Wooden Wedding Blocks

My best friend got married the other week and although I couldn't go I wanted to make her a special wedding gift. After some Pinterest browsing I decided to do something with vinyl lettering on wooden blocks. Since I don't have a cutter (yet) I found a local friend who was able to help me out. I used the larger letter S for their last name then the other two blocks will have two rows of lettering each.

Next, I had my husband cut up a 6x2 board into 3 blocks. 1 was 5 1/2", 1 was 8" and the other was 10". I sanded the blocks down and here is what the blocks looked like.

Now the blocks were ready to be painted. I have a large growing stash of latex paint which I picked 3 colors that coordinated. A dark brown, white and a tan-ish grey, I promise they work. Once I painted them I gave them a little sanding to give them that vintage look, just around the edges. 

Finally I added the letters, then used I believe it was the red label mod podge. I noticed there was a bit of tackiness so I finished the blocks with a high-gloss sealer around the edges to get rid of that. And the finished product is below. Since we ended up using a larger piece of wood than I intended these are a bit wobbly when stacked up. However, I believe she is just having them lined up along their mantle instead which is also a great idea. I hope to do more gifts like this in the future, it was very fun.

Train Toy Chest

Okay, so suddenly our 2 year old loves trains! He hasn't really showed a real interest in anything like Disney shows or any brand-name toys (We don't let him watch cable TV so we weren't too surprised at this) but, Thomas the train really makes him light up. So my husband and I decided we would like to add a few pieces of train-themed furniture to his room. Currently his room is pretty neutral, light woods, greens and browns.

For his toy chest we have this chest that we got and its a bit damaged on the corners and the bottom but I'm thinking some love, sandpaper, and paint we will have it looking gorgeous! It was given to us for free so we will work with what we got to make it just what we need.

After lots of work I finally turned this toy chest into a perfect Train toy chest. I went with Toby the train since he was square. I used my Silhouette to help with some of the design but I ended up painting most of him by hand. 

He fits in great in the play area in our living room with the car table I did for him last year. 

Lil man's Alphabet

For my birthday last year I decided to do a big craft for my son's bedroom wall. I had fallen in love with some ideas off Pinterest about wooden alphabet letters so I made a plan and went for it. I found on Etsy Alphabet Boutique 123 wooden letters with different styles for each letter and they were all ready to be painted. So I ordered these:

I then headed over to Michaels Crafts (2nd favorite craft store, Hobby Lobby is just too awesome) and found a variety of acrylic paints. Rather than the typical rainbow I wanted more masculine colors that would fit with the colors I had in his room (Earthy, "pond themed' colors). Then every night and some nap times too I would paint a couple letters. They all took 2 coats and then a coat of varnish so it was a lot of painting since there were was so many different colors, lots of cleaning brushes to switch colors. Finally I finished them all and was able to hang them up which gave me this:

I did take my time hanging them, I used a level to keep them straight and marked the middle of the wall to work out so that I could keep each row centered. I am so happy that is how they turned out. I love finding crafts that I can show my creativity and enjoy making without feeling self-conscious. Although my son is only two when I had to take these down when we moved he was very upset, however the excitement when I rehung them in our new home was wonderful to see.