Monogram Fun Day

Yesterday, my husband and I had some friends over for the day. The boys watched all the Aliens movies (lame!) while Maggie and I did some crafting! Maggie has an amazing talent for baking and decorating cakes and cupcakes! You can find some of her  Sweet Maggie May creations here. We looked on Pinterest for some inspiration and then headed to my local craft store for the supplies. We both decided on doing something monogramed for our last names!

Monogramed Letter Wreath

What you need:
Wooden letter
Jute (hemp, yarn, or twine would work fine too)
Hot glue and glue gun
Ribbon and buttons

I started this project with some left over hemp I had laying around but a when I ran out and went to the craft store to get more I cam across jute and thought it would be easier to maneuver and look better (and its cheaper - $2.99 for one roll and I didn't even use it all!) This project does take some planning out as to how to go about wrapping it. Each letter will bring it's own challenges, but with some planning it works great! Luckily hot glue comes off fairly easily so any mistake is easy to fix!

Here are some pictures of the progression. The close up shows how I did the areas where I could not wrap it around I would simply put a dab of glue and wind it back and forth to around the back where I would do the same.

For the flowers I used two types of ribbon and created loops around in a circle and glued in place when needed. I then used a button for middle. I then used the leftover ribbon and glued it in place on the back for hanging.

 Maggie's Monogramed Sign

What you will need:
Wooden letter
Frame
Spray paint or acrylic paint
Scrapbook paper
Modge Podge
Vinyl letters
Wood glue

First you will spray paint the letter and frame whatever color you want. Then trace out the letter on the scrapbook paper and Modge Podge that to the letter. (Note:  with modge podge you only need a thin layer for it to work. Too much will take a long time to dry and might not be even coated.) We then did modge podge over the whole frame before we glued the letter down to have the finish the same. We used wood glue to glue the letter to the frame, to be sure it would stay in place.

We had our vinyl letter cut at the craft store to the font, size, and color we wanted. After the vinyl letter were in place, we did another layer of Modge Podge over them again.

What a great way to spend a Saturday with good friends and crafting! Love it!

Building Blocks of Love

My wonderful husband truly does know me better than anyone! (other my maybe my mom and God of course!) For Valentine's day this year he bought me a gift certificate and these wood blocks he found at our local craft store. He saw a display of them transformed and thought they would look great on our mantle.

Here is what I used:

• Randomly sized wood blocks
• Wood stain (I used a soy based stain in Cherry)
• Vinyl letters
• pictures of me and my love
• Modge Podge (I used glossy finish) 
• fun decorating trinkets

I found this great brand for fun trinkets and decorations that could be used on all kinds of fun projects! It is Tim Holtz. Below is a picture on the product I used on the corners of some of my blocks but he has tons of fun stuff! Check him out at www.timholtz.com.

I started out by staining my blocks. I did two coats to get a rich warm color. The stain bottle said I need to but a varnish, but that was an extra $7 and you will learn quickly that I am very thrifty! I decided to test and see how mode podge would look first because I have tons of it always lying around. It ended up looking just as good! I then put my vinyl letters on. It was a little hard to get them to really stick to the wood and it took some maneuvering, but I got them on. In the end the modge podge really sealed them on. I mode podged my pictures on. I bought some fun decorations to go on to my blocks but in the end decided to keep it somewhat simple and classy and decided to just use some vintage buttons to add highlight. I sealed everything with modge podge again. Here is my finished product! I pretty much love them!