Wood Manger-Crafty Sisters

Hello again!

It's Candace & Nicole from Crafty Sisters.

Wasn't Melinda's barn door tree great?

We loved the inspiration of the barn theme and it reminded us

of another event that happened in a barn long ago....

Every year for Christmas, Candace's mother in law fills her home with the neatest nativity sets.  We absolutely love a couple of her life size mangers. They are sweet reminders of what the season is all about. 

This manger is probably the easiest  manger you could ever build. 

It's not meant to hold real babies..or 2 year olds...just in case any of you do that. ;)

But, a doll will work just fine! Or just use it for decoration.

This is a picture of the actual manger copied.

  Candace's mother in law was sweet enough to let her come over, measure, and draw it down on paper.

Every cedar slat is cut at 30 inches.  Four for the legs, and eight for the top slats.

Cut a 2 inch  notch out of each leg, the thickness of it will

be determined by the thickness of your board..

We cut our notch out with a jigsaw, 16 inches up from the bottom.

Here's what you will end up with.

We really wanted to use old wood, but it's just so easy to find the right size of cedar slats at the store. 

 So, we stained each piece with the new "weathered oak" stain from Min Wax.

Incredible!!!!

It has a gray tone and oh my..it is the perfect shade of old wood! 

Not as good as the real thing, but pretty darn close.

This seriously took 30 minutes to build, and it is a wonderful prop to any Christmas Eve Nativity!

Thanks Melinda for the inspiring theme!

A Tree Stand and A Stocking Holder...

Hi everyone! Happy December and Merry Christmas to you all.

It's Wendy from Craft Goodies here today to share a few quick and easy Christmas projects.

First, I have to give a big thanks to Melinda for her tree stand. Didn't know I'd be needing one until I pulled out the little trees and found one was completely missing all of the pieces to its stand!

I wanted something kind of "crate-ish", and country looking so I went with a few strips of cedar fencing.

I cut them down and made two boxes, then glued and nailed them together. I added slats across the bottom and then drilled a few holes through the base pieces and bolted the tree into it's new home.

 I can't wait for the wood to age a bit and take on that "gray" color.

{I still might add a fun, roughed up holiday image to the sides...still thinking!}

All in all super easy, and really fast. Had this done in about half an hour.

New problem this year-I decorated my mantle a bit different and thus my stockings needed a new way to hang. I'm completely into anything personalized these days so pictures were a must.

I used a few chunks of 2 x 6, wood drawer pulls, and a small wallet sized picture frame.

The wood got a fun and fast spray paint job, roughed up with the sander, and then a layer of stain before being glued together.

The hardest part was figuring out the tape on the stripes!

And last, I removed the backing on the frame, glued the glass into the frame and added my pictures. I want to be able to change them out over the years so I used velcro dots on each corner to mount the frame onto the base.

And TA-DAH! Our stockings are now hung by the chimney with care...

Thanks for another fun month ladies!

And for helping me get my house a bit more festive.

Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Happy crafting.

Christmas Tree Quote Sign

Hello!  Krystal from Sassy Sanctuary here.  Isn't Melinda's Christmas tree stand adorable?!  What a fun alternative to a tree skirt.  Unfortunately, just like last month, I am in the process of moving and don't have access to any of my power tools.  I don't have a tree yet either, so a tree stand was out for me.  Bummer, cause its SO cute!

(Before you feel too bad for me though, we are moving TODAY so things are finally going to start to settle down!  Hooray!)

So instead of a tree stand I just thought about Christmas Trees in general. (that works right!?) I went to the craft store and found a frame that had a 12x12 opening and decided to make one of those cute signs that uses a quote as the shape of the tree.... you know.... like this!

 

Now, I have to confess that this was one of those projects were everything went wrong!  First I painted the frame and the board inside the frame the same grey color, used vinyl to make a stencil for the text and antiqued the heck out of it.  It was cute but the colors I used were so similar that it was hard to tell what it was from a distance.  I hated it.

So I redid the inside of the frame only (the outside stayed) in a cream color and used a bolder color pallet to paint on the text.  This time though, for some reason when I pulled up the vinyl stencil it took half the paint with it.  It was a disaster!

Then miracle of miracles, I got a fun package in the mail from Oh My Crafts later that very day.  They sent me some vinyl to review  (more on that later!) and they had a ton of colors.  So I decided to give this poor sign one more shot.  This time I painted the inside of the frame a light grey color, I added some "birchwood" texture inspired by my friend Sarah (although mine turned out more like a snow storm) and then just cut the text from the vinyl.  

I worked like a dream! (the OMC vinyl is amazing!)

I love how it turned out and I LOVE the bible verse to remind me what Christmas is really all about.  And it looks great with the rest of my mantle decor!

The outside of the frame turned out super cute too with the little stencil I put on the corners.  I'm thinking once Christmas is over I will reuse the frame with something else.

Anyway... I thought it would be fun to share the file I used to make the tree.  So if any of you are silhouette users, you can click HERE and download the file to cut a bible verse tree of your very own. 

Personal Use Only Please!

(let me know if that link works since I've never shared files that way before.)

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Barn Door Christmas Tree Stand

It's the best time of the year!  Hey crafty ladies.  It's Melinda from over at Under My Umbrella.   December's WYLTC is all about Christmas.  How can it not be?!!!   I'm not a fan of tree skirts although some of them now days are darn cute.  I'm a wood girl at heart.  I love the smell of it.  I walk into Home Depot and take a deep breath in.  Ahh the smell of wood.  With that said, this month I decided to focus on jazzing up my tree stand a bit with what else but wood!

You'll have to excuse my dark pictures!  The sun hasn't been showing it's pretty face in these parts lately :)  To make my barn door Christmas tree stand I built 4 mini barn doors with scrap wood.

I nailed three together.

I hinged the front door on so I can open and shut it to water the tree.  I almost forgot that part and nailed the whole thing together.  My poor tree wouldn't have liked that!

You're done!  It's that easy to have a cute barn door Christmas tree stand.

This is before my kids put all the ornaments on the tree. It gets a little crazy.  You know how it is...20 ornaments on one branch :) 

Stay tuned to see what the other WYLTC girls have created.   The theme this month is Christmas.   Come back on Friday to link up anything you have made dealing with the theme.  Can't wait to see all the cuteness!

Family Link Party!!!

So were you inspired to create something fantastic this week?

All of the projects were great-I love to see what the week unveils...

It started here with my Family Rules board:



...fun and easy.

Krystal jumped in next with an amazing little family frame:

I love the quote! And too, everything came from the craft store-no tools needed for this project!

Melinda shared a favorite song and quote all in one with this fun sign:

I've seen these all over my local craft stores lately, Melinda made it super easy to make your own!

And finishing us off for the week, Candace and Nicole shared a great way to display some fun family photos:

And they too gave you the (almost) no tool way to finish this great gift idea project.

So much fun!

But now it's your turn. We want to see how you are celebrating your family at the start of this super-fab holiday season.

Link up your projects that show your idea of Family, we can't wait to see them!

Link will be open until next Friday...
Happy Crafting-
Wendy

Family Picture Block

Hi everyone!  It's Candace and Nicole from Crafty Sisters!

We were so excited to craft with this month's theme, FAMILY! 

We love any excuse to display family pictures, and this project is simple to make!

A couple of years ago, Nicole cut out a bunch of these family letters on blocks for her friend Celeste.  This week she is cutting more out for her friend for quick and easy Christmas presents that anyone would love.
We always wanted to make one for ourselves, and this month's theme, "family" was a perfect excuse. 

We cut our letters about  3-4" ourselves with a scroll saw,

 but you could easily pick up unfinished wood letters in many of the craft stores. 

You will need letters, 1/4"dowel, mini clothes pin clips, and a 2x4 cut at 12 inches.

We arranged the letters how we wanted and cut the dowels accordingly,

approximately at 1 1/2, 2 and 3" increments.

Cut your paper and Mod Podge onto the front of the 2x4.

You can really personalize this any way you want with ribbons, flowers

and inspirational quotes.

Drill holes in the 2x4 and letters  to fit the dowel, then tap and glue into the 2x4 and letters. 

Make sure you tap gently or you'll split your letters.

Attach your clips with glue, and place your pictures on!

There you go! 

 A great way to display your favorite and meaningful family photos!

Thanks for the great theme Wendy!

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Hey all!  It's Melinda from over at Under My Umbrella.  I love the theme of a "family" project.  They are all over my house.  I saw the particular project I created in a magazine and knew at some point I needed to make one.  I sing the song all the time in my house making it something my family knows well.  If you have teenagers in your house you might too :)  I'm also a big Beatles fan!

This project is a breeze!  I know there are tutorial all over online but I will give you my own version.   Grab some 2x4's.  I cut mine 18 inches long and sanded them.

It kinda hurt to paint over this beautiful wood.  I'm still deciding if I should have used the wood to my advantage!   I painted the 2x4s black and let them dry.

I have a vinyl machine so I designed something and applied it to the wood.  I then spray painted over the lettering with spray paint.

After the spray paint dries.   Take off the lettering and sand.  I also glued my 2x4s together with Gorilla glue.

My daughter informed me that you need more than love to live.  She then listed food and water.  I'm well aware!  I just love the saying and think the world would be a better place if we all could love a little more!!

Family Motto Picture Frame

Hello! Its Krystal from Sassy Sanctuary here today!  I'm so excited to show you guys my take on Wendy's adorable Family Rules Sign.

To be honest, I was a little nervous about this months project because we are in the process of moving to another state and my husband has packed up all the tools and moved them to our new house!  So I knew that whatever I made, I was going to have to take some help from the craft store. There is nothing wrong in that right?!

So I went to one of my favorite local stores.  (It's called Porter's if any of you have one near you) and found a 12x12 unfinished MDF frame that had a 4x4 opening.  I grabbed that and went to see if I could find some scrapbook paper inspiration and found one of those 5x7 paper packs in adorable prints.  Then a light bulb went off in my head! 

I wanted to make 4x4 compartments and use each square to place a quote.  Then thanks to pinterest I found the PERFECT family motto to put in my frame. 

Here is the final result.

Ahhhh!!!! I love it!  Seriously this is one of my favorite things I have ever made! (I swear I say that about every WYLTC project, but this time I mean it!)

So, do you want to make your own?  This is how I did it.

A- First get a 12x12 frame with a 4x4 opening.
B- Paint it a base color that goes with all your papers
C- Cut your papers to 4x4 squares and arrange them how you would like them on your frame.
D- Modge Podge the paper on.  I found it best to do the corners first and then the middle squares.
E-  Once its good and dry, cut vinyl to make a stencil for your text. (if you don't have a craft cutter, you could use Wendy's transfer method too!)
F-  Paint your text.  I found it turned out better if I let my paint dry to the touch before removing my stencil.

And that's it!

Oh.... but you may have noticed that my frame has a good amount of distressing.

Funny story about that....

I walked away from this project to use the bathroom after doing the text in one square.... and left it and my paint sitting on the counter. (Do you see where this is going?)  When I came back my 3 year old daughter had painted brown paint all over it!

I screamed.

Then I got a rag and scrubbed the thing off.  Luckily the modge podge sealed it pretty well and most of the paint came off... Except for in a few spots where I scrubbed through the paper!

Then I cried.

Once I regained my composure I decided to just go with it.  I strategically scrapped up the surface of the paper (just using my fingernails) and rubbed brown paint into the scratches.   I actually LOVE the way it looks. So yay for happy accidents!

So anyway... thats it.  My family motto picture frame.

I hope you love it as much as I do!
I can't wait to see what everyone else does!