Rustic Wall Art - Part 2

I know this post is late getting out but this project took longer than anticipated! I hope everyone had a great weekend and wonderful Monday! (As good as Monday's get at least.) 

I wanted to share with you the second part of the rustic wood art for Con-Man's room! Last week I showed you how I used pallets to build my canvas. Now I want to show you want I did with it. I've mentioned before that COn-Man LOVES cars; especially Lighting McQueen.

So I thought it would be appropriate to have Lighting McQueen make an appearance in his room. I started by finding an image of Lighting online. I enlarged it then printed it out in sections. If you want to use the image and try this project out yourself I provided the link to the download below.

Download

After printing all the sections of the image I cut it out and taped it together to make a template.

*If any of the following steps seem confusing just let me know- this took me a while to figure out how to put everything together, cut it out and then reattach. 

The next step was fitting my wood pieces together. (I only did this part for the outer sections.) I used long strips of a 1x2 that I cut in half to attach the pallet wood pieces together. First by drilling pilot holes then screwing them together.

Since the pallet wood was a little flimsy on the ends I used some Gorilla Wood Glue to hold them together.

Next I traced the image of Lighting onto the wood canvas I created.

I cut the inner pieces out first. I had to glue some of my smaller inner pieces together using wood glue.

Then it was time to cut the outer sections. 

This part had a lot of curves to so I had to cut it in pieces. 

And it might be time to invest in a real work bench. Our picnic table can't take any more abuse.

Seeing how everything is coming together!

This is how everything is attached in the back.

All done and hung! Con-Man thought it was pretty cool to have Lighting McQueen hanging in his room.

I like the way it turned out but I'm debating on doing one more treatment to this project before it's fully complete. 

What do you think? Not bad for a completely free piece of art?!

And sorry about the not so great picture quality- there is a rumor that I might get a new camera for Mothers Day since my old one bit the dust.

Things I'm Afraid to Tell You: Blog Honesty

This post is a little off from the norm but go with me here; As I was reading though my blog roll today I noticed this post from Jennifer at Rambling Renovators. It was all about Blog Honesty, started by some other bloggers and seems to be catching on. 

I read blogs for inspiration and ideas; there are a lot of creative people out there! I've learned a lot and found some great inspiration. But sometimes, after looking at all the perfect pictures and beautiful perfectly put together rooms it can be kind of defeating. Is this how everyone lives? My house is not anywhere near as perfect as some of the homes I see online, nor do I have every room in my house beautifully decorated. Am I missing something here?

So today at the risk of possibly losing some readers or irritating people by being extra wordy I wanted to join in on this Blog Honesty thing going around~

1. As I mentioned above my house is not kept in a continuous state of perfection. Truth: I hate cleaning. (My mom on the other hand loves cleaning- why I didn't inherit that trait I'll never know.) There are a million other things I'd rather be doing. So I don't clean everyday. And seriously- what's the point when I have a 2.5 year old messing up right behind me? 

2. On that point, my house does not look like one out of a magazine shoot. It's not perfectly curated, all the rooms do not flow together in cohesive harmony. Nor do I think it ever will. Our house seems to be in a constant state of change. Those pictures I take of projects or rooms of my home- that corner looks great. But if I took a picture of the opposite corner you'd probably see a bunch of toy cars or some laundry I haven't gotten to. I mean- my dining room doesn't even have a dining table in it! 

3. I love to DIY but I'm no expert- sometimes I wish I were. Sure I'm a trained Interior Designer- but they don't teach you any of the stuff I've done on this blog in school. Most of what I do is trial and error. And I hope that comes through in my posts- I try to be honest when I make a mistake or things go wrong. So if you try a project on your own you know what to expect. Though sometimes I know I gloss over the tough stuff and make is seem like a breeze. Sometimes things go smoothly and sometimes they don't. In the future I'll try to be completely upfront about how things go.

4. Here's a big one: I've had a hard time making the transition from working mom to stay at home mom. Of course I love staying home with the Con-Man. This time we have together is a gift I know many working women dream of. But there are days when I miss the hustle and bustle of an office, working with clients and architects to see a project through,sharing and coming up with ideas,  going to the job site and getting dirty. I loved what I did and I miss it sometimes; ok more than sometimes a lot of the time. But I am grateful for this unique opportunity I have been given. Not only do I get to spend time with my son I've been able to accomplish a lot of big projects I may not have been able to do while working. This blog has helped keep me sane, it's my little escape from my everyday life so I am grateful for it as well.

5. Sometimes I worry that I spend to much time with my blog and on the computer in general. Am I spending enough time with the Con-Man? If I didn't have a blog would I clean more (See #1 above). It always seems that I am trying to find balance between things I want to do and the things I need to do. It's hard and I'm working on it.

Well there you have it. Some down and dirty stuff that has been on my mind for a while. Hopefully this little insight into my insecurities lets you know more of who I am and most of you have not run for the hills.

Cali Trip

This past weekend the fam and I took a quick vacation to California! We were lucky enough to catch a Space-A flight from our base. For those of you not familiar with Air Force lingo Space-A is short for Space Available. If an Air Force flight mission has extra seats after filling up all the cargo and space for essential passengers; they open up those available seats to military members like us who are looking for a vacation. Best part of this? It's free! We took a similar trip a few months ago to Seattle. 

Check out Con-Man on the plane:

On the way there the plane was empty so we were free to walk around as we pleased. But the way back we had some interesting cargo-

The plane had a quick stop at another base to unload the truck. It was interesting to watch and quicker than a layover on a commercial flight if you can believe that. We even saw a helicopter land while we were waiting!

While we were there we stayed with family friends. On our way to their house we drove up the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). 

We stopped at Paradise Cove on the way up. And even though we had just gotten off the plane and didn't have our bathing suits; Connor loved running in the waves. And even made a few friends.

During the day Saturday we went up to wine country. The Hubs did some wine tasting while I did some wine watching. All the wineries are gorgeous so it was nice to relax and enjoy the scenery. We had cheese and crackers for lunch and spent time on the grounds of the wineries.

That evening we drove down to LA for a Dodgers game. And they won yay! I love their old mid century style stadium.

We spent the last day of our trip in Santa Barbra. It's so beautiful there. We spent most of the day in the harbor on the board walk. We took Con-Man to the marine museum where you can touch the sea creatures! We walked along the beach and ate lunch in the marina.

Con-Man got to take his picture with a real life Filmore van and rode the carousel.

We learned that the homeless population here is not shy about getting what they need:

And while out in Wine Country I found some material for a possible project. I saw a whole basket full of wooden stoppers used to plug the wine barrels seemingly all forgotten. I asked around and the people working at the winery said I could take a few.

Hmmm.... I'm already formulating some ideas for these guys!

Rustic Wood Wall Art - Part 1

The last project I have to complete for Con-Man's new Big-Boy room is some wall art. There is a large wall with nothing on it that is screaming for some personality.

I was stuck for a while but inspiration came from this image from Pottery Barn Kids:

I really like the simplicity of the wood anchor. And I thought it would be a nice tie in with Con-Man's vintage desk. Since his room is "Transportation Theme" I thought a car instead of an anchor would be cool.

To get started I scavenged some pallets from the back of an old warehouse and set out to take it apart.

I used a circular saw to cut my pieces off. I've found that trying to pull the boards out with a crow bar is pretty tough; and since I didn't need the full length of the wood this works well. I've also seen people use a Sawz All to cut through the nails if you did need a full board.

Once I got all my pieces cut off I had to even them out. The circular saw was not very accurate. I took the shortest board and traced it to get the measurement for the rest of them. Then used a jig saw to cut them down.

Since the wood is from old pallets I sanded my boards down some to get rod of any splinters, rough edges and dirt. 

Now that I have all my pieces prepped and ready, my next question is how to decorate them? I'm debating on trying to cut out a race car silhouette like the anchor in my inspiration or try to paint it on the wood like this art work was done:

I'm hesitant about cutting the silhouette because my art work is 3 separate pieces instead of 2; how will I attach all my boards together after I cut out the middle? I'm also worried about painting something and having it not come out looking all that great.

See the final product here!!

What do you think? What would you do?