Vintage Window Picture Frame

I was going to title this post:

"Lets see how many holes I can punch into the wall of my rental home."

But decided that was to long. (Just kidding Landlord I'm going to patch any and all these holes!) I had just hung our family photo wall not to long ago and I'm already changing it up.

Remember last week I shared this photo of the scrap wood I found?

Sight Seeing in Seattle

Hello all! Hope everyone is doing well in these last few weeks before school starts again. We got back from out Washington Trip this past weekend. I'm am still incredibly grateful for the opportunity to go there. We were told that we scored the last available Space-A spots on the plane. This is one perk of being a military family I'll have to take advantage of more often!


Before you get to green with envy this is the type of plane we flew on:

It was a cool experience, but notice that there are no windows on the plane? That was interesting. And there were no real seats either- we sat on nylon slings that ran along the walls on the plane. And the cabin wasn't pressurized, so once we got to cruising altitiude it got really cold! But beggars can't be choosers and it was neat to be able to take Con-Man to see the cockpit and talk with all the guys working on the plane.

We were fortunate enough to know some friends in Seattle so we stayed with them and they showed us all the sights. First stop was the famous fish market downtown.

We also walked by the original Starbucks. I wanted to go inside and get some coffee but the line was a mile long. 

Space Needle!

I wanted to go to the Frank Gehry Experience Music Project Museum, mainly to just look at the building; but we didn't have time. We did drive by though.

Photo

We got out of the city for a few days and visited Washington Wine Country.

And we spent a night at Mount Rainier. We rented a small cabin and showed Con-Man some cool sights. The only bummer was that it was really cloudy both days we were there and we didn't get good pics of the mountain.

Our cabin looked small and shack- like from the outside but it was nice inside! The perfect size for the 3 of us.

We made a fire! Go us!

Using what Mother Nature gave us.

There was even snow!

We ended a our trip with a Seattle Mariners game. So fun!

And here's a little sneak peek of what I'm working on now:

Ohh!! What is it?!?!

Wine Cork Board

Do you have a bunch of wine corks that you've been saving and just waiting for an idea of what to do with them? Me too! My jar that I kept them in was beginning to overflow so it was time to figure something out. Plus I haven't done any crafty projects for a while and I was beginning to have withdrawals.

My idea of slicing them up didn't work to well the first time around, but this time - Success!! Check it out!

 This was pretty easy to do. To begin I pulled out my scroll saw and sliced those babies up. (If you don't have a scroll saw or other thin bladed saw Kara Paslay used an Exacto knife to slice corks for her project.)

At first I tried pushing the cork through the blade, but that seemed to take a long time and was hard on the blade. So instead I began to rotate the cork into the blade and it sliced up easily.

I didn't measure the cork sized exactly, just eyeballed them. This left me with a few odd ends but I still had more than enough to complete the frame.

The cutting didn't take very long with the saw; before I knew it I had cut all my slices and was ready to arrange them. 

I used a frame I already had and just added some white spray paint. I wanted the frame to be neutral so the texture of the cork would stand out.

To arrange the corks I used the cardboard insert that came with the frame as my backing. I arranged them the way I wanted them glued them down using Aleene's Craft Glue.

After that I let it dry and was done! Easy and fun!

I like the texture of the cork and how the varies sizes give it interest. I also left some of the brand marks right side up for some extra detail.

Not only is it decorative art- it's functional as well!

I think cork is so versatile. It's eco friendly and easy to come by. Have you ever used cork in a project? 

*Due to the large amount of spam comments have been disabled*

Christmas Card Holders

I know I know, it's a little early to be talking Christmas but when I saw this idea I had to share. I was checking out Apartment Therapy (as usual) and saw a post on Holiday Card Holders. I thought this one with the frame is a great idea!

I usually pile all my cards in a bowl on the dining table, but why not display them for all to see in all their Christmas Card Glory? There are so many great ones and it's a shame that they get thrown into a bowl all hidden away.

So I'm going to go through any old frames I have lying around and see what I can come up with.

Also- check out this other post from Apartment Therapy. It's about furniture made from reclaimed wood! Look at these:

Don't they look familiar? They're the coffee tables I want to make! So it's official. I'm going to the steel yard in the next few weeks and buy my materials. It's going to be a Christmas present to me!

In the meantime-

Here's some stuff I have been working on; (I promise this blog will not be all baby stuff but it's all I've been able to do lately...)

So ever since I found out I was pregnant I wanted to give my baby the coolest stuff around. None of that Baby's R Us everyone's got one junk.

I had seen these cool wall hangings on Design Public and loved them! But a) they weren't the right color and b) they are way expensive! Here's the website incase you want some of your own: http://www.designpublic.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=spot+on+dog

So I tried thinking of ways I could make them myself and make them my own. I started by borrowing my mom's scroll saw thinking I could become a master scroll saw-er. Well turns out its not the right kind of saw for this purpose and I can't buy any attachments for it since its so old. Massive Fail as my friend Shelby would say.

Here's the scroll saw wasting away in our shed

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So I needed another approach. I thought- hey why don't I just paint them? Hello!! So I saved the images I wanted from the website and sized them to the size I needed. I found some ready made frames from Walmart and covered them with a white sheet.

I painted the backgrounds the color I wanted them, cut out the images and traced them onto the squares. Then carefully filled in a cat, dog, pig, and cow. Now sweet little Con-man has animal friends to look at all the time!

I found the frames at Walmart for about $11 each. I used an old white sheet I had gotten from the thrift store for $1 and used paint I had left over from painting our house. So for about $45 I have custom made artwork that I won't mind having to get rid of when Con-man wants a change of scenery.

Much better than $260+ I would have spent on the wooden ones online!