USA Wood Letters

While cruising through Pinterest, I came across these USA wood letters and I had to have a set!

First, I had to create a stencil. Next, Matt cut the letters out using our band saw. After sanding the letters, I used tape to make lines.

I painted the top blue and half the lines red. I only wanted the front painted. The sides and back will be stained.

After the red paint was dry, I taped over the red lines and painted the white lines.

Not quite done...

Next, I distressed each letter by sanding some of the paint off.

Finally, I stained each letter.

I think they turned out amazing!

Craft Booth Walls

As I mentioned in my last post, for the craft show last week, we came up with a new booth wall design. Instead of wood, we used PVC pipe.

This tutorial is for a 10'(wide) x 8'(deep) booth.

Shopping List:
-(13) 3/4 in. x 10 ft. PVC pipe
-(8) PVC elbows (buy the contractor's pack, it's cheaper!)
-(10) PVC T's (buy the contractor's pack, it's cheaper!)
-(4) 2" pieces of 3/4 inch PVC pipe

PVC Pipe Cutting List:
-Cut (7) @ 84"
-Cut (4) @ 58.5"
-Cut (4) @ 56.75"
-Cut (4) @ 36"

Fabric Panels:
I also made some fabric panels for each section. I bought cheap twin flat sheets at Wal-Mart for $5 each. You need to buy six flat sheets. I only had five on hand, so I cut one sheet in half and cut up another sheet I had, and added a stripe. What is awesome about using sheets is that the top already has a pocket to slide the pipe through. So all you really need to do is hem the bottom and one side. I also sewed on ties onto each side of the panels. This way I could secure it to the pipes. Out of the sheet scraps, I also made a bag to store the pipes in.

This is how the back, top and bottom, four corners connect into the side walls.

The two sides are cut up into two sections.
section one measures 59.5"
section two measures 37.5"
The booth walls measure 84" tall

The back is cut up into two sections.
Both sections measure 57.5"
The booth walls measure 84" tall

On one end of my booth I have a shelf, on the other end, I have a purse tree. To add extra support to the side walls, I used the ties from the fabric panels, and tied the end PVC pipes to the shelf and purse tree.

These walls are easy to set up and take down. Much better than our last system! I

Craft Boutique + Patriotic Pillows

Last week was the Simple Treasures Craft Boutique. I created a lot of new product and we designed a better booth set up by using PVC pipe instead of wood. I'll blog a little about that in a later post. I also have a couple of craft tutorials.

Here are a few pictures of the booth:

Here are a few of my favorite pillows:

All these pillows and more are available in my Esty.com shop.

Assembling Party for 72-hr Kits

The 72-hr kit assembling party took place a couple of weeks ago. My last blog post was about what went into the kits, so I wanted to follow up and do a post about how to assemble the kits and how to run a 72-hr kit assembling party. I wanted this activity to be organized so people could come and quickly put together their kits and be done.

Some Tips:
*Place the tables in one long row.
*Arrange the tables so people can go down both sides.

*Place the bags at the head of the row.
*Make sure to arrange the food items from the bulky/heavy items at the head of the row to the small/light items at the end of the row.
*Print off labels for each food item and how many to take per kit.

In the end everything turned out great. I had a lot of help getting everything set out and cleaned up. This was a lot of work and took a lot of time, but I grateful for the opportunity to provide a way for people to get started with their emergency preparedness. I know a lot of people don't know where to start when it comes to emergency preparedness and it becomes a burden, so they don't do anything at all. This 72-hr kit activity was a good way to help with that burden and provide a starting point.

Easy 72-hr Kits

I was assigned by my church leaders to come up with a concept for a food 72-hr kit that is affordable and easy to throw together. The reason I was given this responsibility was to help families in our church get prepared for an emergency.

In order to accomplish this gigantic task, I took to the internet and Pinterest to come up with ideas on what a kit needed.

I made a list of items I thought would be good to have, and went to Sam's club and Wal-Mart to check quantity and pricing. While I was in Sams Club, I spotted a few things I didn't include on my list, so I wrote some of those down in the margins just in case I wanted to change or add to the menu.

Can you believe that 9 meals + snacks fit into one bag for $8? Pretty awesome! I figured we would let each person provide their own water since you can pretty much get it for free at home from your tap.

I happened to be at Dollar Tree and found that they carry 2.5 gallon bags, which happens to be the perfect size to hold all the food. You get 5 bags for $1. That is the best price I found.

Here is the final list if items, the quantity and pricing (these are Utah prices).

I made up a menu to put into each kit. People on the internet suggested to rotate the items once a year. Instead of throwing the stuff away, have a 72-hr kit picnic with your family, then replenish the kit with new stuff.

Remember that water is VERY IMPORTANT to have. The recommended amount per person per day is ONE GALLON.

St. Patrick's Day Stuff

The last few days I have been on a St. Patrick's Day decorating, crafting, pillow making kick. Here are some of the things I've made:

Crafts:

Mr. Leprechaun. I found the idea HERE.

Mr. Leprechaun Sr. This one is 4 ft tall. I made him the same way I made my Uncle Sam.

A giant shamrock.

I made a pallet with cedar fence slats, then spray painted around a shamrock.

Here again, I made a pallet and then stenciled on the word "Lucky" with green acrylic paint.

#17 cut out of wood.

Pillows:

You can purchase any of the pillows in my Esty Shop

The Front Porch:

I made the shamrock last year.

Tile Floors and Tile Showers

Since the last post, we have accomplished a lot in out basement bathroom project...

Matt tiled the shower walls. We used four boxes of white subway tile. We spent about $100. Not too shabby!

On a side note, my cat is a photo-bomber...

It looks divine! Matt did such a great job.

For the floor we chose tile that looks like wood. We thought the Montagna Rustic Bay looked the most realistic, so went with this tile. We used three boxes for our floors. All together the floor cost was about $120.

Matt also did a great job on the floor tile. The funny thing about this is the tile box suggested you don't lay these tiles in a 50% brick pattern. They suggest you use a stagger of about 33% brick pattern, or a herringbone pattern. Nope, we broke the rules! We did the unthinkable. I think it turned out beautifully! Matt also finished the electrical and installed the two wall sconces (you can only see one in the picture).

After going back and forth between grey and white grout for a while, we finally decided to do white grout. Matt spend hours grouting the shower.

All the meticulous attention to detail, his hard work paid off. The shower walls look fantastic!

It only took us about 45 mins to grout the floor. The grout we used for the floor tiles is called New Taupe. It is a chocolatey brown color. It goes great with the tile.


Last night we bought the toilet, so we will be working on that and building a vanity. After those things we need to put the door in, wall trim, and adding the plumbing for the sink. Until next time...