Family Blessing Tree

I'm so excited about my latest project ~ even if it purposely won't be completed for many months.  It's our "Family Blessing Tree" and it serves 3 purposes....
1:  To remind our family of how God is always faithful ~ we know we have been called to adopt, even though it's been a sometimes overwhelming process of "how are we going to afford this?", we know God will provide.
2:  Someday when our boys are home and old enough to understand, they can look at this and know how loved and wanted they were by so many people.....even before they knew them.
3:  To have a fun new piece of artwork in my house :)

How does it work?  Basically, when someone helps out towards our adoption, they get a "leaf" with their name on it for our tree.  Of course, this doesn't include only financial donations, but also donations of time (babysitting our kids while we go get fingerprints) and services (like our friend who notarized stacks of papers for free!)

Here's what I'm envisioning our tree will look like someday...

How does it get to that point?  First I gathered all my supplies...a canvas, some scrapbooking papers, a circle punch, Krylon spraypaint (pebble), ModPodge (not pictured) and some Americana paints by DecoArt ~ Burnt Orange and Dark Chocolate.

First I spraypainted my canvas.  Then I realized it was the exact same color as our living room walls.  So I re-spraypainted it an off-white creamy color. 
The next step was to draw an outline of a tree (my husband actually did this for me) and paint it.  I also stenciled the word "blessed" and painted that in as well.

The canvas was looking a little blah, so I added a stripe around the edge for a more "finished" look.

Now comes the fun part!  Each time someone donates something - their time, finances, etc. towards our adoption, I get to punch out a circle, write their name on it (or they can write a message), and modpodge it right on!  An instant way to remember the generosity of our friends and family!

Here's what our Blessing Tree is looking like currently...

And again, what it may look like someday...

You could take this basic idea and change it to suit your needs ~ it could be an actual family tree, or what about a Thankfulness Tree to work on for Thanksgiving this year?

Want to see your name in the lights.....er, on a leaf?  You can check out Our Adoption Journey for a list of our current fundraisers!

Linking this up to a few of my favorites ~ check them out!!

I'm also entering this project in "Crafting With The Stars" ~ hope over and visit me there, because who knows, the number times my project is viewed might help me in the competition!

DIY Growth Chart

I shared this tutorial last week at The Frugal Girls and I'm reposting it here today in case you didn't see it....

Hi everyone!  I'm so excited to be back here at The Frugal Girls!  The last time I was here, I shared about our frugal mud room storage.  This time the location hasn't changed much....still in my mud room, but it's a new addition about a foot to the right....a DIY Growth Chart...made from materials we already had around the house!  (List of materials needed:  big piece of wood, black paint, white paint, number stencils, sandpaper if you want the distressed look).

I have always loved the idea of a growth chart.  Growing up, I knew a family who dedicated one of the doorframes in their house for this purpose.  It was amazing to see all the friends and family members who had marked their height over the years!  Currently, my mom has a spot in her house where she marks the kid's height when we visit - something my son always looks forward to.  I knew I wanted to have something similar in our home someday, but my main concern was of sentimental value - what would I do if we needed to repaint the room, or even move?  I am way too sentimental to paint over something like a growth chart!

So here's what we did (following the same basic steps as my numbered coat rack):  First, grab a piece of wood.  Any big piece will do!  We found ours in our attic, left here by the previous owners, which is why it is angled at the top - it's really just an old piece of junk wood.  We wanted a distressed look, so we painted the board black and then added several coats of white paint. 

Next it was time to measure.  Sooooo thankful for my helpful husband in times like these....I would much rather just eyeball things, but clearly for this project you need to actually measure, something I really don't have the patience for!  We decided where we wanted the chart to hang on the wall and knew that the first line would be 11 inches from the floor.  He then measured and marked each inch, making the lines longer at 6 inches and again at each foot mark. 

I used black acrylic paint to trace the lines and stencil in the numbers.  Since we were planning to distress it, I knew it was fine if everything wasn't perfect. 

A few coats of paint later and then some extra time to make sure everything was dry and it was time to distress!  We used the palm sander to rough up the edges and go over the whole front, giving it a little character.

All that was left was to attach it to the wall....which took a little extra effort since it is basically ginormous!  The kids were excited to mark their heights immediately...

and I am thrilled to have what is sure to become a treasured piece of family history!

I'm loving this new addition to our mud room!

Linking up to a few of my favorites!

It's so exciting to be featured ~ special thanks to...

Light Saber Pretzel Rods

When I started looking around online for ideas for Jackson's Star Wars party, I saw pretzel rod light sabers listed several places, including here.  I wasn't able to find a picture or a tutorial, so I thought I'd write one up.  They were a little time consuming, but super easy, and turned out great!

Step 1:  Gather your ingredients....pretzel rods and various colored candy melts.  (These are Wilton brand vanilla flavored and you can find them at craft stores like Michaels or Joann's if they aren't at your grocery store). 

Step 2:  Get ready to melt!  You can probably do this in the microwave, but I seem to always have bad luck with that, so I prefer a double boiler.  I use a homemade version - big pot on bottom with a little water, and small pot on top.

Step 3:  Dump wafers into small pot - these were looking a little "old" and starting to get that white coating, but once they started melting they were fine.

 

Step 4:  As water in bottom pot boils, steam will heat the top pot, causing the wafers to melt.  Stir until smooth.

Step 5:  Once melted, coat the pretzel about 3/4 of the way down.  I spooned the melted wafers on, and then shook the pretzel rod to remove the excess.

 

Step 6:  Stand upright to dry - turn an egg carton upside down, cut X's in it, and stick the rods in - thanks, random lady at Joann's for the tip!!  Repeat steps 1-5 with other colors.

 

Step 6:  Making the light saber handle - (make sure your light sabers have completely dried before doing this!) you will want to cover the bottom 1/4 of the pretzel rod with aluminum foil.  Cut the foil and fold down the top and bottom edges - be careful, foil can cut your fingers!  (Step 6B - wash your poor finger and get a bandaid!)

 

Step 7:  Wrap bottom of each pretzel rod with foil.

 

Step 8:  (Optional for a slightly more finished look) Get out your trusted Sharpies.  Using black, draw a line near the bottom of the foil and another one near the top.  Using red, make a dot under the top line.

 

Step 9:  To display, you could just leave sitting out like the above picture.  I chose to stand them upright in a tin bucket, mostly so they would take up less room on the food table!

Step 10:  Enjoy!!

Click here for a list of parties I may have linked to!


This project has been featured!  Thank you SO much!!

Numbered Coat Rack

Well, I'm still not quite ready for the laundry room reveal.  But I'm loving the mini-project we just finished for it!  As soon as I saw our little half-wall that hides our washer & dryer and creates a hallway, I knew it would be the perfect spot for some hooks.  Any extra spot to store something or hang something is always great in my book!  I was planning on buying this the next time we made an IKEA trip (one of my most favorite stores EVER), but then I saw this idea by Kierste at Brown Paper Packages, and it inspired me!

So cute!  I love anything distressed, and also anything labeled.... so we made our own version!  We had plenty of leftover material from the pedestal Jon built for the washer & dryer to sit on, so we just cut it down to the size we wanted.  (Perhaps that phrase should read "he just cut it down to the size I wanted"....but anyway).  I found the exact same hooks at Target....right down to the oil rubbed bronze finish.  As you have probably already realized, I only have two kids, and to use their names would have made for a pretty small coat rack.  So we used numbers instead!  Instead of using vinyl like Kierste, I used stencils and paint, and our color scheme is different - so here are my revised DIY instructions:

1 - spray paint board black and let dry completely.

2 - paint white over the black (we used leftover trim paint) and let dry completely.

3 - sand the edges and a little over the whole board.

4 - screw in hooks

5 - use stencils to paint numbers (this time I used some craft paint I had on hand)

6 - after drying completely, sand like crazy for that cool distressed look

7 - realize some parts look weird, so repeat #5 & #6 (not so crazy this time) until you like it again

8 - hang and admire!

Just in case you were wondering (we have already gotten this question) - Why 5?  No, we are not trying to assign numbers to our children and the future children that may come someday!  I wanted at least four hooks, and five was more visually appealing to me and fit better in the space.  There is no hidden meaning in the 5 :)

Click here for a list of parties I may have linked to!

and there's this one too -