This post contains affiliate links. We will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. Once again, this summer I am going to our church Girl's Camp! I actually will be gone by the time this post goes up. This year I am one of the adult overall leaders, but in reality, the girls get to choose their theme and the things that they want to do at camp. As adults, we just help guide them and get things to happen. So, that means that the girls chose the theme and they chose a really good one. It is "Shine in the World and Not Of the World." I love that theme because the girls are thinking about ways that they can be themselves and shine, doing good things and not succumbing to the temptations of the world around them. They are trying to make the world a better place, recognizing that their strengths and talents come from God and that they can use those blessings to do good. The girls decided that each cabin of girls would be a different country of the world, so, of course, we turned to Pinterest for ideas. One of the things we found were a variety of different types of sign posts or street signs like the one I am going to show you today. There were ones that pointed to imaginary places from books, like Hogwarts or Narnia. There were ones that pointed to fun places like Disneyland or Magic Mountain. Then there were the ones that pointed to real places. Many of the posts were links to shops that sold the posts for a pretty penny! I decided that my dear, nice and talented husband and I could make our own! (I hope you can tell by my description of him that my husband did most of the work!) When camp is over, I am going to put this sign post in our backyard and change some of the countries or add countries to represent places that have meaning to our family! How to Make Your Own Street Sign or Sign Post The Arrows We had some scrap 1/4 " thick wood hanging around our house that my husband cut these cute wooden arrows out of. If you don't have many wood scraps, you can always check out the marked down wood cart at Home Depot for some really good prices. We got really creative with what we had to make this sign post project come to pass! Using the 1/4" would, you can see how DH made the point and the feather parts and then we glued them onto the top of the main shaft. They don't have to be perfect, that adds to the rustic charm of the sign. I googled the distance from our city of Phoenix to the capitol city of the country. Then I hand painted the country name and distance. On the arrowhead and on the feather part I used various scrapbook papers and decoupaged them with Modpodge. The Post and Stand We can't dig the post into the ground at camp, so DH made this slotted stand to hold up the 2"x 3" post that will hold the arrows. He had to make a sturdy stand because with the arrows on it, the stand will be fairly heavy and off balance. He used plywood and sandwiched blocks of wood between the E and W part to make it very stable. Then he cut slots, measuring to make sure the post would fit in the center space securely, with corresponding slots on the N and S legs. He painted the entire sign post and stand white so the wooden arrows would pop. The Lighted Post Top Most of the supplies that we used for this project was stuff that we already had on hand. But, for the top of the post, we spent a little over $5 to add a lighted post topper! We found it at Lowe's. Then, my DIL Jessica used her silhouette to cut out the word "Shine" for me to stick on each side of the top. The light is a solar LED light that shines nicely in the dark! To make the topper fit on the top of the post, my husband layered some plywood at the top to the correct dimensions to fit the topper onto the sign post and then screwed it in place. The Finishing Touches
I love the wooden base because I will be able to place this wherever I want up at camp or in my yard later! This turned out to be such a fun project with so many possibilities. I may just add Disneyland on there when I bring it home! Let me know what you think in the comments below! I've worked on a bunch of other things for camp this year that I will post about when I get back! (I didn't want to give anything away to the girls!) There are a lot of printables and fun ideas, I can't wait to share them. Here are some past camp ideas:
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There are so many things in the summer that get tracked into the house! Grass, sand, mud, the list goes on. This month for Handmade Monthly I decided that I would share something that I needed for my backdoor! I had a doormat out there, but it seemed like everyone barely used it. I was constantly sweeping up dry grass and whatever else got tracked in. So, somewhat tongue in cheek and somewhat seriously, I took my cue from a shampoo bottle and made this mat that says, "Wipe yer feet! REPEAT."
I think these mats would make great gifts as a housewarming gift for people with kids. Or, change the words and they would be suitable any time of year for the front or the backdoor! Or, how about for an RV , camper or cabin? I found the mat I used at Dollar Tree! That's right! A doormat for $!.00! They have them on their website to order in bulk, and they have a bunch in their store. I decided to use embossing powder with my heat gun to create my design. It was pretty much a learning experience as I figured out what to do. I'll show you what I did and tell you what I learned! Supplies: plain doormat paint paint brush or foam brush embossing powder stencil Heat Gun
That was the basic overview. Here are the things I would do to make it easier.
In the end, I like the look of this mat by my backdoor. I think that the embossing will hold up better than just paint, but of course, using just paint is a definite possibility. I hope you will take some of my tips to heart, to make your mat less labor intensive!
I had fun trying to come up with good messages for my backdoor mat. If you have anymore cute sayings or ideas, let me know!
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Around Thanksgiving I made this cute poster print on Mixbook of my babies wearing sunglasses and being insanely happy about it. It was so easy to make the poster and it turned out so cute. I also loved their selection of backgrounds and layouts. It was really easy to use their upload tool and making the poster took me no time at all. I was really pleased with the quality when it came in the mail as well. Especially considering both photos were taken with cell phone cameras.
What I wasn't sure of was how to display the poster in my home! That's when I had the idea to make a magnetic poster frame. I have always loved the minimalist look of these simple wooden frames but the price tag on the bigger frames was enough to turn me away. When I saw these paint stirrers for 5 gallon buckets for less than $2 how to make one struck me like lightening. Watch the video below to see how I did it.
I love how customizable these frames are. You can use them to hold a variety of size of prints and posters. And you can paint them, use a wood burner on them, or decorate with Washi tape.
And they're the perfect thing to display my Mixbook poster prints. I can't wait to order more and change them out, because it's so easy to change the picture displayed in these frames! Some tips for making these:
With Mother's Day (and Father's Day after that) coming up this could be an easy and thoughtful gift to give to your mother or grandmother! Especially if you include a photo print, of their favorite people.
That will be especially easy right now because Mixbook is offeringup to 50% off orders until May 1st. That's tomorrow so get your orders in soon! Also if you are a new customer you can get 45% off with the code AFNEW19. Two incredible deals! If you aren't a new customer there's another code for Mother's Day that works until May 7th. MOMDAY19A will get you 45% off $139 or 40% off Sitewide
Let us know how yours turns out!
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Madalynn had a great idea to make Disney themed dishes to use on our Family Reunion trip to Disneyland next year. She is all about the details. I had only done glass etching once before, so I was excited to try it with her. It ended up being such a fun and simple project and very inexpensive. If you know someone who loves Disney, (or any other motif), a set of dishes or dessert plates would be such a fun and appreciated gift! Here are the things that we used:
You will also need peel and stick vinyl to use to cut out your stencils. My Daughter-in-law cut ours out for us on her Silhouette cutter. She went to the Disney site and found some designs that she used with her cutter. If you have a Silhouette, you will know what I mean. If you don't have access to a vinyl cutter, here are some stencils you can purchase on Amazon. They need to be adhesive stencils.
Here are the easy steps to etch your glass items:
First, be sure that your glass surfaces are clean. You will need a cup of rinse water, the etching cream and an old paint brush. You may want to wear gloves when working with the etching cream.
Finally, when the cream is all dry, rinse it off under running water. You will want to use a scrubbing pad or rag to get all of the cream off. Then, remove the stencil and look at your amazing results!
*My first attempt has one or two mishaps. Sometimes the coverage was spotty, so I went back and tried the cream again. But, I learned that if I was patient and went over the stencil liberally with the cream and rebrushed it a couple of times and then let it completely dry, the results were much better! It really doesn't take very long for it to totally dry.
Maddy and I are so happy with the results!
What do you think?
Now I have to get busy making more! I can think of so many fun applications!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
March 2024
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