DIY
Christmas Wall Decor: Reindeer String Art Tutorial
Hope everyone is recovering nicely from their big ole’ Thanksgiving meal! We had a great time visiting with friends and family in our hometown.
I have a little confession to make. Since I knew that we would be going out of town for Thanksgiving, I wanted to make sure we wouldn’t be so overwhelmed with getting all the decorations out and putting up the tree and doing the outdoor lights and …….. well, you get the idea.
So! I decided to start decorating a week or so in advance. Before you go, “girl is crazy!”……
Don’t worry! I only started messing around with the inside. 😉
Since this was a new house and I wasn’t sure where I wanted everything, I wanted to take my time and figure it out. Also, don’t forget the most important part of me being able to change up the theme this year. Only took me 5 years to convince the hubster, but still, finally got my way this year.
I really wanted some wall art for the house, but I couldn’t find what I really wanted and I knew that it was also going to cost me a bit because I had so much room to fill over the breakfast nook. Remember how big Penelope and Bessie are?
They are 36 x 36 and I love how they fill the space without making the wall look too cluttered with pictures.
I am going with more of a Rustic Theme this year and I have really been drawn to reindeers for some reason. I started looking everywhere, but I just couldn’t find what I really wanted.
So, I knew I was going to have to make it. LORD, HELP ME!
First things first.
I sort of had in my head what I wanted the background to look like. I wanted it to look rustic and I thought I was going to have to stain the wood to look that way, but the hubster and I happened to go by Home Depot and found these boards already made to have the appearance of EXACTLY what I was going to do to the unfinished wood I planned on using.
The boards were originally 1 x 6 x 8 ft. so we had to cut them down to the size I wanted. Since the pictures I was replacing were 36×36, I wanted the Christmas ones to be as close as possible to them. In the end, I ended up getting 3 projects out of all the boards we purchased. P.S. Look for a video tutorial to follow on the second String Art project we did to go with this one.
We purchased 7 of the Shiplap Boards, total. Then, we cut the pieces down to 33.75 in. each. Now lets do some math: we took each board, cut it down and got 2 boards in 33.75in. length with scrap left over of 27.5in. So, in the end, I am getting wall projects for the breakfast nook and 1 project for the outside because I just can’ t let that “scrap” go to waste.
The boards are tongue and groove so when we assembled them next to each other, they fit nicely and tight.
Might I add that the back of the wood has a pretty interesting finish to it? It almost looks like water droplets coming down, so if you were looking to be more artistic with it, that is something to think about. Using the back instead of the front.
We also purchased (2) 1 x 3 x 8ft. pieces of plain white wood for the back supports seen here.
After placing all the boards side by side and into the tongue and groove area, we placed the white boards, which we cut down to 32 in. each to fit the space and laid them across the shiplap boards. Each 8ft space gave us 3 boards, with no left over scrap. This means that when I go to make my third piece, I will have to buy another 8ft. piece of wood. No worries though, because each 8ft. piece was only $ 1.48 !!!! That’s right! Cheap, y’all!
One more thing I wanted to mention before moving forward is this. Each piece of the shiplap board is tongue and groove, like I mentioned before. So, naturally, at some point, you are going to have an end piece that has an extra piece of wood sticking out. Now, you can either keep that, which would look just fine OR you can rip it down and get rid of it. We happened to have the tools to do this, but a great thing that your local home improvement store offers if cutting your boards for you!
That’s right, y’all!
They will cut them for you. I believe it is a small fee, if any and that way, you don’t have to say you can’t do a project like this because you don’t happen to have these tools at the house. With the company that we have, we just happened to have what we needed. Otherwise, I would have completely used that service at the store.
So, back to ripping the board down.
Z was feeling very helpful that day and offered to do it for me so I wouldn’t lose my thumbs, or fingers, or arm or……….
Back to attaching the boards. To make sure they were secure, we hammered a finishing nail into each board .
I just left the tags on the back of the shiplap because, well, that’s just how I roll. Yup. That’s it.
Here are the finishing nails we used for the back and also for the front for the string art. 1 box did it for this one, but I will probably have to purchase another for the second piece just to make sure I have enough. (It is a little more detailed)
This is all three pieces of white wood attached.
Love how it turned out.
I found a reindeer silhouette that I really liked, but there was no way for me to enlarge it on my own computer to the size I needed, so I had Fedex enlarge it for me. I ended up going with a size of 18x24in. print.
I trimmed the piece and centered it the best I could.
Next,
I secured it with a small piece of tape and started nailing away. You hammer the finishing nails in by tracing the outline of the silhouette.
Try to keep them spaced as evenly as possible. I started to angle the ones that were in the corners so that when I applied the string, I could create softer edges for the face.
Almost done. I have to admit that this can be a little time consuming. However, things go much faster when you have two people hammering. 🙂
Nails are all in!
And here is a closeup.
Remove tape and pull paper silhouette off. It should come off pretty easily, but may leave behind a few small papers around the nail heads. If this happens, you can simply remove with tweezers.
I had this jute twine already, but you can pick this up at your local craft store for about $5.00. *Use your 50% off coupon and get it for less!
You really can’t mess it up, but one thing I will suggest is to do something I didn’t, especially when doing the antlers because when you are looking at a bunch of nails, you can forget the pattern. When doing my second project, I will definitely outline the picture FIRST with the twine! I went back afterwards and did it so it would stick out more, but that made it more difficult during the process. I saved the original image of the silhouette and just looked at that on my laptop for guidance, but if I did it to begin with, which is probably the way you are SUPPOSED TO DO String Art, it would have been easier. LOL! Oh well!
Getting there!
Now, you could simply let the reindeer be a reindeer, but since I was doing this for Christmas, my reindeer couldn’t just be any reindeer. No sir.
Mine had to be the one with the red nose……. The sparkly red nose in this case.
We attached these large picture hangers to the back for extra support because this big boy is quite heavy.
This was what the originally finished project looked like and
there really isn’t anything wrong with it.
BUT!
The more I looked at it, the more I felt like it started to look more like a “reindeer MUMMY” instead of a “rudolph, the red nosed reindeer”.
SO, my OCD made me go back over it and smooth out the lines a little more.
I like this version a lot more.
In fact, I like it so much, that I decided to do another one. But different. Not a reindeer. But Christmas. ANYWAY!
Really quickly, here is the price breakdown in case you want to try this for yourself:
Remember though, I made more than one project out of this! If you are only making the one, I will do my best to adjust:
- 1 x 6 x 8 shiplap boards from Home Depot: $ 11.97 per board (Need 7 Boards total to make more than one project. However, if only making one project, you would only need 4 Boards!)
- 1 x 3 x 8 white wood strips for back supports $ 1.48 ea.
- 1 1/4in. box of finishing nails (Shiny ones) $ 3.47
- Enlarged Reindeer head Silhouette $ 2.25
- Jute twine $ 5.99 (*Use 50% off coupon at AC Moore or Michaels to make $ 2.99)
- Picture Hangers $ 2.39
*All wood material was purchased from Home Depot for reference, including picture hangers.
Stay tuned! and
Season’s Greetings, y’all!
XOXO,
Esther
Rosemary and Peppermint Body Soap
The Holidays are just a blink away and it wouldn’t be nice of me if I didn’t share this updated version of the DIY Soap I make for my family and myself. I did a post a while back about an experience I had on my 10th Wedding Anniversary where my poor sensitive skin reacted to a facial cleanser I purchased.
Long story short, I started to make my own and loved it so much that now, that is all my entire family uses. Since then, I have also had a few other family members and friends start to use it and now that is all they use too!
Adding Rosemary and Peppermint not only gives the bars a fantastic smell…… I think they would be great Christmas gifts because the fragrance is so perfect for the Holidays!
Simply wrap them in wax paper and secure them with decorative twine and you have the cutest little homemade gifts that mean so much more when it comes to gift giving.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to share some REALLY BIG NEWS! Well, BIG NEWS for me at least! 😉
I have had so many requests for videos and now, I am excited to announce that Babies and Biscuits will now be posting videos on Youtube.
My hope is that you will find them helpful and maybe a little funny. Maybe I should also mention that I hope you get my kind of cooky personality too.
Just for you, I went ahead and made a video for the Rosemary and Peppermint Soap bars during the last batch I made.
Check out the video Below!
Don’t forget to check back often and subscribe so you never miss a new video.
Happy Saturday Everybody!
XOXO,
Esther
A Tale of Homemade Cayenne and Red Pepper Flakes
There is a man, in a house, in The Farm, that loves a pepper bush. It’s his pride and joy.
Well, I guess he just loves peppers in general.
This man loves his pepper bush so much that he made a necklace of all the peppers that came off of it during the long hot Summer and hung them to dry.
At night, all he would dream of was the beautiful peppers that abundantly grew. He carefully picked and separated all the good from the bad.
He made sure to make the “necklace” of only the strongest fishing wire that would surely stay strong all Summer long.
One day, his loving, sweet, clumsy wife decided to surprise the man and turn his beautifully dried peppers into something that would last much longer than the peppers ever could.
She decided to make his peppers into Ground Cayenne Peppers.
So, the good wife threw caution to the wind and picked up the dried peppers (without gloves) like a boss, pinching them one by one, and throwing them into the food processor.
What the good wife DIDN’T know was that even though the skins ground up beautifully, the seeds would not, NO MATTER HOW LONG she processed them.
So!
Being the smart wife she was, she decided to remove the lid of the processor…………. only to be met by an invisible cloud of festering fire! The kind that starts inconspicuously in your nostrils and then quickly moves to your sinuses and before you know it, turns your body into a rage of sneezing convulsions.
PLAN B! , she thought!
Once her body stopped spasming from the uncontrollable sneezing, she regrouped and went to the store to buy a Pestle and Mortar set. She had always wanted one and this may just be the perfect opportunity!
When the good wife returned home, she braved the concoction yet once again. Armed with her new tool,
she thought surely it would work this time………
The good wife’s optimism was only met with disappointment when she realized that the seeds would not grind up with the Pestle and Mortar set either.
PLAN C, she thought!
What better gift …………. than that of not one, but two gifts!
So!
It was then and only then when she was faced with yet another obstacle, that she truly found what she was supposed to do all along.
The good wife decided to give the man Dried Red Pepper Flakes and Ground Cayenne Pepper.
The Red Pepper Flakes were abundant!
The Ground Cayenne Pepper?………………….. Not so much.
No worries though. The wife was very happy.
And the man?
Well, the man was very grateful.
If! And only if you are truly brave, proceed to the recipe below:
And just so you know, it wouldn’t hurt to wear a mask……. or two! LOL!
Recipe: Homemade Ground Cayenne Pepper and Red Pepper Flakes
– Dried Peppers from Cayenne Pepper Bush
– Teaspoon Salt
Directions:
– Pinch stems off tops of dried peppers and add to a Food Processor or Pestle and Mortar. Add salt and process or grind until you reach desired consistency.
– Separate flakes from ground cayenne by using a sifter.
– Store in an air tight container.
Laundry Room Make Over Series: DIY “WASH” Sign
I have been wanting to “Spruce” up my Laundry Room for a while.
I didn’t want to break the bank in the process though, so I decided I would do it in fazes. This is the first post in a series of posts I will do as I update it. 🙂
I had seen the letters “W A S H” on someone else’s Laundry Room wall and I decided to do it myself. I think it was Kathryn from Do It On a Dime, which is a Youtube channel, but she also has a blog that she started recently to go along with it. LOVE her! She has great tips for ……. you guessed it, Doing things on a Dime, or on the cheap. You can check out her youtube channel here, and her blog here.
So, first off, I went to my local craft store, AC Moore and bought the unfinished wooden letters. They were 2 for $5.00, which I thought was pretty good.
I also picked up a can of Rust-Oleum’s Painter’s Touch Spray Paint in a Metallic Aluminum Color for $6.99. My walls are painted Stonington Gray by Benjamin Moore in the Laundry Room and instead of painting them a contrasting color, I wanted them to have almost an “embossed” look, so I chose a color as similar as possible to the wall color.
I sprayed them with 2 light coats of paint and it covered VERY VERY well.
This was the end result, which I’m really happy with.
However, I might move the letters because since I did the letters, we have decided to do a few more updates to the Laundry Room, which I am REALLY excited about.
I will make sure to do updates on it as we progress through the work.
While I was at it, I decided to take a White Wired Trash Can I purchased at the Dollar Tree and spray it too.
While you might not be able to tell a huge difference on photo, it did spice it up a little and not make it look so “Dollar Tree”ish. Did that sound bad? I hope not. I was definitely happy with the fact that I was able to get more uses out of the one can of spray paint and still had some left to do other projects!
Stay tuned for more updates on the Laundry Room Makeover!
XOXO,
Esther
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