DIY {Growth Chart Ruler}

Have you seen the super cute growth charts that look like old wooden rulers? I love the way those look! The one I originally fell in love with was from one of my favorite blogs, Dear Lillie. This is her version of the sign.

Dear Lillie's Ruler Growth Chart

Unfortunately, it comes with a pretty hefty price tag of $75. I haven't found a place in my house for it yet, but thankfully my friend Mindy wanted one for her little guy. She asked if I could make one for her (minus the $75 price tag), and of course I said yes!

I have to say, this was the easiest thing to make. You just have to have a little bit of patience as you wait for the coats of stain and paint to dry before you move on to the next phase.

Supplies:

• 6' piece of wood - (I used pine because it was cheaper. Width is a personal preference. I used a 1"x8" board.)
• Stain color of your choice
• Black paint pen
• Water-based polycrylic clear finish (I use the Minwax brand that can be found at Home Depot)
• Pencil
• 3" Number Stencils (I found mine at Hobby Lobby, but I'm sure any craft store would have them.)
•  Yard stick or tape measure
• Lint free cloths (old t-shirts)
• Picture hanger

Directions:

Step One: Time to get started! First things first, while you're at the hard ware store, have them cut your board down to 6'. The great thing about these boards is they actually come in 12' lengths, which means you can make two or split the cost with a friend!


Step Two (optional): If there are any rough spots, you might want to go over your board with 120 grit sand paper. This will help smooth it out and get rid of any pesky splinters waiting to prick little fingers.

Step Three: Time to stain! Use an old t-shirt, lint free cloth or paint brush to apply the stain. I let the stain soak in for about 5 minutes before wiping it off with a cloth. If the stain is too light for your taste, simply apply a second coat, let it sit for a few minutes longer and wipe off. This will help darken and even out the color. Once one side is dry (usually about an hour), flip it over and stain the opposite side. This is important to stain both sides of the board. By staining both sides you are helping to prevent the wood from warping.

Step Four: Once the stain has dried, pick which side you want to be your ruler side. Using a tape measure or yard stick, we will begin making our ruler marks with a pencil. Since this will be hanging on a wall, you will want to begin your ruler at the 6" mark. Therefore, the bottom of your board signifies 6", so your first pencil mark will be the 7" marker. As you can see, every 3rd inch, I lengthened my lines, as you would see on a ruler.

Step Five: This step takes the longest! Once your pencil marks are in place, you will take your black paint pen, and go back over your lines. Use a straight edge to make sure your lines are straight. After the first foot, you will start to get a bit cross eyed and easily loose your place if not careful! I had to re-sand and re-stain because I messed up my line lengths. Take your time on this step.

The great thing about the paint pen is it is oil based. It easily goes on over the stain, and it is easy to control your lines. Plus, no messy clean up!

Step Six: Now you will take your number stencils and line them up on your board. I placed my numbers to the left of their marker. That is the way they appear on standard rulers. Honestly, I just eye-balled how far down to place them. I was tired of measuring at this point! They all look even to me! I will also say, the paint pen was much easier to use with the stencil versus using canned paint with a brush. It helped the numbers look more clean and crisp.

Step Seven: Brush or spray on your Polycrylic finish and let dry according to directions. You actually could skip this step since you will be marking on this piece. If you do use the finish, you will want to use a Sharpie pen or other permanent marker product to record your heights. I don't think a pen or pencil would adhere well to the Polycrylic finish.

Step Eight: Attach the picture hanger to the back of the ruler, measure from the floor up 6", and hang your ruler!

For about $25, you can have yourself a great looking growth chart. Plus, you'll have all the supplies to make multiple ones for friends and family! Wouldn't these make great baby shower gifts, Christmas gifts for moms you know or Mother's Day gifts?

I'm really looking forward to making more of these soon! Maybe I'll get crazy and try one in a painted color too. Can you guess what the baby shower gift of 2014 will be for all of my friends??

DIY Christmas Decorations {Part 2}

Last week, I said I would show you how to make a wreath and a Christmas tree for FREE. This is so easy to do, and will only take about 15 minutes per project!

 

First, you need to take a trip to your local Lowe's or Home Depot and pick up some FREE, fresh greenery. Go to the Christmas tree stand outside, and just ask for some clippings. They will let you take as much as you want! They just trash these extra clippings, but they make great fresh, Christmas decorations.

Here are the supplies you will need. If you don't already have them on hand, unfortunately, you might need to purchase some supplies for this project.

Supplies Needed:

• Fresh Greenery
• Tomato cage (or any large cone shaped object you have laying around the house or yard)
• 2 wreaths or wreath forms. I had two grapevine spray wreaths on hand, so I chose to use those. (If you don't have extra wreaths on hand, you can purchase the grapevine wreaths at Hobby Lobby when they are 50% off for around $10 each. They are great to reuse for different seasons. A great investment if you ask me!)
•  Garland (optional)
• One strand of lights 

I'll start with the Christmas tree since that has more steps.

Christmas Tree Tutorial

First Step: Turn your tomato cage upside down, so it creates a cone shape. (Smaller portion will be at the top.)

Step Two: If using garland, begin wrapping garland around the outside of the cage, starting at the top. 

My garland did not cover all the space. I just made sure it went from top to bottom. There were some gaps when I was done. I mainly did this step, because I didn't think I had picked up enough greenery.

Step Three: Begin snipping your greenery and fill in gaps beginning at the bottom and work your way up. Remember to use larger pieces at the bottom and shorter, smaller ones as you work your way up. You want it to mimic a live tree. The garland helped to hold it all together, but next year, I think I am going to do all live greenery. 

Step Four: Add your strand of lights starting at the top and work your way down.

I was going to add a burlap bow to the top, but I ran out of burlap ribbon. (How does that happen??) I seriously have at least 100 feet of burlap ribbon running through the interior of my house this Christmas. I'll have to remember to have at least 200 feet for next Christmas!

Christmas Wreath Tutorial

The Christmas wreath is so simple it only has one step!

All you do is take your wreath form, preferably a grapevine wreath, and begin stuffing your clipped greenery into the wreath. Work your way around the wreath until you've made a complete circle. The reason I love using the spray grapevine is because it has a more rustic look to it, and you can keep your greenery at longer lengths.

If using a regular wreath, I suggest clipping your greenery shorter. You might also try attaching your greenery with floral wire if needing to use shorter stems.

I didn't use anything to attach the greenery. I simply stuffed it into the grapevine and hung it on our shed doors. They even made it through the worst winter storm we've seen in years this past week! I was sure the greenery would fly off since I didn't attach it, but it has stayed put. Maybe it just froze in place before the wind could pry it off!

 

I didn't have any berries, but I think red berries would really complete the look on these, don't you? I was trying to go for FREE Christmas decorations this year, though, so the berries will have to wait until next Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all!

My True Love Gave to Me a {Faux Barn}

One day, Jason came home and said that he wanted to build a shed in the backyard. He was tired of having all of my furniture taking up his garage space.  The only problem...money (of course!).  A few weeks later Jason came home to say they were remodeling a house at work and tearing down a barn style shed. They told him he could have it if he just hauled it off!

This is what he brought home...

If your first thought was, "Oh my! That is a barn style shed?" You would have been reading my mind. I was a little disappointed in the looks department, but it was functional and helped clear out space in the garage. Jason promised we would fix it up and make it pretty for me. (I'm sure he didn't use the word pretty. )

After almost a year of looking at that as the primary focal point in our backyard, we finally decided to paint. We decided on Sherwin William's Flower Pot Red. I don't remember the exact white we used for the trim.

***Paint Tip***  Home Depot's computer system has all of the Sherwin William's colors on file. If you don't live close to a Sherwin William's or just want to use a slightly cheaper paint, you can go to Home Depot, tell them the name of the color from SW, and they can mix it for you. You don't even have to have the number combinations or anything. Just the generic name!

We still need to add some landscaping around it, but I would say this is a drastic improvement in our backyard landscape! Wouldn't you agree?

I've been so focused on decorating the inside of the house, I've put doing anything to the outside off for a long time. Now that I have this awesome Faux Barn to work with, I can't wait to get started decorating the exterior of the house!

DIY Christmas Decorations

Tis the Season! I thought I'd do a quick post on how to make a barn wood Christmas sign, and share a link to how to make a super cute burlap Christmas tree from Made by Mags! What two things go together better than barn wood and burlap?

First I'll share how to make a Burlap Christmas Tree! Check out what Mags at Made by Mags put together here! It looks so easy and simple to make! I can't wait to add these to my Christmas collection!

Now I'll show you step-by-step how to make a barn wood sign. This is easy to make, and the best part it was FREE! I had a few scraps of barn wood left over from our wall, so I thought I'd make a vintage looking sign. The boards were already cut a perfect size, so I just went to my paint stockpile, found some red and white paint and was ready to get started!

First I had to decide which words I wanted to use on my sign. I chose Merry, Noel, Peace and Joy.  I already had letter stencils, so I pulled out my letters for my words and was ready to begin.

I painted two boards red, and set them aside to dry.

Next, I took the cut out letters from the stencil and laid them out on the non-painted boards. I tried using hairspray to hold the letters down, but the wood was too rough, so they didn't adhere like they usually do with hairspray. So, I just had to hold them in place with my hand. I painted the board white, and went over the top of each letter in order to create the stencil.

Next, I used the same white paint to stencil the words on my red pieces of wood that had dried.

At this point your sign should look like this:

Now it's time to attach your sign together. Take a scrap piece of barn wood if you have it, and cut it to the height of your sign. You will need two pieces - one for the left side and one for the right side. Find some screws or nails that will pass through both pieces of wood without popping out in front. Check your screw or nail lengths by holding it up like this:

Simply screw in four screws on each side (one in each of the sign's boards).

The last step I did is optional. I flipped my sign back over and used my orbital sander to rough it up a bit. I just wanted it to have a real vintage and distressed look to it. You could even add a glaze or wax to it to make it even more distressed.

There you have it! In a single afternoon, you can have some great Christmas decorations for your home. The final resting place for my sign actually ended up on my front porch. It's great for indoor and outdoor use.

Check back next week, because I will show you how to make wreaths and a front porch Christmas tree for FREE!

Merry Christmas!

Barnwood Wall {A Tutorial}

Do you ever take notice of the wall underneath a bar area in a house? From now on, I bet you will. Can you guess what color the wall under our bar was? If you said, Antique White, you're spot on.

Instead of just painting the wall, I wanted to add some texture there, so I decided to create a barn wood wall. I had seen something similar at a shop in Downtown McKinney underneath a register stand. I thought we'd try it out under the bar to see how it looked with the new wainscoting.

Here is how we created this great looking wall for FREE!

We took an old fence Jason found in the dumpster at work. (You know you have a good man when he is willing to dumpster dive for you! Love that man!) Most people will leave old fence on the side of the road for bulk pick up, so drive around your neighborhood to see if you can find these jewels! If not, always look on Craigslist. Many times people will post it for Free or for extremely cheap to have you come haul it away. If all else fails, you can always purchase fence pickets at your local hardware store. 

First Step:

Remove base boards carefully (you'll want to reuse them if possible) and measure. We measured from just under the bar to the floor to find out how tall to make each board and started cutting using a chop saw. 

Second Step:

After all cuts were made, I took a spray bottle and filled it with diluted bleach. I sprayed each board and set them outside to dry. It only took about 20 minutes from them to dry. This step helps to kill any mold spores hanging onto your wood.

Third Step:

Paint the boards any color combo your heart desires! I had about 6 different colors of blue paint samples from testing out wall colors, so I used those. I didn't keep count of how many of each color I was making, because I didn't want there to be a pattern. I wanted it to be a random mix. I also took a cream (Antique White if you will...) and a taupe to pull in the Antique White from the other walls in the room. Also, I left a few planks as they were. I wanted some natural barn wood color in the mix as well.

Fourth Step:

Once the paint was dry, I took my orbital sander and began sanding. I didn't worry about how much paint came off each one. I just sanded over each board about 4 passes, and moved on to the next one. I wanted it to look a bit rustic, but I also did this to smooth out the boards. I have a toddler learning to walk, so he is always pulling up on the walls. I didn't want any splinters!

Fifth Step:

Using a nail gun, attach the boards to your wall and reattach your base over the boards. You'll probably need to touch up your base boards at this point.

Now sit back and enjoy looking at your unique and custom wall! It's a great way to add color and texture to an area below a bar or half-wall. Get creative! You could even do this around your tub. The possibilities are endless!

My True Love Gave to Me....{Wainscoting}

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that the main portion of our house is one great, big room. We only have one hall way in our house. The rest is a completely open concept. In this one large room, we have an even larger ceiling. When building the house, my husband decided he wanted vaulted ceilings to make the room seem larger. This is a great concept, except if made this one wall seem so vast and empty.

On top of that, everything in the house was painted Antique White. Don't get me wrong, I love a good antique white paint - just not on every surface in the house! That is exactly why I started painting as soon as we got married. However, I wasn't allowed to paint the living room at the time. The largest space in the house! Jason said it would be too much of a hassle to paint all the way to the ceiling - 13+ feet high - plus the house was only 2 years old at the time. So, I put painting that room on the back burner for a few years.

Enter Pinterest!

This past year, I saw a picture on Pinterest of how to decorate a small entry space. They simply added wainscoting to the wall adjacent the front door. How simple is that? I showed Jason, and he thought it sounded like a good idea. Then I found the piece that tied it all together. I found this amazing tutorial on how to build door casings. I fell in love with this door immediately!

We have an over-sized door way leading into our hall. Without any trim or molding, the door has always looked so empty. I tried adding a large window above the door to draw your eyes up, but it didn't really do anything for the space. The wall just blended together with the ceiling, creating a dreary space. For months I've had my eyes set on re-creating this door casing from The Charming Nest. You can find their tutorial here.

Finally Jason said yes! Our goal was to have it finished before Marshall's first birthday which was back in October. I'm proud to say we met our deadline!

This is how we started off in our Living Room.

Before:

This is the main wall...

And this is the entry wall....

How we did it

We had MDF boards that were the perfect width just laying around our attic. Since this is a low moisture room, we decided to go ahead with the FREE MDF since there wouldn't be any chance of warping due to moisture exposure. Here is a step by step guide of what we did:

First Step:
Measure out how tall you want your wainscoting as well as how wide you want each square. Don't forget to factor in the width of your cross beams you'll be using. We used 1"x6" since that's what we had on hand. Plus our wall was so large, I thought wider planks would look better for our space. If using on a small wall or in a small space like a bathroom, I would suggest going with 1x4 boards.

Second Step:
We skimmed the wall with a thin sheet of MDF material Jason had left over from a job he had done. We wanted to create a smooth surface, and not have the wall texture showing. We simply attached the sheets with a nail gun. Just be careful to make sure any seams you have will be hidden behind the beams you will be running.

 

Third Step:
Attach the cross beam sections with a nail gun. Try to hit as many studs as you can while nailing. It will help to ensure your wainscoting stays secure. Start with the horizontal beams first. Make those your continuous (non-cut) sections. Then measure and cut your vertical sections and attach.

Fourth Step:
Add the top shelf. We used a 1"x2" board as our shelf, and simply nailed it to the top of the wainscoting.

Fifth Step:
My favorite part - PAINT! We chose a bright white, semi-gloss paint. I wanted it to stand out and also be a different sheen from the wall. We just used Behr Premium Bright White paint. We didn't even use an entire gallon for this one wall. I will warn you if you're using MDF or any non-primed surface, it will take about 3 coats of paint.

Next, we followed The Charming Nest Door Casing Tutorial and added our door casing. The only thing we did differently was change the bottom. We didn't do the extra step-out molding that they did. It was just faster to continue the 1x6 from the wainscoting around the door versus trying to figure out how to tie the step-out molding into the wainscoting.

Finally, I had to pick out the perfect blue to go above the wainscoting. After multiple samples, I finally chose a color I had used before in our house. I went with Behr's Offshore Mist. It's a pale blue with some grey undertones. I love this color! It really brightens up the space, makes the white wainscoting pop, and creates an airy feeling to our room making it seem much larger. What's not to like??

After all of this, we finally ended up with our perfect wall....