Family Photo Wall

A few weeks ago I finally put together our family photo wall. I had most of the frames already but they were in other places around the house. The others I collected over a few months. Most of them came from Hobby Lobby and where half off, but a few came from the dollar store and walmart!

I wanted this wall to kind of represent what my husband and I are all about. Instead of recent family photos, I wanted to put  photos from our marriage and our favorite photos of our grandparents. Okay and one of our cat :) I am still working on getting photos of my husband's grandparents so while we wait, I just filled the frames with more photos of us :) 

Normally, when hanging photos, I just hold the photo up to the wall and say, "Eh, that looks okay" and then end up nailing it in the wrong spot. :) This time I decided to be smarter (and put less holes in the wall).

I got some craft paper (or mailing paper) from the dollar store for $1.00 and just laid all the frames down and traced them. 

After that, I cut them out and taped them to the wall where I thought they would look nice. It was so amazing to be able to just un-tape the paper and move it to another spot. 

I also labeled each piece of paper so that I could tell what was in the frames because some of them were similar in shape. 

My cat Murphy was a huge help during this process....

 Here is the finished photo wall...
I LOVE IT! 

And here is a photo that I labeled for you so that you can see what is in all the photos...

Now that's it done, it makes me so happy every time I see it :) 

I am linking this project up to these parties! 

Some of my favorite people....

are my Mom and Sisters!

 And I get to spend the weekend with them!

It's hard to get us all together since we live in 3 different states and it's been a year a half since we were all together. My sister Francis had just gotten her brain tumor removed and life was HARD back then. Things are looking up! I hope you have a great weekend too!!

Family Name Board

I have wanted one of these Family Name boards for years!

 I am way too cheap to buy one though. Finally I figured out how to make one and I'm in love with it!! It was very easy and I will be making more. When I do, I'll take photos so I can make a full tutorial. But until then, here's a short tutorial:

Step 1: Pick out a piece of wood.
Mine was 50 cents at Habitat for Humanity.

Step 2: Paint the board what color you want your letters to be. I think I did 2-3 coats. Let dry completely,
if it's even a little wet, it will mess everything up.

Step 3: Cut your wording out of vinyl.
 I used the program SCAL and my cricut.

Step 4: After smoothing down the vinyl on the piece of wood, I mean really making sure every little piece is stuck down, paint the board a different color. I used 2 coats.

Step 5: Once completely dry, peel vinyl letters off the board.

Step 6: Sand the edges of the board and top.

Step 7: All Done!

HERE are the linky parties I will be joining!



Chalkboard Menu

I think we can all agree that chalkboard paint is all the rage right now! I love it and can't wait to use it on something, anything! Here is another great idea from Oopsey Daisy

Flannel Board/White Board

Brown Paper Packages has another great tutorial!

Click the link to learn how to make this great flannel board/white board! Super easy. I already have a white board that I use for work, so I plan on making the other side a flannel board now.

FHE Jar

My BFF from high school is an amazing crafter. She is super talented!! Her name is Julliana and she is just one of the most creative people I've ever known. Her blog is fabulous! She has tutorials on digital scrapbooking, great ideas and super cute pictures of her son Ben. She has an Etsy Shop which I also love. One of the items is an FHE Jar. For just $5 you get 50 prompts (song, prayer, scripture, topic) and the cute stuff on the outside of the jar in a PDF file you print off your computer. She donated the PDF file to a craft fair I had for my sister this year and we sold so many! I bought one but I haven't been able to print them out yet. I am going to work on making mine this week because I just bought a new printer cartridge, finally! I am so excited! I will post a picture and show you how it turns out. Her etsy shop is called JuBean Designs.