Wednesday, August 21, 2013

I'm Baaaaack! Updating a Blog & Birthday Boards

Oh my gosh! I don't even know if I still know how to do this! Pardon my rustiness :) It has been 18 months since I've posted on here. What?!?! Obviously, life got in the way... in a big way. I am, however, happy to report that during my hiatus I finished my Master's degree and gave birth to my 3rd child! I suppose that warrants a little bit of slack, huh? :)

Now that I'm done with school again and getting settled into a new routine as a mom of 3, I've been trying to make more time for projects!! And, I really have missed blogging, so I'm going to try to spend a few posts catching up on the highlights of my favorite projects over the past 18 months that I've been MIA. 

I'm going to start off with something I did yesterday, which is actually an update of a project from a few years ago. You've probably seen the birthday boards floating around the blogosphere and Pinterest. Well, that's exactly what I made for my parents and in-laws for Christmas 2010! Please pardon the poor quality pictures. I took pictures, lost them in a hard drive crash, had more taken, misplaced them somewhere, and finally just asked for some quick snaps to be sent to my phone yesterday so I'd have a copy of each one!

Here's what I did for my parents:



And Ryan's parents (LSU colors... they're big fans):



Anyway, back to my update for yesterday. We've had a few new babies born since I made these (2 of them being mine!), and I hadn't gotten around to updating them. I finally got them done yesterday. 

*drumroll please*




Now for the rundown... I got the wood circles HERE from Craft America. I used the 1-1/2" Diameter x 3/16" thick. They come in a package of 100 for right around $10 (plus shipping). I painted them with good ole acrylic paint. The hardware I used (though it's likely there is an easier method) is 5/8" screw eyes with an inside eye opening of 3/16" from Ace Hardware. My husband drilled starter holes so it was easier to screw them into the thin wood circles. But the really annoying part is that you have to use pliers to stretch open the screw eye so you can attach them to each other. Like I said, there's probably a much easier method to put these together! Finally, I slapped on the vinyl with the names and dates that I cut out using my Silhouette, and that's it!

Ryan really wants me to make one for us, and I've been putting it off for YEARS (literally). My typical projects take no more than a day to complete, so this was a little harder to wrap my brain (and motivation) around. BUT, he wants it so bad that he recently got out a piece of wood and sanded it and told me it was all ready to paint... My husband has never been known for his subtlety :) So, what does all this mean? Well, seeing as my husband generally gets what he wants.... You will probably be seeing a walkthrough of the whole birthday board soon! Just let me get a few more minor projects out of the way first, ok?