Absent blogger (with a project).

Where has August gone? Seriously, this month has been a bit of a whirlwind! The first three days of the month were crazy busy with our accreditation audit at work. Last week I took two days off with the hubs since he started back at work this past Monday. We spend a four day weekend tackling our garage (post to come soon). And somehow it is already the 18th? Time is going by too fast!!

To get myself back in the blog routine, I wanted to share a project I finished up a few weeks ago. At the end of July, we went to a local third Friday street festival. They had a vendor there selling letter art comprised of pictures of different letters. Well, my married last name is kind of lengthy which made the price close to $50. Being the cheap-o that I am, I decided that I could make it for far less.

First, I went to the Dollar Tree and purchased 8 3.5X5 inch frames. They only had black or brown so I picked up the black ones and spray painted them white.

Next stop was a trip to Lowe's where I purchased a  piece of wood. I used a 2x6x8 which I had cut down to the appropriate length (mine was 36 inches). I already had stain and poly at home so this trip cost around $5.


I applied three coats of stain because I wanted the wood dark enough to match our bedroom furniture. I also really wanted the white frames to pop on the dark surface. I let the stain dry overnight, then applied a coat of poly.

The next day, I found the letters I wanted to use on this Flickr site (its FREE). I used my home printer and just printed them to size on photo paper. After putting all the letters in the white frames, I used hot glue to adhere them to my wooden frame.

Here is the final product:

I LOVE the way it turned out. Total cost was under $14! I must admit though, it is still sitting in the guest room. I know where I want to hang it but am unsure about the placement until we install the new light in the master bedroom. I will update once its is actually on the wall!