World Traveling Military Family

Wooden Photo Frames

By: Mrs Bcomment

Some of my crafty Pinterest friends wanted to make Wooden Photo Frames for teacher gifts for Christmas. We have 1 male teacher so I wasn’t sure about the idea but I decided to give it a go 🙂 Basically they were taking a block of wood painting/distressing it and then putting a photo on it with pushpins/nails and a burlap bow, I was not feeling male teacher with that idea 😉 Not having a photo of an idea, just a description from my friend I decided to put my own spin on it and LOVE the results!
I started with a ‘naked’ piece of 8×10 in wood and mini 2 in clothespin
Then I stained both the wood & clothespin with 2 coats of pecan stain, sorry this photo gives it a weird look but my ‘good’ camera was charging for a photo shoot later today 🙂 I have been wanting to stain ‘something’ for awhile, I was quite surprised by how easy it was!
Naked wood with the stained wood, coloring is a bit off in this one

I then remembered that I’ve seen some really cute stuff online with twine…so I decided to add some to mine. I nailed it onto the side with a tiny nail that Mr. B had in a ‘nail bucket’ in the garage 🙂 Then I printed a photo I made, and clipped it to the diagonal twine and Viola! Project done! I love that the teachers will be able to easily change out the photo as desired. I had thought about gluing the clothespin but this provides much more flexibility

Loving it! Not sure what I’ll do yet for the 2 female teachers but I still have a bit of time to work on it 😉

Wooden Pumpkins

By: Mrs Bcomment

Earlier this week I got together with some friends for a ‘Pinterest’ party where we made these super cute pumpkins! And of course I had to take my camera with me to document the process 🙂 Also I highly recommend having a Pinterest party it was so much fun!
Here they are cut with the divots (I guess that’s what they are called, LOL!) in them ready to be painted. Luckily my friend was able to have her dad help her cut the wood and put in the lines in them. She was then able to manhandle them with the belt sander to sand down all the edges 🙂

Pumpkins & stems (There were 4 of us so we needed 4 sets)

I painted my pumpkins with this lovely Terra Cotta color, love how it turned out

First coat on

Second coat on

Pumpkins & stems drying

Then we glued the stems on with super strength glue and left them to dry overnight…
I picked mine up the next day and brought them home and tied on the twine. Right now they are happily ‘resting’ in front of my Japanese glass fishing floats until I can find them a permanent location 🙂
Again this was another Pinterest project that we all decided we just ‘had’ to do 🙂

Photo Cube Decor

By: Mrs Bcomment

When I seen the photo cubes on Pinterest I just knew I had to make them!! Thankfully this blog even had a template all ready to use! I’ve been taking a Photoshop class, so it was a breeze to pop the photos right into the spots and make my blocks.

I wanted to make 8 blocks so I just chose 3 photos for each block, made them black & white and duplicated them in another layer in PS to make 6 photos, because you don’t see all the sides at the same time anyways…kwim?!
To get the different sizes I just reduced the scale when printing to make some smaller, I also saved the files so I can go back and print more anytime I want.
I got moss from the Dollar store and put it in the bottom, I LOVE them 🙂
See my one empty jar just waiting for a project to fill it…..

This is what they look like fresh out of the printer, you just cut and glue and viola instant photo decor!

Book Tree

By: Mrs Bcomment

I loved my book pumpkin so much that I decided I would try to make something else…I love how Pinterest gives you an idea but then it also spawns tons of other ideas in your brain! So I decided to make a tree!

This shows how choosing books of various heights can make larger or smaller shapes

It was super easy! I just drew a quick template (like above) and then removed cover from the paperback book and trace it on there. I cut the pages with scissors and glued together. It got a bath in green spray paint too! I may add a star or something to the top…but I’ll work on that as it gets closer to time to decorate for Christmas…I still have several fall projects to get knocked out 😉

Book Pumpkin

By: Mrs Bcomment

Another Pinterest project completed, LOL! I’ve still got a good list of things I want to do yet…SOO addicted to that site!

I made this awesome book pumpkin:

It was super easy….WAY easier than the book letter! I think I’m gonna get a few smaller (aka shorter) paperbacks and make 2 more smaller sized ones, this one is pretty good sized!
All I did was take a thrift store book and remove the cover…hence why it was so much easier than the letter. Then I made a ‘template’ and traced it onto the book (I have it open in the picture but I only used it folded so I could have used just 1 piece of paper)

I traced and cut the pages with scissors until it was all finished. Then I went out back and found a stick on the ground to use as the stem. I hot glued the stick in and the pages around and fanned them out. Then I sprayed it with light touch of orange spray paint and tied a ribbon on it!
And yes I’m obsessed with books ;p
I also learned a few nifty things about spray paint today with this and another project…I being the dork that I am should always wear gloves…otherwise I’ll end up with painted sticky hands that the paint will NOT wash off but will come off on everything I touch! Thankfully Google came to the rescue and I was able to get the paint off my hands using acetone nail polish remover and lots of elbow grease!

Book Letter Art

By: Mrs Bcomment

I had seen a vintage book made into a letter on Pinterest and I just knew I had to try it. That website has given me so many great ideas!

I went to a local thrift store and bought some vintage books. Last night I decided that I’d attempt to make my first letter, I’m sure Mr. B loved walking in to the chaos of this project after a long day at work 😉

I decided that I’d better use a pencil and draw lines to cut as freehanding it would not have been pretty

Book with letter outlined on front

Apparently Bea got a hold of the camera and decided to help document the process, including Mac under the chair wondering what was going on

I then decided if I was going to saw through the whole book I should tape it so it would stay together

Using the power saw…it didn’t work as good as I thought it would

Bea’s photo of me

Trying to cut through the whole thing

Having Mr. B get in on the action

Sawdust flying, Bea did a good job with this one

Moved to a hacksaw which worked better

But it was still hard work! I ended up untaping the book and cutting the front cover. I first used the hacksaw and then found the best tool to use…a Pampered Chef knife! It cut the cover great and I only ‘almost’ cut myself once, LOL! Those knives are sharp! So after I cut the front cover I then cut out the pages with scissors which was much safer but a slow and steady process. I then used the knife again for the back cover and viola:

A Book Letter! I LOVE it and I want to do one for all the kids but it did take about an hour…some of that was probably ‘growing pains’ figuring out the process but I’ll wait awhile before I attempt another 😉

Crafting Craziness!

By: Mrs Bcomment

My kids LOVE doing arts & crafts, especially Bea! I’ve always been of the mind to expose them to many different things and let them explore being creative, which is all great, but it does create quite a few messes ;p

Yesterday I decided to take Bea & Bubby to Michaels to pick out some things to work on this week during Spring break. Yes, we have enough supplies to make arts and crafts for years 😉 but I figured something new would be fun too!

So we got several items and sure enough they had to dabble with each and everyone in a single day, LOL! And this morning I woke up to a freshly painted project by Bea. While I’m enjoying spring break and the break from the ‘normal routine’ I’m also reminded how much ‘cleaning up’ is to be done over the break, LOL!

Here’s a few of the projects they’ve been experimenting with:

The bouncy balls have been surprisingly easy! The frog was only $1 and is still in the works. The A is completed. The captapult was only $1 and needs to be painted still. We also got several other things but I did not feel like hunting them all down for the picture. And yes in the background that is acrylic paint on the countertop, hoping it’ll come off, LOL!

Bea’s painted project. The example at the store was light pink with dark pink polka dots, to her this translated into a 2 toned with contradicting dots and bewjeweled with shapes, she’s an outside the box thinker, LOL

First Re-Upholstery Project!

By: Mrs Bcomment

We have some bar stools that the kids use in the kitchen, Mr. B HATES them because they get dirty so easy and look BAD! They are a pain to clean everyday!
So on President’s day I had an idea to run into the fabric store and look for some vinyl fabric, so we could just easily wipe them down. Not only did I find some but I found a remnant for cheap, total cost was $5.41 and I still have some left over to use for something else!
Mr. B popped off seats for me and helped staple the fabric as I stretched it around the circle seats.
The verdict: We LOVE it! They look so much better and are soo much easier to keep clean! It was so fun & easy I’m thinking about re-upholstering our dining room chairs next! 🙂
See how ugly & yucky they look?!
Close up of the ugly!

Much better!!

Close up of the newly improved bar stools! PS I LOVE vinyl fabric now!
And YES, I want to get back into the swing of blogging, I get on a roll and then iLife/iPhoto decide to not cooperate with Blogger and it just makes me so frustrated that I quit for awhile! Hoping they will decide to cooperate in the near future!

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