Like A Cup Of Tea

It’s that time of year again, when the lovely ladies at Young House Love and Bower Power challenge the rest of the crafty blog-o-sphere to get off their butts and get the glue guns/paint/podge/wood/fabric/pipe cleaners out to make something that inspired them off of Pinterest.

Before I delve into the fall edition, let me catch you up to date on the summer edition of the Pinterest Challenge. I, in a spurt of motivation, enthusiasm and an extreme black out of self confidence, decided to crochet a rug. This was my inspiration.

You can read more about it here, and watch my video on my ode to do it.

So here’s the update:

It’s not done. It’s not even close to done. The thing is – I just don’t have hours every single night to crochet a million rounds. That said, I am still planning on getting this done. I’ve scaled it back to make it a 2×3 rug for our guest room. This will still take tons of time to complete. It took a while, and a lot of different styles before I found a design I liked with the crochet.

Now – onto the fall challenge.

When we lost our power the other day due to the snow storm, I had the perfect chance to make my challenge. I decided to go with something super simple this time around. I have a thing for to do lists, so this made me smile when I saw it.

You know what I reallllllly loved? That I already had everything at home to make it. I initially planned on using a small piece of wood – until I saw this gem in our wood scrap pile bound for the woodstove. This was originally about twice as long with 5 holes in it – two on each end and one in the center. I simply took the chop saw and cut one end off to use as my base. It’s about 10″ long.

Next, I took some of my favorite scrap paper and cut a piece to shape. I played around with wrapping it, covering both sides in different papers, etc. I settled on one piece on the front side, so I could still have the rustic quality of the back.

I then covered the wood in a coat of Mod Podge. The wood will soak it up pretty fast, so I used the first coat as a sort of sealant on the wood, and then put a second coat on and centered the paper. I used the broad side of a pen to make sure there were no air bubbles.

Next up – sealing the sides. I wanted to make sure that the paper wasn’t going to come up at all, so I fully sealed the sides a few times over.

After I let this all set up, I used a pen to punch the holes through the holes in my board. I could have used some sort of metal grommet to make it all pretty – but no dice. Why? I didn’t have them. I used a small brush to put some mod podge on them though to help hold it down.

Afterwards I took this down into the woodshop and sprayed a coat of lacquer on it for hardness, making sure to do a nice thin coat to avoid drips.

Once it was completely dry and off gassed, I took a contrasting piece of paper and cut it long enough to wrap around the entire thing width wise. I cut it to about an inch 1/2 wide to help hold the paper down on the bottom. I wrapped the strip around the board and creased it, then I put a coat of mod podge on it to keep it from ripping. I was going to hot glue the back together but then I remembered, duh – no power. So I pulled out the staple gun.

What? Hot Glue, staple gun. Same difference.

Afterwards I decided I really needed one more coat of mod podge on the front of the strip, but I was concerned about it sticking so I used a crochet needle to keep it from touching while it dried.

Next up I grabbed the roll of 10-key paper I had laying around from who knows where and when and some twine I used to wrap my soaps, and strung everything together.

Done and Done!

I adore this. It could pretty easily be modified to use with a wider piece of paper, or made with a thinner and less wide piece of wood. Something like a shingle would work pretty good. I like the wider board though, since it gives me room to rest my hand while I write.

And it won’t break when I drop it.

Because I will.

Now, what lists do I need to make?

Happy Pinterest Crafting!

Heather