Yesterday was our sweet Bitty's 5th birthday and we surprised her with a trampoline so the kids have been spending a lot of time on it. It's such great exercise and entertainment for them but between jumps they were asking to watch tv and my rule this summer is no tv from 9am-5pm so I knew it was time to scratch another thing off of our Summer Bucket List!
Today we decided to play with crayons! First we took blow dryers and heated up crayons and made splatter art!
We tried having 2 blow dryers going at once but the breaker kept popping so while Keegan worked on his project, Tatym & I started working on making heart-shaped crayons out of the broken pieces!
To make those crayons, we just used a regular heart-shaped cupcake tin, heated the oven to 250* and baked them for 10 minutes (checking every 2 minutes).
While those were baking away we decided to try lighting a crayon on fire. It was fun and interesting and the kids LOVED it!
So that was our fun project of the day! Happy Wednesday!!!
Today is the first full day of having the kiddos back after their church camp this past week and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside so I thought it was a good day to scratch another thing off of our Summer Bucket List! Awhile ago I bought two hula hoops from the Dollar Tree and today we headed off to Walmart to pick out curtains to hang on them. My girly-girl of course picked sheer curtains with sequins in black and purple and my handsome boy picked a plain white shower curtain. The curtains that Tatym picked didn't have holes around the top like the shower curtain does so I had to actually cut the hula-hoop in half and "thread" the curtain around the hoop and then tape it back together.
Then we headed outside to hang them from the tree in our front yard!
As I'm typing this they are sitting out in their forts laughing and playing games together and listening to music. This is a rare treat! They tend to argue & fight a lot so finding things they can do together is AWESOME!
I have been drooling over these welcome sign holders that are all over Pinterest and was determined to make one myself! I bought a 4x4, fence post cap and hooks the other week, at one of our local hardware stores but my hubby was set on making ME do most of the work on this project including using power tools! EEK! The captain of Team Courtright had spent quite a bit of time the past couple of weeks working on making a beautiful chest for my sister's birthday so he wanted a little break! Check this out:
My super talented husband built this completely from scratch! He didn't even have plans to copy, this was all from his head! He used cedar wood on the inside for the drawer so it smells WONDERFUL inside! It's like 60" wide and is as tall as my waist! My sister wanted it to go at the foot of their bed so they could put pillows in it and set a tv on top of it. I think it's gorgeous and I know she's going to love it!
Josh (Captain of Team Courtright) and I woke up this morning to GORGEOUS weather and our kids were gone for a church camp most of the week so we had some time to kill this morning before heading out to pick them up so we decided it was the perfect time to start working on my project!
We cut the 4x4 down to 30" for the first post and decided we'd go ahead and make a 2nd one using the rest of the wood. I can't remember what length was left but it was probably around 40" or so. Hubby cut up some of our scrap wood to make a base around the bottom. We live on the Oregon coast and it tends to get windy around here and we thought it would be better to have a sturdy base! I then painted everything an off-white color. This post cap was the one I bought at the hardware store. It was almost $13 and I wasn't too thrilled about that but it was the only thing in town I could find that was made out of wood and not plastic!
After everything dried I started using an antique glaze to give it a more rustic look. I love this stuff! So easy to use and looks really cool when it's done! I just painted it on with a sponge brush and then wiped it off with a rag.
The top board doesn't have the glaze yet and the bottom board does. The picture doesn't show it as well but you get the general idea!
The post cap here is one that my super talented hubby made after we had decided to make 2 posts instead of just one! My mind is B-L-O-W-N by the skill this man has! He has had no training in woodworking other than a wood shop class in middle school and one in high school! Really, there's no limit to what this man can do! He's great with technology, woodworking, cooking, baking, fixing vehicles or other motored things that breakdown and a million other things! He's a freakin stud! Sorry ladies, he's all mine! :)
Then it was time to put the base on the posts. We opted to use good ol' fashioned wood glue because I didn't want to see nails in it. So you can see the contraption (I really should learn what that tool is called) that's holding the base together while the glue dries.
The "welcome" sign is one that I made a few weeks ago. I had never made signs before and after watching this youtube video I decided to give it a whirl!
Here are a few other signs I played around with that day:
I have so much fun with these and can't wait to make some more! :) Here's a sneak peek at one that I started last night:
Isn't chevron absolutely the funnest?!?! I love it!
Alright, back to the welcome post! :) Here is the final product look oh-so-adorable by our front door!!!!
Pay no mind to the color scheme of the house, we're renters so we have no say in that! LOL! I cannot wait until we buy our own home next year (Lord willing) so I can really make it "ours"!
In the end, the taller stand measures roughly 44" tall (from base to top of the cap) and the shorter one is about 32" tall. I love, love, love them! Thanks to my handsome husband for showing me how to run the table saw and for all his help today! I'll forgive him for trying to stab me with the power drill near the end! LOL! Really, I was helping hold the hook onto the post so he could get the screw in and it slipped off and hit my thumb nail and made it through the top layer of my nail. Maybe I can be pitiful and get him to let me get a manicure to make up for it! Hee hee!
Off I go to figure out what project to work on next! <3
