DIY Wall Ruler

This was a really fun project! I was exposed to some new materials and am definitely adding everything to my growing repertoire. 

I first became interested when I saw a few ideas on Pinterest and I thought, "I could make that!" It usually happens that way for me. Unfortunately I didn't plan on a tutorial while I made this so I will do my best to explain the steps between product pictures.  The ruler assembly is divided into two parts: prepping your wood and painting your numbers.

Prepping your Wood

I began by asking my dad for a board, lol. I roughly described the size and shape. I said "about 6' long and 6" wide and maybe 1/2" thick." Real descriptive, I know. He did great delivering that to me. My board measures 6'4" x 5" x 5/8". When he delivered the board to my house he gave it to me on the condition that I do not paint it or do anything to cover the grain of the wood because it was a really nice quality piece. My original plan was to do a paint-wash by diluting acrylic paint with water to sort of "stain" the wood a color. You essentially paint the raw wood and wipe it off with a damp rag to take off most of the paint. After my instructions from him I decided to use some tung oil on my wood to keep it the original color but seal it against moisture. Once I decided on my finish I lightly sanded my board since it was already pretty smooth. I did sand the edges of the wood so there would be no sharp corners, but I didn't want it to look routed. 

Tung Oil available at Lowes

The tung oil is seriously a dream to work with. Follow the directions on the bottle but you essentially squirt some on the wood and rub it around with a cotton rag. It takes 24 hours to fully dry between coats. I only did 2 coats and did not sand between, contrary to the bottle's suggestion, because I am lazy and didn't care if it was perfect. I like working with lots of products because as I gain experience I learn what kinds of shortcuts I can take ;)

My last piece of advice for the prep stage is to make sure you seal the front and back sides against moisture. A long, thin piece of wood like this would easily warp over time and you want your ruler to be around for many years!

Paint your Numbers

This step was fun and it took me one evening. I debated a long time over how I wanted to apply my letters. Originally I wanted to use a wood burning tool and I even ordered it off Amazon but once I got it I realized it would take forever SO I decided to hand paint the letters.

I searched on my computer for a font I liked and printed numbers out in varying sizes. This was a trial and error process on what size I liked and I ultimately decided to make "1" the smallest and enlarge them until "6" was the biggest. I used some carbon transfer paper underneath my numbers to trace them onto the wood. I decided to mount the board 6" off the floor so my ruler only has 6 marks underneath the 1-foot line.  You place the carbon paper face-down onto your board and put your printed numbers on top. Trace around your number with a dull object (I used a dotting tool for painting your fingernails) and it transfers through the paper.

Carbon Paper off Amazon

The paper is good for multiple uses!!

After my numbers were traced I used some black acrylic paint and a skinny brush to carefully fill in the lines, like coloring!

Black Acrylic paint from Walmart

I got a large tape measure out to make my marks with a pencil every inch down the whole ruler. I did 2" long hash marks at every foot and 1" long at each inch in between.  I used painters tape or masking tape in a straight line down my ruler 1" from the edge and freehanded perpendicular lines at each inch. (Confused yet?)

Longer hash mark signifies a division of each foot

I wanted to measure my daughter at each birthday and actually paint a permanent line for her height so future children will be able to easily compare. There is lots of room to add more marks so the easy part will be to have the children (har har).

I looked at Zoe's medical records to see her heights at each yearly checkup.

 My very very last step was to mount the ruler to the wall. I had my husband drill holes in the top and bottom to make installation easy. He also counter-sunk the holes (meaning he drilled out a small area of wood so the screw head will fit in flush - look it up). DON'T FORGET to mount your ruler the correct height off the floor or it won't be accurate!

You can see the screw fits into the hole flush.

Now we are done! Let me know in the comments if anyone actually finishes their own ruler :)

DIY Moby Wrap

My good friend Mitzi was gracious enough to have a baby before me let me know a few things she would recommend. Among these was a Moby wrap. It seemed like a good idea and I watched a few youtube videos on how to tie those things. I thought the price tag was a little ridiculous though, for FABRIC.

I looked online for the dimensions of the wrap and ended up using a piece of fabric I had bought at Walmart. It is a knit, and looks like fabric from a thermal shirt. I took three yards (60 inches wide) and cut it in half down the middle. Then I sewed them together to make one really, really long strip. I trimmed the edges with pinking shears and I don;t think it made a difference and it took forever. It is really fun to wear, but tying it is a BEAST. I'm glad I ended up making it because I honestly only wore it a few times and it wouldn't have been worth the money. Also pregnancy took a real toll on my back and after 30 minutes or so my back gets really achy.

I also tried to talk Chase into using it and he said he would rather cut off his foot. Thanks for the support honey :)

Felt Zebra Rug

Way before I found out I was pregnant I spotted a tutorial for this rug made out of felt and it immediately caught my eye. Once I was designing my nursery I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make one. Zoe's bedroom has wood floors so it needed a little something down there.

Here is a link to the tutorial I used. I made sure to buy the felt at Joanns with coupons! If you can't tell from the picture I used a deep purple for the stripes. I also just used regular fabric glue to put it together. I thought about sewing around all the edges (stripes included) to give it an extra-finished look but I got to this point and I thought, eh... good enough. I'm sure we all feel that way sometimes!

The tutorial also calls for paper with gridlines on it. I hate it when projects call for specialty things like this and was reluctant to scour Joanns to try and find something like this. Luckily, while I was contemplating this, I bought some cheap wrapping paper from Walmart and on the back it had a grid of 1 inch squares on it! The tutorial calls for 2 inch grid so I made it work. As soon as the rug was finished I fell in love! I hope you like it too.

I'm not going to lie though, it isn't the most durable rug... it's already looking a little worn and fuzzy, but it has been a year.

It looks good though... right? :)

Homemade Stamps

For a while now I've been really interested in making my own stamps. I think this stems from my love of fabrics. Printing my own fabrics is a distant dream of mine. I ended up buying some rubber blocks and a lino cutter and went to town!

First I literally traced my image on some vellum off my computer screen. I used a soft pencil and then pressed the paper against the white rubber and the pencil left a very good reverse image. Now you may think, well it's backwards so it's no good, not true! Because it's a stamp you want the image backwards, true story. I did a little experimenting with the cutting tool and it was surprisingly easy and fun! Like cutting butter. The rest seems to be common sense, I carved the crane first, then cut off the excess and had enough to make an additional "Zoe."

Now I just need to get a better ink pad, lol. I guess the dollar store isn't always the quality choice.

I decided to use some fabric paint and make a little onesie for baby Zoe. I'm into paper cranes right now.

And here it is on an adorable baby model!

Feel free to comment with any questions.

New Format

I figured that since I spend so much time in the blogging world, I might want to start contributing to it.

I stopped blogging because I felt like it was pretty pointless. I post more pictures to facebook then my blog and I didn't think anyone read my blog that wasn't my friend there. Also I started my blog when I lived in Utah and was away from family and now we live in California, under a mile from my parents and Chase's parents are moving 1 hour away to Sacramento.

So I thought I would make a few changes. After a good discussion with a friend in Hawaii I decided that it might be fun to post some things that I have made for my home and family. The plan is to post mostly before and afters, some how-tos and maybe a full blown tutorial. If this isn't your cup of tea... well then just stick to browsing my facebook. :)

I'm starting tomorrow!

Watch this!!!

A Birth Story

I've been putting off posting about Zoe's birth because frankly it as too much typing. Well last night I made a little video that pretty much sums it up. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/bHd_D8G00gc?hd=1

I had to link to it because the video would not fit in my blog. It's worth the copy and paste!