Framed Letters

A couple of people have asked me how I made the framed "D" for Duncan's room...way back when I was pregnant with Roper I made an "R" for him and an "M" for Mason (see this post). I also made one for my nephew that was horizontal with all three of his initials across it. The original inspiration was something I saw in the Restoration Hardware catalog, and since that was almost 3 years ago I can no longer find the picture!



These are pretty easy to make...I should have taken pictures as I was working on them but I didn't (sorry). I hadn't planned to post the "how-to" on my blog, but it should be pretty easy to explain.



You will need:
-a frame
-matboard with a letter cut out
-leftover fabric
-spray adhesive

The Frame:
You really could use any size, and it might be determined by how much fabric you have. For all three of mine I used a 16x20 frame that I picked up from Hobby Lobby (their frames are 50% off for three weeks each month). The frames that I picked out did not have the metal cording on the back for hanging, but the nice lady at Hobby Lobby put it on them for me and only charged a couple of dollars.

Matboard:
Hobby Lobby also sells matboard and they will cut out letters (and other shapes) for a small charge (maybe $3.00 or so?). I asked them to cut the matboard to 12x16 (note that if you choose a different size frame you will need to adjust the outer dimensions of the matboard -- it will "float" inside the frame so just decide how much space you want between the outside edge of the matboard and the inside edge of the frame).

Then I asked them to cut a letter out of the middle of the mat board (centered of course). Note that you won't need the actual letter that they cut out, just the 12x16 matboard with the silhouette of the letter cut out in the middle. They let me choose from different letter styles, and I chose a simple Roman font for all 3. In hindsight I kind of wish I had used a lowercase "d," oh well.

Fabric:
I used leftover fabric in mine, but there are lots of possibilities here...you could use scrapbook paper or wallpaper or wrapping paper. I like the fabric because I just used leftover scraps and it ties in with your bedding, window treatments, etc.

Make sure the fabric is ironed out flat. You will need one larger rectangle of fabric for the outer edge, cut to 16x20 (I just took the glass out of the frame and traced around the edges & then cut). The smaller rectangle of fabric will need to be slightly smaller than 12x16.

Spray adhesive:


Assembly:
Apply the spray adhesive to the back of the matboard and then stick it to the smaller piece of fabric.

Then, apply the spray adhesive to the back of the smaller piece of fabric and stick it on the larger piece of fabric (centered of course, unless you just don't want it centered).

Now you should have your matboard on top, stuck to the small piece of fabric (which shows through the letter silhouette), stuck to the large piece of fabric (which shows on the outside edge of the matboard).

Then frame the whole thing like you would a picture. I'm not used to writing up tutorial type things so I hope this all made sense!

I'm not sure what the total cost of this was, I'm terrible at remembering prices, but I think this is pretty close:
$25 for frame (normally priced at $49.99)
$2 to add metal cording to back of frame
$8 for matboard
$3 charge to cut matboard
$6 for spray adhesive

So about $44 all said and done, unless you also have to buy fabric. You might have noticed that Duncan's "D" has a lot of flaws because I didn't have one big piece of fabric to use inside the letter cutout. I had to piece together a lot of little pieces and when you look closely you can totally see it. But I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to these things so I'm okay with it. And I don't think he'll mind. :)

Us vs. The Swing Set

For the past few years our boys have enjoyed the use of a swing set that our cousins passed down. It has been well-loved...I think they have played on it almost every single day!

If you are a member of Sam's Club then you have probably seen the big swing set that has been on display in the store for the past several months. I had been eyeing it for a while...I know my boys well...they are little monkeys and they love to climb, swing, slide, etc. So...we decided to go in together with my parents and Graem's parents and get the big Sam's swing set for the boys as a joint birthday gift. And the old swing set will continue to get love from my nephew, whom we passed it on to!

We picked up our new swing set the day after we got back from the beach at the beginning of June. It sat all packaged up in our garage for a few weeks. We really wanted to have the whole thing assembled and ready to go before Roper's birthday party on 7/16...plenty of time! But...as we all know time passes faster than ever in the summer.

Graem took a day off work on 6/22 to tackle the swing set. He texted me at 12:52 pm to let me know that he had completed Step 1 of 36!! It didn't take long to realize that it was going to be more than just a weekend project! I think by the end of the day he made it through Step 4.

The new set came packaged in four big cardboard boxes with the slide separate. Each box was chock full of boards of all sizes...no rhyme or reason to which board was in which box! There was also one big box full of little baggies of hardware. I think it had about every different size and type of nut, bolt, screw, washer, etc!! So in the early steps just finding the right boards & hardware for each step was incredibly time consuming. Each board was labeled...if we only could have made out what the stamps said it would have been very helpful!

Yep, that board is an E5R, no doubt!


Graem was out of town for work last week, so on Monday and Tuesday nights I sat down with a glass of wine and the Gamecocks on tv and sorted out all the hardware...I put the hardware required for each step in its own ziplock bag. Then I went to work in the garage and also separated all the boards into piles. I think this helped the rest of the building process go a little more smoothly and it gave me some sort of crazy satisfaction to put some order to the chaos of boards, bolts, screws, etc!

Here is what the swing set looked like after Graem worked on it for one full day as well as several evenings (we're very thankful that it stays light until almost 9:00 this time of year!). At this point in the process Graem had done most all of the work by himself...I helped some with putting the boards down for the floors on each level. I got a little more involved in some of the later steps and we also had some help from Graem's dad. I definitely have a newfound respect for builders!!



Graem was glad to have some help from his "assistant."




Here they are...working hard...


So...like I mentioned, Graem worked on it all day on a Thursday and some evenings, then he was in San Antonio for almost a week. Most of our weekends this summer have been busy, and with Roper's birthday coming up we knew we had to finish it during the long weekend of the 4th. We spent all day Saturday working on it, with the help of Graem's dad. Sunday we went to the early service at church and spent most of the rest of the day working on the swing set. And then by mid-day Monday we were done!! Yay...our swing set shares a birthday with our country (haha).

This is what it looked like by the end of the day Saturday...roof on, walls up, picnic table built...


On Sunday the rock wall went up...


M conquers the rock wall...


We later realized that the rock wall was up on the wrong side {actually I knew all along but didn't push the issue}...which caused much consternation for Graem because when he tried to take the rock wall down one of the screws was stripped. He finally got it moved...he was bound & determined. His biggest motivation for moving it to the right side was that I told him from the beginning that he was putting it on the wrong side. :)

The next big step...the swing beam went up...


This is how it looked at the end of the day Sunday...


On Monday Graem finally got the rock wall moved to its correct spot. Here he is putting the finishing screws on the slide...


Ro takes a break at the little picnic table...


Finally...DONE!


I remember watching the news once when the state fair was in town...this was years ago but it has always stuck in my mind. They were interviewing one of the workers that helped put the rides together and he said that they always end up with a bucket of screws and bolts leftover. Scary, huh? Well, we ended up with quite a bit of leftover hardware ourselves!



I'm not sure how that happened...I'm thinking they just sent extra?!?

So...it was a lot of work...more than we anticipated from the beginning...but it was actually fun. I love the feeling of accomplishment! And Mason has told us repeatedly how much he loves it! :)

Between the swing set and our kitchen we've been consumed with projects so far this summer...we're very glad to be done with one of them! Everything that has been done for our kitchen so far has been off-site...they are working on the cabinets and doors but they want to wait to start ripping out countertops and replacing cabinet doors until after Roper's birthday party. So...I'm anxious to see some changes but it will be good not to have to worry about it for another couple of weeks.