How To: Easy Faux Zinc Letters

Hey guys! I’m really excited to show you my latest how-to today, the easy faux zinc letter (emphasis on EASY!). Remember the letter “B” on my mantel in the Pottery Barn mirror knock-off tutorial?

   

Well, I made that letter “B” out of stuff I had laying around the house. Recycling, actually.

It’s cereal boxes!

I was super lazy efficient about making this, no glue or paper mache required. Yes, you can find cardboard letters like this at Jo-Ann’s. Their design of the letter B looked too much like a number 8 to me so I decided to create my own.

I got so involved in this quickie project that I forgot to take progress photos – oops! This took me only an hour from start to finish. It’s the perfect TV-watching craft.

First, I sketched out two “B”s on the back of some cereal boxes. I used two cereal boxes for this, making sure that the unprinted side of the cardboard was facing out on every side. To make it three-dimensional, I cut the remaining cardboard into 2” strips.

Now. If you’re following along at home, get out your painter’s tape. It was a little pain-staking, but I taped up the letter so that the tape on the front of the letter is invisible (tape inside). The tape’s on the inside of the letter. On the back, I could afford to be less careful and taped this mama-jama up!

Since the letter wanted to roll onto its side, I put a couple of rocks inside to weigh it down. I skipped the full-out papier mache, but if you want, just mix cornstarch & water together and slap some newspaper on that puppy!

 

Go to the store and get yourself some acrylic paint.

Make sure you absolutely absolutely get:
1) Plain black acrylic paint
2) Folk Art “Pearl White” – You’ll find it with the rest of the metallic acrylic paints. It’s a white metallic.
Take the black paint and cover everything. Let it dry.

 

Hooray! Here comes the MAGICAL part. I was like a kid in a candy store when I saw how cool this effect was… who knew that a layer of white metallic + black = metal look??  #WorthTheHype

Take a dry brush, and load sparingly – at first – with the Pearl White paint. Brush it on using straight strokes and dab it on to get the look you want.

Fun, huh?
Check out this close-up of the letters. I love how the edges look forged when they pick up the shine from the metallic paint!


So there you have it – a metal letter art for the cost of 2 bottles of acrylic paint and an hour of your time. Happy painting!


I linked up at:
  

Magnetic Scrabble Board Art

There was only one gift-giving rule for our family Christmas this year: everything must be hand-made. Now, that term can be used pretty loosely, but it resulted in some really amazing and most thoughtful gifts I have ever seen. 

Next on the handmade gift list...

Scrabble Board Artwork

Jose Carlos is from Sevilla, Spain. When he first came to the U.S., he came to study English for 16 weeks in Indiana University's English program. Since he and Ben had met during Ben's 2008 trip to visit a friend in Spain, Ben invited him to stay with the rest of the family (i.e. his parents), who were glad to welcome him.

On his very first evening in America, we invited him to play Scrabble with us. How mean are we?? His English was already very good. What's more, you would never be able to pick him out from a crowd - as a European, that is... his friends call him "the American" by the way he dresses and acts. Needless to say, from the time we started playing Scrabble, he fit in with us perfectly. :) 

Jaz and  The rest is history, and their wedding day was October 15th, 2011. (Remember that wreath I made them for their new place?)

For a Christmas gift to them, I decided to make them something that brings happy memories for all of us - the magnetic Scrabble board!

What you need:

• A piece of sheet metal (you can buy one at Lowe's like I did)
• One length of decorative molding (again, Lowe's) - I think mine was 8 feet long.
• Plywood
• Liquid Nails adhesive
• Drywall repair spackle
• Paint
• 1 Scrabble board game
• 104 Earth Magnets

How I did it:

1) I used some scrap plywood to make a backing that allowed 2"-3" inches beyond the dimensions of the sheet metal. Then, some Liquid Nails glued the sheet metal to the plywood backing.

2) Next, I measured out the decorative molding to the dimensions that will frame the sheet metal. You know that phrase, measure twice, cut once? Definitely should've followed that rule.
I just used a jigsaw, but your cuts will be much cleaner with a rotary saw.
Alternatively, you can use metal snips to cut the sheet metal to the right size and use a Goodwill picture frame - I didn't use snips, though... they were so heavy-duty they scared me a little.

 A couple of extra scraps.... I may  or may not have cut some of my wood pieces on the completely wrong angle. Me = so very lucky. I had less than 4 inches of molding left after I cleaned up my mistakes and finished cutting the frame!

3) Once the glue dried, I filled in the cracks in the frame with the spackle. You can use wood filler if you need to fill up some huge gaps.

4) Here's the finished frame after a little bit of sanding and smoothing.

5) I brushed off the dust and then painted the frame with regular black acrylic paint in two layers. I used some leftover poly to give it a shine as the top protective layer.

6) The Scrabble set was an interesting story. I got the Scrabble letters from a seller on Craigslist - a guy who was selling it for a dollar! What is it about Craigslist buyers and sellers that is sometimes so skeazy? I was directed to an address, which turned out to be a used car sales "dealership" that had an inventory of a whole 5 cars in a gravel lot. The main office of this dealership was a small 10 foot-by-10 foot glass cube (!!!), unlit, and pretty scary looking. In the end, I got my Scrabble board for a buck and walked away with a good ol' Indiana experience.

7) The magnets were an interesting adventure too. I got my super-strong magnets from a seller on Etsy - bottlecapartsupplies. It was $22 for a set of 200 rare earth magnets, so if you're searching, look for this: 200 1/4 Inch x 1/16 inch Neodymium Disc Rare Earth Magnets. They're so tiny! When I first received them in the mail, I wasn't even sure if there was anything inside the envelope.

Meanwhile, gluing the magnets was a different challenge. I had glued about 20 magnets to the Scrabble tiles with a hot glue gun, and the magnets were so strong that they separated from the tiles after the glue was dry...fail!

I ultimately used the liquid nails again to glue the magnet and tile together. Success! That stuff is good for just about everything!

Mission accomplished...

8) Then, Ben made his rendition of modern-artistic Scrabble board on the metal with a black Sharpie marker. We also decided to stick magnets to two of the letter holders.

9) Last but not least, I nailed a picture hanger onto the back of the frame.

Ta-da!

Toma - the Spanish word equivalent to our "Yess!!!"

What do you think of my project?
Are we huge dorks or what -- is Scrabble this much a part of your life? :)

Holidays. Simple.

This post is dedicated to some festive decorations that didn't break the bank.  Versatile decor pieces are great because they can be used for so many different purposes and occasions (Read: they don't get put in storage for the entire year until December).

My December resolution: Any big decorations I bought this season had to be usable for the rest of the year. I  tried hard to look for Winter - vs. Christmas - decor that wouldn't be awkward to be seeing in the house at the end of January.

Check it out...

1. Table Centerpiece

This one was easy, as you can see. I love the fresh greenery & pinecones in this display, which came directly from our yard. The cake stand (on super-clearance and easily re-used for other decorations!), bells, and ribbon were all Hobby Lobby finds. This took all of 5 minutes to put together.

Total cost for this project: $12

Recycled glass cake stand-  $8

Bells - $3

Ribbon - $1

2. Mantel Display

I was lucky enough to repurpose some of the items from my Christmas last year. The only item I bought is the stocking holders, which were an amazing deal -- $15 for the set at Target.

Because everything else was pretty plain to begin with, I added some more color in the form of stocking holders, stockings, and red chalices. Excuse my artwork - the poinsettias at the base of the fireplace didn't make it into the picture today, but they balanced out the asymmetry of the stockings. 

That mirror and wreath were not intended for holiday decorating; Ben was the one who pointed out it'd look perfect on our mantel (and hide those ugly outlets)! The vases on the right were just filled with red and white mints.  Again, I used pinecones and ornaments for some color on the coffee table. All of the arrows below point out the items in this display that can be used year-round, even though they are outfitted in a Christmas-y fashion here:

 
Of course, there will be more added to this display next year, but we're off to a good start!

Total: $15
Stocking holders - $15 at Target

Everything else I had laying around:

Mirror - $25

Triangle serving tray - $0, wedding gift

Candlestick - ~$15 at TJ Maxx

Vases - ~$4 each at Ikea

Wine bottle - $0.... let's just say we know some winos

Berry Wreath - ~$10 at Michaels

3. Ornaments
Alright, this one's for all of you who have a tree and don't have enough ornaments to put on it! (There's a reason I never took a photo of our bare tree!  It's currently outfitted in a generic-but-tasteful red, white, and silver theme)  Since we're still newlyweds, we have plenty of years ahead filled with kids' homemade ornaments and decorations on our tree that have some personal meaning to us. In the past few years we've received some beautiful and thoughtful ornaments as gifts which we proudly display on our -- but, we have a long way to go.  Take a look at these:

I didn't actually do this, but this idea - pictured above - from DesignSponge is genius: it's contemporary, it's inexpensive, and looks great. These paper ornaments would also make great home-made gifts!! I love the thought that you could easily change the color scheme of your decorations from year to year with a simple project like this. Nice, huh?

So there you have it - happy decorating!