Wood Block Christmas Countdown

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I saw a cute idea on Cottage Paint's Instagram feed that I thought would be fun to make with the kids.  As I opened the door to our workshop to cut some blocks, I was happily surprised to find a set all ready for me!  Turns out, I had an extra set of blocks cut AND sanded from making wood block pumpkins a few weeks ago.  Guess this project was meant to be!

We started with some wood blocking, reclaimed wood, of course :)

Brent cut this star out with a jig saw - you have no idea how hard it was for us to draw a star.  I'm talking tricky enough that we had to google it.  Pathetic, huh?

 Emma helped me do all of the painting.

Here's our first coats of paint on the blocks.  We used base coats of regular latex paint and then brushed metallic acrylic paints over top of each one.

To do the wording - because free handing was not an option - trust me, I tried - I followed Her Tool Belt's instructions.  She used Photoshop to get her lettering but since I don't have that, good ol' Microsoft Word worked just fine for me!

 We covered each block of wood with a layer of painter's tape.

 And laid our wording on top.

Using an X-acto knife, I cut around each letter.  I thought this process was going to be pretty quick.  Spoiler, it took forever.  But I put on my headphones and listened to a few episodes of Serial - which is amazing if you haven't heard it - and the time passed rather quickly.

Then I put a few coats of acrylic paint in a contrasting color over the lettering.  Peel the tape off when dry.

 For the top block, where the number of days was going to go, I used this chalkboard paint.

 I taped off a section of the block for the chalkboard paint.

 2 coats later and once it had dried, you can pull the tape off.

 At first, I was planning to glue all of the blocks together but then decided not to.  It will be much easier to store after the holidays if it isn't such a large piece, plus, it's much easier for the kids the erase the top block and write the new number for the day if they can lay it down to do it.

 This was a fun project and the kids are having a blast changing the number each day!

DIY Dollhouse Furniture

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One of our greatest sources of website traffic come from Pinterest with people searching out the doll house we built for Emma.  Not only did Brent build the dollhouse, he also built the furniture.  I'm not sure if you've shopped around for Barbie furniture, but if you have, you know it's expensive.  And flimsy.  We wanted to build sturdy furniture that wouldn't tip over when Barbie sat/laid/looked at it.

In my original blog post of the dollhouse there weren't any great photos of the furniture, so I staged a little photo shoot with better close ups of each piece.  I don't have any documentation of the building process since Brent made them several years ago, but I'm hoping with the dimensions provided and the photos, one could replicate the pieces.  As a side note, Brent built most of this furniture out of birch or cherry.

Baby Cribs

 In magical Barbie world, everyone has twins, so Brent built these little matching cribs.  

Dimensions are 5 3/4" tall by 4" wide by 6" long.  Brent said he first made a chunky base out of 4 pieces of wood, mitered at the corners.  Each side rail of the crib was built seperately, like fence panels, and were then glued to the base and pinned to each other with a nail gun.

You can see the small pin holes where he nailed the slats into the frame.  With all of the nooks and crannies on the crib, spray paint was the fastest and easiest way to paint these babies (no pun intended).  The mattresses are simply a piece of foam wrapped in a piece of receiving blanket that I cut apart.

Dining Room Table & Chairs

Barbie isn't doing anything if she isn't entertaining - which meant we needed a table for six.

These chairs are sturdy enough to hold Barbie and her friends in an upright position IF they have the types of legs that bend at the knee.  But really, unless Barbie has had too much to drink, her booty is not tipping out of these chairs.

Chair dimensions are 6" tall by 2 1/4" wide and depth is 2 1/2".  The height of the seat is 2 1/2".  

Table dimensions are 4 3/4" tall by 5 3/4" wide by 8" long.  Brent made the top first and then tacked each of the four legs to it.  The skirting was added last.

Bedroom Dresser

The dresser dimensions are 6 1/2" tall by 7 3/4" wide by 2 1/4" deep.

He started this piece with a solid block of cherry.  The grooves that give the appearance of drawers were made with a table saw.  To create a space for the four legs, he cut a dado/rabbit out of the four corners of the block with the table saw.  He then glued the legs in and glued the top on.

Coffee Table

I'd actually take one of these tables in human size!

Dimensions for the coffee table are 2 3/4" tall by 3" wide by 8" long.

Couch

Dimensions for the couch are 5 1/2" tall by 13 1/2" wide by 5" deep.

Here again, to make the cushions, I covered some foam in scrap fabric.

The back of the couch is cut at approximately a 10 degree angle, which would mean the arm was also cut at 10 degrees.  The seat and the front of the couch are two pieces nailed and glued together.

If I was really good with a sewing machine or hand stitching, I would have made way too many throw pillows for the sofa and bed - just to make Ken mad.

Bunk Beds

Dimensions for the bunk beds are 10" tall by 6" wide by 14" long.  

 I flipped the bed upside down so you can see how the underside was constructed.

Queen Size Bed

Dimensions for the bed are 8 1/2" tall by 8 3/4" wide by 14 1/4" long.  To create the reveal you see around the bed, Brent built a base first and then constructed a second frame to sit on top.  He built the headboard separately, like a fence panel and attached it with nails and glue.

The mattress is a piece of foam wrapped in a scrap of receiving blanket.

 Here is a view of the bed without the mattress on it.

If you flip the bed over, here's what you see.

If you're attempting to build your own furniture for some Barbie dolls, hopefully these images will be useful.  We're always happy to answer questions if you get stuck and need some help!

Babies + Beads = Bad News

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Towards the end of December, my sister and brother-in law will be welcoming their first baby (screaming and excessive hand clapping) and clearly, I couldn't be more excited!  Beings that they have an abundance of self control - opposite of myself - they have chosen to find out their baby's gender at delivery.  According to completely unscientific reports, about 40% of couples take the same approach as my sister....we'll call it the "wait and see."  For the record, I think it's a girl.

Since they don't know the baby's sex, the nursery is gender neutral with grays and yellows, whites and wood tones.  Anne has found a few cute things throughout her pregnancy with elephants on them to decorate the nursery, so when I stumbled up these elephants at World Market, I immediately thought - BABY MOBILE!

I picked up an embroidery hoop (after bringing the hoop home, I stained and sealed it) and some some yarn to hang the elephants from.

To begin, I painted a metal washer with some turquoise acrylic paint and then hung it from our dining room chandelier.  This way, I could suspend the embroidery hoop from it so I could tie each elephant on the mobile.

With my washer dangling from the light fixture, I cut two equal lengths of yarn, fed them through the washer and tied them to the embroidery hoop with a few knots.  Now we were ready to start attaching elephants.

Before we could get started on the elephants, we had to address one small problem - or rather, about 75 small problems.  Beads.  Lots of them.  Which meant the string of elephants needed to be deconstructed and re-assembled WITHOUT said beads. 

I started by snipping the threads that held all of the elephants together to discard the beads.

With the beads out of the way, I used some gold thread and an embroidery needle to tie a knot which would suspend the elephant - side note here: had NO idea what an embroidery needle even was until I found one in my sewing kit and realized it would work perfectly for this project!

 Tie a couple knots here.

 And you should end up with an elephant swinging by a string.

 At this point, I just started tying the elephants onto the embroidery hoop until it was balanced and full.

I would have loved to have taken some photos of the mobile hanging above baby's crib - but my sister lives 4 hours away, so that ain't happenin'.  Luckily, there is a hook above Brent's side of the bed, so he gets to stare at a baby mobile while he goes to sleep each night until we can deliver it to it's rightful owner.

Hopefully baby likes it and doesn't develop a life long fear of elephants!