the cones so I only used 1 of the cones, I got the large one for 40% off with coupon

I started with the large tree, ribbon, and a hot glue gun (low heat) FYI I ended up needing 3 rolls of ribbon and only bought 1 each time so I had to stop and get more, next time I’ll by extra to begin with!

Then I cut part of the Styrofoam out to fit the candlestick, I just used a steak knife…I know risky considering our family history with steak knives, but thankfully I did so without incident

I started by gluing the ribbon to the top center

Then curling it around as I went gluing it down. This is where the low heat glue gun comes in so you don’t burn your fingers!

Here it is when I ran out of the first roll of ribbon

I then decided to glue on the decorative ribbon on the base, which I scored in the clearance section for 30 cents with another piece of ribbon!

All glued on

Close up of the bottom half all completed

Whole completed tree

Next I decided to try the cheaper route, I wrapped scrapbook paper around the Styrofoam cone and used the paper cone as my tree. That make it way cheaper than $3.99! I then cut some strips of green burlap that I scored on clearance and used the hot glue gun to glue on.

I glued a piece to the top

Then started cutting and wrapping the strips around and fraying the bottoms

After much trial and error I found the quickest process to be to hold up the above layer with a hair band (pony tail holder) and glue the next one underneath, fray it, then fold it up with the hair band and repeat.

Next I needed to figure out how to get it to stay on the candlestick since I was no longer using the cone. I quickly ate 2 Mott’s Applesauce and ‘recycled’ the containers after a quick wash & dry. I accidentally tore the whole lid off the first one but I just hot glued it back on.

Then I shoved them both up in the scrapbook paper tree and set it on the candlestick, pretty nifty huh?!

The finalized trees with my Willow Tree nativity that I scored guess where…yep New In the Box from the thrift store! 🙂
Final cost:
Ribbon tree- candlestick $4 (which I only paid that much for because I really liked it, it was already ‘finished’ and I’ll probably reuse for something else as well), ribbon $3 (50% off), Styrofoam cone $3, and base ribbon 15 cents for a total of $10.15. I could’ve done it for cheaper ($7.25) IF I’d figured out the scrapbook paper trick with this first tree as well.
Burlap tree- candlestick $1, spray paint $1 (because I still have a whole can for other projects), burlap $1, applesauce containers (free had at house), scrapbook paper 10 cents for total of $3.10

Spray Painting Candlesticks!

By: Mrs Bcomment

Once again I’ve been compelled to try a project from Pinterest, LOL! The problem was that in order to do the project I needed candlesticks…so I set out for the local thrift store and scored some. But I hit a snag when I could only find 2 that I liked and one that I could not use as it was. I called a friend and asked her to google if I could spray paint it…and sure enough I could! So here is my candlestick spray painting project:

I started off with this candlestick that I bought for $1 at the thrift store
When my friend was researching spray painting candlesticks she found that most people were recommending Krylon Fusion, so I went with the recommendations and bought a brown Krylon Fusion with a textured shimmer for a unique look.
I gave the ceramic candlestick a few coats and this is what I ended up with:
Viola! A brand new candlestick! Now every time I’m in thrift stores I look at candlesticks differently knowing that I can make them be whatever color I want them to be and those of us on Pinterest know there are tons of candlestick projects, LOL!
And what did I do with this and the others…that project tomorrow 🙂

Wooden Photo Displays

By: Mrs Bcomment

I finished the rest of my photo displays! I do have to say they are quite fun and addicting!

For the flowers I just used ribbon and found some ribbon flower tutorials online

Good old twine

Ribbon with ribbon flower & button center

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