DIY Growth Chart [Grow Chart]

By Cate | September 12, 2012 - 7:00 am | crafting, decor, DIY, Pinterest

A few months ago I spied these oversized ruler growth charts popping on Pinterest. I love the idea of having an attractive growth chart that can move with you. Gone are the days of writing on the door jamb! I personalized one for us and adore the way it turned out!

First I picked up a 6 foot 10×1 board from my local big box hardware store, then painted it with very watered down brown paint (like I did for the box lid on the porch) to give it some instant age.

I google-imaged “vintage rulers” to get some ideas about fonts, sizing, and the length of the lines. I wanted this to feel like a true vintage ruler, so proportions were key. Once I decided on fonts (“Century” for the numbers and “Uncle Bob Shadow” for the letters, downloaded for free from dafont.com), I typed the numbers and letters in Word. To save ink, I printed them with an outline and no fill. I also created a template for the lines, cutting them out of an old cereal box.

I simply traced the lines onto the board with a pen, then filled them in with black acrylic craft paint and a little cheap craft brush. For the numbers and letters, I positioned the paper where I wanted the character to be on the board, then traced it with a heavy hand and a ball-point pen. This left an indentation in the wood. I took the paper away, traced the indentation with a black permanent marker, then filled that in with the paint, too. [When making your own, be sure to start the measurements at the bottom of the board at 6" instead of 0", so you can hang the board above your baseboard trim. This also allows for measuring people up to 6' 6" tall.]

It took me a few episodes of Arrested Development and a couple of glasses of wine to get it all traced and painted. Once it was dry, I added some heavy-duty picture hanging hardware to the back, and hung it at the accurate height.

I’m looking forward to watching it fill with measurements and notes over the years!

I used to feel pretty “blah” about this little corner of our dining room, but now I’m loving it. The ruler brings a bit of whimsy to an otherwise formal-ish room.

I recently had an epiphany about what to do with that little desk. Frank and I will be working on that soon. Can’t wait to share it with you!

Linking to Creative Kristi and Serenity Now.

Pinterest Challenge: Custom Banner How-to

By Cate | March 14, 2012 - 11:00 am | DIY, link parties, Pinterest, tutorial

2 Comments

Some of my all-time favorite bloggers (Sherry and Katie are the authors of the first blogs I ever read and Cassie and Erin), are hosting a little challenge.

They’ve done this a couple times over the past year, and are at it again…challenging us to actually create something based on a pin from Pinterest. You know how it is…we pin pin pin, but rarely take the next step and incorporate the ideas. My most favorite recent pin is this beauty:

Source: dearlillie.com via domesti on Pinterest

As much as I’m itching to replicate this moveable growth chart, I had more pressing projects to do this weekend.

So, today I’ll share a project I just finished up. A few weeks ago I searched for some inspiration for EB’s upcoming birthday (the big 0-1). We’re keeping it small with a just a few family members, but I still wanted to make a bit of an effort for the occasion. Her birthday is March 17th, so of course we’re going with a smidge of a St. Patty’s theme. I stumbled across this fun banner (original source here).

Source: hostessblog.com via domesti on Pinterest

After a little bit of work, I came up with my own take on it. I’ll give you a look at the final product first, then I’ll share a detailed tutorial on how you can create one yourself. We’ll be displaying it this weekend for the big day, but I temporarily hung it in her room for these photos:

Wanna make one? Tools you’ll need: word processing software (like Microsoft Word), printer and paper, scissors, card stock, patterned or colored paper to back each letter, pencil, glue stick, hole punch, ribbon or twine

I started by creating the text on my computer. used Microsoft Word, which is a little different on my Mac than it is on a PC, but the steps should be similar enough for you to follow them either way.

I found a free font on dafont.com called Sherwood. It has an Irish Celtic feel, and was perfect for this! It was super easy to install on my computer, following their instructions. To be clear, I’m not paid or perked by dafont (or anyone, for that matter) in any way.

Here’s a series of seven steps to create and print the letters:

Now that you have your letters printed, you’ll want to create a stencil in the shape you want the final cut-out to be. I wanted a shield-ish shape. (Other ideas: circles, triangles, ovals, rectangles…the possibilities are endless!) I decided to cut the lower case letters smaller than the upper case, so I needed two different stencils. For each of the sizes, I folded the piece of paper in half, along the center of the letter. Then I free-handed half of the shape around it (so it would be symmetrical), and cut it out:

I then traced those two shapes on a piece of card stock (an old cereal box) and cut them out. Next, I cut a hole in the center of each one and marked the center with two pencil lines (as you can see on the right in the photo below). This allowed me eye-ball the center easily when I placed it over the letters.

I was able to see the letters from the back side of the paper, so to avoid having pencil marks on the front, I worked from the back.

I centered the shape over the letter, and traced around the outside.

Next, I simply cut the letters out. For the contrast backing, I had several sheets of the scrapbook paper leftover from a different project. You could use construction paper or wrapping paper or old maps, or anything, really. I created two more stencils, slightly larger than the two sizes of letters I had, and cut them all out.

Then I simply glued the letters onto the scrapbook paper, and punched holes in the corners. I picked up some cute ribbon to use for stringing the letters together. This 1/4″ ribbon was perfect, as it’s just wider than the holes, which causes the letters to stay put and not slide around, as they would with a skinnier string or twine.

You can string your letters in one of two ways:

with the ribbon exposed in the middle of the front

or with the ribbon exposed on the edges

I liked the look of the ribbon on the edges, so I laid out my letters and started stringing.

Taping off the end of the ribbon made the stringing really easy.

Then I hung it up! These little suction cup hooks are great for temporarily hanging lightweight things on glass.

I can easily remove the “1st” for future birthdays, or could even use the “happy birthday” for other’s birthdays. That’s the beauty of this kind of banner!

I have one more party craft I’ll share with you guys next week. I’ll show you how I turned these felt circles into an adorable 30-foot garland in less than 30 minutes. Come back to check it out!

Oh, and did you notice the “new” lamps in the nursery? They’re all done, and I’m working on a tutorial (for the “gold leaf” lining – for just a couple of bucks). Here’s a peek:

And, before I go, I have to show you EB’s latest party trick. Literally. She’s practicing for her “party” on Saturday. How old is Elsie? you might ask…

That’s right. Proud Mama right here!

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Pinterest 101

By Cate | February 24, 2012 - 12:00 pm | Pinterest

4 Comments

Happy Friday to ya! Has the weather been gorgeous where you are? It definitely feels like spring here. This post is for those of you who don’t know much about Pinterest. If you’re not using it, you’re missing out! It’s a fabulous website that allows you to virtually “pin” anything from the internet onto your personal pinboards. I started using it as a sort of online bookmark folder…a place where I could keep track of great ideas, interesting articles, books to read, gifts to buy, or beautiful images I see on the web. But, it quickly became a source for those beautiful or interesting or “why didn’t I think of that” ideas.

Here’s how it works: You create whatever boards you’d like, and pin whatever your heart desires. You choose to follow other people’s boards, and their pins show up on your home Pinterest page. By clicking on a pin, you’re taken to the original website on which it appeared. If there’s something specific you’re looking for, just use the search box.

If you’d like to start using Pinterest, let me know…I’d be happy to send you an invitation. That’s the fastest way to join. This gives you an idea of what the site looks like:

Here are some examples of my recent pins. All of the images below are pinned on my boards, if you’d like more info on them.

stunning flowers and wallpaper

mmm hm

gorgeous bright space

champagne topper chairs

Cheesy Quinoa “mac” n cheese…must try!

Linking up: At the Picket Fence, Serenity Now, and Making Lemonade

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How We “do” Christmas Cards

By Cate | December 16, 2011 - 1:00 pm | Christmas, photography, Pinterest

9 Comments

One of my favorite things about Christmastime is receiving cards from friends and family. I just love seeing the photos and reading about everyone’s year. Of course, many (us included) just send a photo, with little or no writing, but it’s still fun, nonetheless. As they arrive, we toss them into a big wooden bowl and frequently look at them throughout the season.

Yes, that’s Homer, sharing a table with my Grandparent’s vintage Holiday recipe and cocktail books.

Once the season ends, I used to reluctantly toss the cards out, not knowing what else do do with them. But, over the past few years I found myself saving them and wanting to look back through them.

After all, some families put a lot of effort into the card by staging a special photo, hiring a photographer, or writing a detailed account of their year. I even have a great aunt who hand paints each card. At the very least, they bought a pack of cards on sale after the holiday last year, stored them in their attic for a year, hauled them out, signed their name, wrote out our address and stuck a 42cent stamp on one. So, to honor the effort we all make to send them out, I came up with a way to save them and keep them organized. I simply punch a hole in the corner of each one, and string them on a ribbon, along with a tag to label the year. It’s a fun little decoration, and we can easily thumb through old cards and reminisce.

This is a great way to wrangle the mass of cards, but “archiving” our own cards is another story. Frank’s Mom has 5 brothers and sisters, and when they were children each year their parents set up a little theme for the family photo. Most of the time it was only the children pictured. Cathie recently gathered them all in one large frame.

Some of the themes include a nativity scene, gathered around the fire, dressed as a church choir, on Santa’s lap, and my personal favorite, visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. See them all snuggled up under the covers?

Her project prompted me to think through how I’d like to preserve our own cards in a special way. So, I picked up a small scrapbook from Michaels. Each year I slide our card into a new page. I envision us 20 years from now looking through that scrapbook. It will be a mini chronicle of our lives.

Each page is just an open pocket, so we can pull out the cards to look more closely or see the backs.

So, as far as planning and ordering our own cards, here are some things I keep in mind:

I make sure to include the year on the card so that we (and anyone else who happens to save it) will always have that reference
As much as I don’t want to be in the photo myself, I think it’s important for Frank and I to be included. I enjoy seeing whole families in other’s cards, and I doubt I’m the only one who appreciates that. Plus, if we do it at Christmas, we’re guaranteed to have a picture of our whole family (pets included) at least once each year.
I try to include a sentence or two about memorable events from the year. This didn’t happen this year, but with a new baby I figure most people know what we’ve been up to.
I shop around for deals. Every printing site offers discounts this time of year. I get emails and promotional discounts from shutterfly.com, tinyprints.com and minted.com, so I compare to see where I’ll get the best deal. This year it was shutterfly, hands down. They let me combine several discounts, plus they print the back of the card for free. I could choose from photo lay-outs, text, or both for no additional charge. This is a great place to add that sentence about the year, or a top 10 list, or a haiku to sum up the year’s events.

Our good friend Beth came over to be the photographer for our photo shoot. She was so patient! She took about 300 photos, and I’m so glad she did. It takes that many to get a few good ones to choose from. We posed in a few different places around the house. This one was our favorite (ie everyone was pretty much smiling):

I played around a bit on the computer to perfect the shot. I use Aperture to edit photos, so I cropped, then added the Toy Camera action to intensify the colors and add a vignette effect (the darkness around the edges) for the final pic:

I also did a little photo shoot of my own. I was inspired by this great pic on Pinterest:

source

I set up a little studio on our bed

and did a few test shots with Bear while the Bean napped.

I know so much less than I would like to know about my new camera. But, I just played around with the settings until I liked what I saw. It was a cloudy day, and I had very little natural light. I was anxious to give this a try, though.
When she woke, I stripped her down (there was a crib pad under those white sheets, and it came in handy!) and I set her down.

Again, I took tons of shots. This is what they looked like SOOC (straight out of camera):

But, with a little tweaking and editing on the computer, I ended up with shots like this:

Again I cropped, used Toy Camera, and I also lightened up her face with the Dodge tool.

When the Christmas lights began to warm up, I threw in some plastic ornaments for her to grab.

I’m pretty pleased with the way they came out! I didn’t get any big smiles, but still got some nice shots. I would love to be able to smooth out the wrinkles in those sheets in the background, but Aperture won’t let me do it (as far as I know, anyway).

Here’s the final product this year:

(front)

(back)

So, that’s how we “do” Christmas Cards. Do you guys save old cards? Do the family photo, or just kids? Does anyone use the self-timer? We did that last year, and it took about twice as many photos to get a good one.