Weekend Projects

The weather was beautiful this weekend! It was 65 degrees with a little wind and so the leaves just drifted down from the trees. I can't imagine a more perfect fall day! Well, people who know us know that Cary and I love a good project. Cary's are usually bigger and require power tools and demolition. My projects usually include a hot glue gun and acrylic paint. Well we had some projects this weekend, but none of them included any of those things!

My big project was a memo board for our kitchen. I've seen chalkboards and dry erase boards, which are totally cute...and I just hadn't found the perfect one. Holly has these cute blocks that she can spell out things with...and those are adorable...but I haven't seen those anywhere for sale. And so I started thinking about how I could make a unique memo board and I thought of this. I have to say that this is one of my favorite little craft projects that I've done in awhile. The final product turned out even better than my original idea!

First I started with this plain unfinished wood frame. I found it at Michael's for $6.99.


Then I bought these little wooden letters at Michael's. $9.99 for 250 letters. A little more than I wanted to spend, but I've already used these on another project for school and so I think I'll get my money's worth.


I decided to paint the frame and the letters black. The idea of brushing paint onto all of these tiny letters made my stomach turn. So I turned to my handy-dandy black spray paint. It did the trick! It took less then 10 minutes to paint about 100 letters and didn't cost me a penny since I already had the paint. Once the letters were dry, I had to make them magnetic. I should have looked into magnetic spray paint, but instead I cut tiny magnets that I got at Michaels for a total of $4 and stuck them on the back of the letters. This part took the most time. Luckily, I did it during Carter's nap and while watching a riveting Lifetime movie.


Then the tough part. I knew that I wanted to make the board magnetic and I wasn't sure quite how to do it. I've used magnetic paint before, which worked fine - but not great. I knew that I just needed a 12x12 piece of metal, but where was I going to find that? Call in the professionals! I asked my dad to cut me a piece of scrap sheet metal. And voila - a perfect fit into my frame! Thanks, Dad! (By the way, a little shout-out to my dad...he's always great about helping me with my little projects. Since he's a contractor, his workshop is full of perfect materials for my bright ideas. One weekend he and Cary made a huge mirror to put above my couch. As a kid I would find trim pieces and ask him to help me make a picture frame or something I could paint. Just last weekend I asked if we could go down there and look around to see what might spark my creative imagination. So...thanks Dad!)


Since the scrap metal alone is a little too industrial for my kitchen decor, I knew that I wanted to cover that part up. Although I do think it would be cute in the right place just the metal alone. I considered painting it, but decided to just put a piece of scrapbook paper between the metal and the frame. Then I got really excited. Think of all of the cute scrapbook paper options!!! I could change it out for the different seasons. I could put Cars scrapbook paper on it for Carter's Cars-themed birthday party. Oh the possibilities...


Finally I just had to put it all together and find the perfect place to hang it. My dad suggested right over an unused phone jack in our kitchen. And here is the finished product...


Think of all of the great things I can write! Cary even changed it last night to say Cary, Ali and Carter with the letters of our names intersecting. Now I have to get creative with my sayings!


That wasn't the end of our weekend projects. Carter and I made Monster Cookies (Thanks, Aunt Kelly, for the recipe!). He's big into helping in the kitchen and so this was a great activity for us while Cary was outside working on his big project.


What do you do outside when it's 65 degrees in November? Hang Christmas lights, of course! This year Cary went all out. He ordered Christmas lights online and decided to string them on our two big evergreens in our front yard, in addition to puting them on the roof of the house. He spent several hours outside yesterday and waited until it was dark for the big reveal. And...(drumroll please)....(Joy to the World)...


Okay, so the picture really doesn't do it justice! It really looks great! The lights on the big tree stand out so much more than the picture shows. And I couldn't get the smaller evergreen to the right of the house in the picture. But if you drive by, you will see that Cary did a great job!!! Thanks for not falling off the roof while hanging any of the lights, Honey!


And one last picture. Carter's reaction to the Christmas lights. He loves them! Oh and don't worry...we're not turning them on again until the day after Thanksgiving! :)