Wowza Weekend Link Party #36

It's the Most wonderful time of the year!!  I love Christmas!

I want to tell all of you how much I appreciate you reading my blog, and how happy your wonderful kind comments make me feel!  I have so enjoyed the new friends I have met blogging and look forward to meeting many more!  I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  May you feel loved and blessed this Holiday Season!

This song is so sweet and I love the video with it!  Plus, it is extra special to me because my brother is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

Hugs!
Mindi

Wowza Weekend Link Party #35

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and a very Merry Christmas!

Hugs,
Mindi

I will be linking to these parties.

I love this sweet video and the message it brings!!

I hope you are "giving of yourself" this holiday season!

Merry Christmas!
Mindi

I am super excited to share how I made my Marquee Angel that you saw in my White and Natural Christmas Mantle yesterday!
It was pretty simple to make, although it took a little bit of time. However it was totally worth it, and it only cost me $1!  I used one piece of foam core board from the dollar store, and one piece of white poster board that I already had on hand, as well as a string of Christmas lights, which I also had.
It is so fun and festive, I love having it light up my home!  So how did this angel come about?  Well it wasn't my plan all along, it just sort of happened...
It all started with this cute little die cut angel in the bottom right photo above.  In my church I help plan activities for the women that we hold throughout the year that teach, uplift and inspire.  This little angel was a favor we gave out for our Christmas Activity.  I had this thought that it would be fun to make a few bigger angels to display that would match the little die cut angel.  So that is what I did.

You can see above that I used an overhead projector to trace the angel onto the foam core.  I simply put the die cut angel right onto the projector and it blew it up for me!  You could do any shape you wanted! I traced the outline onto the foam core, then I used a cutting mat and an exacto knife to cut out the angel shapes.
After the activity was over, I was left with these foam core cut out angels and they sat around my house for a week.  I keep looking at them thinking what should I do, throw them away?  Of course I couldn't do that, but they needed some kind of sprucing up, and at some point the marquee idea came to me.  So I tried poking holes into a scrap piece of foam core with a pair of scissors, and it was so easy I decided to go for it.  I poked them all around the angel.
Then I grabbed my string of lights and started filling in the holes.  It was so cool!  When I finished I flipped it over and realized that I had to do something about all those wires!  So...
I used a scrap piece of foam core and marked on it how tall the angel stood with the wires in the back. Then I got some poster board and cut it into strips at that same width.  My strips ended up being 2 1/4 inches wide.  Having no idea if this would actually work, I just went for it and started hot glueing the edges of the foam core and placing the poster board strips flush with the top of the angel.

I worked in small sections and held them in place until the glue hardened.  I was so pleased with how easy it was, and how the poster board just went to the shape of the foam core so simply!  When my strip ran out I just overlapped a new strip and kept going.
You can see above how I fit the poster board into the angel's wings.  I found the best way to do this was to fit the poster board in by bending the corner shapes first without glue. Next, I pulled out the poster board from one corner.  I added hot glue to the corner and put the poster board back on and held it until it was set.  After that first corner was done I worked around until the whole shape was glued on.  It does take a little time to do this, but I had a book I was listening to on my phone and it seemed pretty fast!
Once the Marquee Angel was ready it needed a backdrop I could mount it on.  It is no surprise I chose reclaimed pallet wood!  I love it!  I used a crow bar and mallet to remove the wood from the pallet, which was free.

The three middle pieces of wood all split.  It is ok if that happens, you can see the dried glue in the middle photo above.  I tried to glue them together first, but I could see it wasn't necessary. I just clamped them all together.  To connect them I used other scraps from the pallet, and nailed them on the back, making sure to hit all the pieces of wood. Oh, and I did sand to prevent splinters!
You can kind of see in the left photo above a nail holding the halo of the angel.  I centered the angel on the pallet wood, marked the center of the halo, and the top two wing openings with a marker.  Then I removed the angel and hammered a nail into all three marks.  All I had to do was set the angel onto the nails to hang it!
So, I are you wondering how I hid the cord for the lights?  I didn't want to drill a hole in my pallet boards, because I will probably use it for something else throughout the year.  See the arrow above?  I had that small slat that I slid the wires into from the side, and hid it under the wing, it was perfect!  Well, except for the fact that you can notice it barley in this photo.  But I promise you wouldn't have noticed if I didn't show you! =)  Muwah ha ha! That is our little secret!
And that is it!  Can you imagine all the cool thinks you could make for super cheap with this method?!! You could paint the foam core and poster board too, I obviously didn't need to, as angels are supposed to be white.
I am so glad this project evolved how it did!  I wish you could see it in person, it looks a million times better, I promise!
Thanks for sticking with this long tutorial, I hope it was helpful and you are inspired to make your own creation!

Hugs,
Mindi

I will be linking to these parties.

Wowza Weekend Link Party #34

It will never cease to amaze me at how life never seems to go as planned.  I have been busy, good "regular life" busy, but not blogging busy.  However...

I do have some fun projects to share, and I am going to start with my White and Natural Christmas Mantle!

Wowza Weekend Link Party #33

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Mindi

I know it is a few days after thanksgiving, but I wanted to share this short video.  I love it's simple reminder to notice all around us and be thankful every day!

Click Here for actual link.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are super excited for the Christmas season!

Hugs,
Mindi

Wowza Weekend Link Party #32

Thank you to all our amazing FEATURES!  Feel free to grab and post on your featured page. 

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• Be friendly...and check out others links...leave them some blog loving comments too.

• Linking up to this link party gives us the right to feature your post with a link back to your page.  We will be showcasing those featured posts on our social media accounts. 

EnJoY!
Mindi

This was a fun project for me, and I am super excited to have it in my home!  I love good reminders for me and my family, and this was the perfect way for me to display them, and to change them up as often as I want.
This project actually was inspired by a good friend of mine that wanted me to make these so she could give them to her kids for Christmas.  I made one for my home as well, and I am so glad I did.

If you want to make one here is how I did it.  This tutorial has a ton of photos so I doubled up on most to make it a little less...long.
As you can see above this is what I started with, I just used my friends quote frame as my guide, with a few minor changes. (the lovely tole painting job was one of them and the double curve on the top :)

I used a 1x8 board that is 7 1/2 inches wide and cut it to 10 inches tall.  Then I measured the opening for the quotes, and measured and drew it on my board.  It was 5 inches wide and 3 3/4 inches tall.  To cut it out I drilled 4 holes so I could use my jig saw.
Then I cut it out.  You can see I made a few...the new boards (7 of them) are for my friend and the darker wood one is mine, I used scrap wood.  Of course!
Next I need to cut the decorative edges.  My friend and I decided that it would look better to have the same design on the top and bottom, so I measured the bottom of her frame onto cardboard.  Then I traced it onto the tops and bottoms of all the boards.  (sorry for the blurry pics, I get in project mode and don't check to see how they turn out)
You can see where I traced on the pattern, and then I cut them out with the jig saw.  They are starting to look good!
Then, I took them to get routed.  I have a router, but haven't taken the time to figure out how to hook it up to the routing table.  Soooo, I went to my community wood shop and got some lessons from the nice men there.  I got all these done while my little one was in pre school.  Not bad for a first time routing job, eh?  I feel like I can bust mine out now!
The next part was cutting the small box for the back that holds the quotes.  I used 1/2 by 1/2 inch boards.  The two side boards were 4 3/4 inches long and the bottom one was 5 3/4 inches long.  Since I was cutting so many it was easier and faster to tape them together and cut that way.  I love seeing wood all cut and stacked, for some insane reason it makes me happy!
For the back board I used chip board. (all the chipboard was free, this particular chipboard used to be the bottom of a broken drawer) I laid the frame pieces onto the chipboard and then simply traced around them, it ended up being 6 7/8 inches wide by 4 3/4 inches tall.  Once all the backs were cut I taped them together with frog tape and drilled all the holes at once.  The hole is for hanging the frame, all you need is a nail in the wall!
The last part of the build is simply wood gluing and clamping them onto the frame. You can see how rough the back of my scrap board was, no one will ever know, and even then, I don't care, it was free!
So, I had to share this picture.  This was my first finish, and I was not happy with the black glazing, so it had to go.  I loved the Believe, but for my little ones I needed something a little more...So I took off the vinyl and painted the frame blue (if you follow me, you are probably not surprised, I love all shades of blue).
After I painted and distressed it, it took me a while to decide on my quote for the top.  I wanted it to be something that gave the message that I believe my kids can do anything...

Once I designed the quote I transferred it onto the wood.  You may have noticed I chose a disney font for the word will.  I did that on purpose, because I believe Walt Disney was a man who had dreams and accomplished them because he believed he could.  It also has a special meaning in our family because we were blessed to have a very special experience for our first family trip to Disneyland, we won the Dream Suite, click if you want to read more on that once in a lifetime experience!
For the quotes I simply went to my "Quote Board" on pinterest and copied and pasted quotes so I could print them out.  I made sure to measure the size first so I knew they would fit.  My friend that made these for her kids was so kind to send me the file of all the quotes she had compiled!  A lot of them are quotes from the talks at General Conference that our church has every 6 months.  They are wonderful inspiring words to help us be better!
I love it, and I can change the quotes up every day!  And print more when needed!  My kids already have a whole bunch that they want to add (mainly quotes from the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings), it has been fun to see them read a new quote each day.  Since my printer is out of colored ink, I can only print black and white so I am really glad I went with the colored frame.
The best part is that you can just store all the quotes in the frame, and it takes one little nail in the wall to hang, super easy!
So what do you think?  Would you like to have one in your home?

I think I need to print out some good Thanksgiving quotes for this week!

Hugs,
Mindi

I will be linking to these parties.