D.I.Y. BRILLIANT WOOD KEEPSAKE BOXES

  

      I love DIY (do-it-yourself) gift projects because you can tailor the present specifically for person it's meant for. So much more thought, time and love goes into handcrafted gifts. I've tried so many different kinds of crafts over the years. I've made everything from cross-stitch to artificial flower arrangements for weddings. I've even tried my hand at making quilts for my sons. Almost everything I have attempted has turned out really cute, but the wood keepsake boxes are... dare I say... BRILLIANT!!! I've made probably twenty or thirty of them in all different shapes, sizes and styles. My kids each have a couple of them and they really love keeping all sorts of treasures inside. Here's a picture of the one that I made for Bailey a couple Christmas's ago: 

     I wish I had thought to take pictures of the process I went through to make that one, but unfortunately I didn't. However, it's really fairly simple to do. Here's a brief overview: First, I bought unfinished wood boxes at Hobby Lobby. I removed all of the hardware (hinges) and sanded the boxes thoroughly. Then I spent some time looking on the internet to find a font that I would like to use. I found this beautiful font and I traced it onto regular copy paper. Then I used carbon paper to re-trace the font onto the top of the box. I've gotten pretty good at wood-burning and decided that would look amazing to wood burn the kid's names on each of their boxes. Wood burning takes some practice to learn but quickly becomes easy with the right technique. After I was done with that, I stained the boxes and followed up with a few coats of polyurethane. To finish it up, I just reattached the hardware (hinges) and glued a complimentary dark mocha colored felt liner into the inside bottom of the box. My kids love their boxes and they know I made each one to be "one of a kind" just for them.     

    

     Now, if you prefer to have some pictures to go along with my how-to instructions then you are in luck! I finally remembered to take a few pictures of the process while making a keepsake box that will be a gift for my husband, Kyle. It is very different than the ones I did for the kids. After digging around the garage in the hopes of sparking a new idea, I found the original Chevelle emblem off of his 69 Chevelle...and was struck with instant inspiration!

** Kyle loves that old muscle car and has spent lots of time re-doing the whole car's paint job, luckily for me when he did that he put new emblems on it,  but he kept one of the original ones. Don't worry, I'm smart enough to ask if I could have it before I snatched it up for this project.**

Here's how I created Kyle's "Chevelle Keepsake Box":

     

     --I bought an raw unfinished wood box at Hobby Lobby (I LOVE THAT PLACE!!). They have many assorted shapes and types of unfinished wood boxes. I picked one that would be long enough for the emblem.

     

     --The Chevelle emblem is a chrome or silverish type of color but the hardware that came with the wood box was a yucky yellowish gold color. Icky! That just wouldn't work for me! I'm a girl, and things simply must match! So...

     

     --I took the hardware off of the box and bought some metallic silver spray paint.  I scuffed up the hardware with some sandpaper so that the paint has a better surface to adhere to.  Then I spray painted the hardware and all the little screws silver. Hint: use a pizza box to poke the screws into, it makes it much easier to paint and a little bit harder to lose! They turned perfectly. 

     --I sanded the box until it was perfectly smooth inside and out, paying special attention to slightly round the sharp edges.

     

     --I centered the emblem on the lid of the box, and used a pencil to mark where the emblems little pegs would need to go through the lid. 

     --Then I used a drill to make holes just large enough to accommodate each peg. (Check for fit at this point and make sure you drilled the holes in the right places!)

     

     --I used wax paper to protect our table before I grabbed my favorite color of wood stain and used a foam brush to apply it to the box (and my jeans...oops!). I let the stain sink into the wood for about 15 minutes, then rubbed off excess stain with a soft cloth or paper towel. It helps to get very creative and use whatever is around to suspend the box pieces up while they are drying.

  

     --It's important to wait until the stain is completely dry. The recommended time needed for it to dry will vary according to what the manufacturer's instructions are.

    

     -- I wanted the finish to be very shiny, so I added about three coats of polyurethane. I used 220 sandpaper to lightly sand between each coat (after first and second application was dry) to make sure it stayed smooth and glossy. Wipe all dust off really well before each application of polyurethane. I didn't sand it after the 3rd (final) coat. Be sure to let it dry completely before you continue! If you don't, you'll have fingerprints in the finish! Meanwhile:

    

    --I gave the Chevelle emblem a good cleaning and I tried to shine it up as best I could. It is an original piece from 1969, so it took a lot of elbow grease!

   

    --When the polyurethane was completely dry I installed the emblem. Thanks to the careful measuring and pre-drilling, the emblem pushed snuggly into place. I had thought about using super glue to secure it at this point, but quickly realized it was not necessary. It's an extremely tight fit just the way it is with no adhesives at all. Yay!

    --I put the hardware back on and I think the finished keepsake box looks amazing. I know Kyle will love it. I'm going to try to find some type of baby blue colored material to line the bottom inside with. I'm confident that will be the best color choice because that's the color Kyle used to re-paint his Chevelle. 

     
    So, how do you think it looks? I love it! I think that personalized wood keepsake boxes make such thoughtful gifts. It's a fairly easy  project to complete, and it's so much fun to try to match the keepsake box's personality to the personality of the person you are giving it to. I hope my instructions were clear enough and that I have inspired you to make a unique Keepsake Box for someone you love.

***Questions or comments are always welcome! Also, if you don't want to ever  miss out on any of my new posts or projects, you can subscribe to my blog by entering your email address at the bottom of this page. If you do, you will automatically be sent an email notification in the future to let you know when I've posted something new. Thanks for reading! God Bless!***

    

MY DREAMS CAME TRUE 'N THEY SMELL LIKE MOCHADOODLE!

    I'm so excited to learn that my  favorite product, Scentsy, is expanding their product lines! That's important to all of us busy moms and wives, because we  know that less than pleasant odors sometimes attack our house from the inside out! It's super hard to keep a handle on the odors that come from cooking in the kitchen, pets and their litter box, hubby's shoes, and active teenage boys with crazy production of testosterone! I mean, WOW! That's a lot to keep up with for any super mom. That's one of the reason's I love Scentsy so much. I am not a salesperson for Scentsy but I probably should be considering how much I love it! My favorite scent is Mochadoodle, it's like heavenly mocha cappuccino and warm snickerdoodle cookies... it's sinfully delicious! I have three large warmers, three small warmers, two plug in warmers and even Scentsy air freshners for my car, so it's pretty clear that I'm just a little bit addicted to Scentsy.  Just when I thought I couldn't possibly be any more obsessed, Scentsy they added a new product line called "Layers". This line goes beyond the scents, warmers, and air fresheners that we already know and love. "Layers" includes shower gels and creams, body butter, body spray, perfume,and even laundry products. My dreams have come true, now I'm kind of excited about performing miracles with even the worst sock laundry!  If you aren't familiar with Scentsy products you can check them out at this link  Scentsy Website

DIY PORTRAIT STUDIO PLANS HAVE BEGUN!

     My last two blogs were about the past. You now know who I was and where I came from, now let's move on to shiny happy things! My favorite thing to do in the whole world is not blog, believe it or not. It's photography! Some people might think that's boring, but if you stick a camera in their hand and send them out with me for an hour they will come back forever changed.

     I purchased a Sony Mavica years ago that takes pictures to the square disks, the ones you stick in the old A drives on desktop computers. It was a good camera for it's time, and I still love it, but the pictures don't look as good when you want to make an 8 x 10 out of one of the shots. Not only that, I had to buy an external drive that you plug into the USB port to read the disks after we switched to laptops. I complained that I wanted a new camera and spent a lot of time looking around for just the right one. God bless my husband for his patience while I made up my mind, and God bless him for his checkbook once I finally did!

     I chose a Nikon Cool Pix L110 and I am in love with it! I've taken thousand of shots and haven't had any problems at all. I'm actually making plans to go ahead and opening my own studio (sort of a side business) and taking portraits of customers in my home and at outdoor sittings. We have a large room in the basement that would be perfect to use. With a little research and ingenuity, I have found lots of ideas that would make my DIY (do it yourself) studio completely attainable and fairly inexpensive to set up.

     I used to be the manager of a franchised portrait studio, and it was the best job I ever had. Even with the low pay at that studio, I still loved to work because it was FUN and didn't feel like work. I'm really looking to recreate that happy feeling and if I can be my own boss well...it just doesn't get better than that! Here's some of the ideas I'm going to be trying out:

     *backdrops ---going to buy large inexpensive canvas drop cloths from the hardware store...I believe they come in a 9' x 15' size (for around $20) and can be dyed to whatever color I want it to be. Common backdrops are white, the ever classy black, as well as neutral colors like creme or beige. I found that light pinks and different shades of blue are also used frequently. Another good thing about canvas is you can store it crumpled up if you want the backdrop to have a rustic look. Or I can make rails out of 1.5" PVC pipe and drape them over that if I don't want rustic wrinkles.

     *lighting ---I can't stress this enough! Straight on light from a camera flash can cause the dreaded red-eye and nobody wants to have their portraits look demonic! I'm going to make the three main light sources that I will need. I'll use 250 to 500 watt shop lights. They come with a rounded medal "disc" that reflects the light outward very nicely and they have clamps on them so I can easily attach them to homemade posts so that I can set the light at any level height I need. (Short people need portraits too!)These lights are around $30 at the hardware store. There are different types of lighting angles that I need for the portrait photography set up I want to use. I will need a key light, a separation light and a background light. If you are wondering what exactly that is, I think I can explain. Key light is the main light, and there are several positions for that lights to be in that provide different effects for the portrait.

Positions for the key light:

--frontal light is also called glamour lighting and it creates a shadow beneath the nose and even lighting across the face

-- loop light is slightly to the side of the subject and casts shadows to the side of the nose and beneath the nose

--45 degree light is also known as Rembrandt lighting, and is places so that the use of light is more dramatic and leaves one side of face almost completely in shadows with only a triangular area highlighted on the opposite cheek

--split lighting placement leaves only one side of face lit and other side completely dark, this is extremely artistic and really dramatic

Positions for the seperation light:

--Seperation light is placed opposite of the key light

Background light:

--is positioned behind the subject and points at the background, adds a glow behind the shoulders for added seperation

      The background light can even be as simple as a small house lamp. You have to position it carefully so that the lamp itself is hidden behind the subject. It's a soft glow that just provides the look of the background dropping back and gives the idea of space between the subject and the background.

     I also found some interesting ideas about using windshield sun (heat) reflectors as a another type of light source. They are also very inexpensive and the cool thing is that some of those fold down into small carry bags and would be very easy to take to different sights.

     I'm not wanting to be responsible for having to print the photos, although I don't mind photoshoping them if needed. I'm thinking I will charge for my time and per sitting, for portraits of people and families. I can copy all of their photos to a disc for them, and allow them to have full rights to the finished portraits. This way they can get their pictures printed on gifts like mugs and calendars without having to beg me to sign a photographers release for the photos. I realize I should probably charge for things like that, but I really don't want to. It's portraits of my customers, and they should be able to put their own photos on a t-shirt whenever they want to! Plus that, it's great advertising for me when they spread it around and tell others what an awesome deal they got with me!

     I'm trying to decide what all I need to do to get this studio really going, I need to make sure I can use all of the above ideas to get my DIY studio set up and working properly. I'll be enlisting the help of my husband and kids to make the backgrounds and lighting set-ups. I'm excited about what the future holds for me, and I will try to keep my readers updated. If anyone has any other ideas about photography, or just a comment they would like to add here, please do! I'd love to hear from you!