The Crown

So... questions of the day.  What is on the opposite side of the checker.  One side has a crown, the other side has.... Low and behold, after google and many phone calls to friends and family... the answer is NOTHING!!!

Many have a star or something like that, but in all actuality it is just a place holder. 


Put paint on the table and so all is ready for varnish.  Wooohhooo!!

Tomorrow I will start the process of distressing all that needs to be distressed and then a small layer of stain. 

We will be done!

The Table

This was the part that I thought I might not actually be able to do.  It requires a little more skill and as you have seen from viewing my blog I am a "wing it" sort of girl.

I defiantly don't do things perfectly, thank goodness for distressing!!

I am sure however, that my family is going to USE this and so perfection just gets dings and dents.

I will now do a little sanding to get it ready for paint, I will paint, and then it will be time for varnish.  I have to do the board, the blocks, and the table. 

Oh, and lets not forget that I have 5 inch round pieces on the way to make my checkers!  So exciting.

To look at it now, it seems that I might even have it actually finished for Christmas!

Perspective

A God who is merciful,  a husband who loves me whom i love, healthy amazing kids, a job I enjoy, when I start to think about all the things I am thankful for and I put them down on paper it help to create perspective for the times when I complain.  To top it all off I haven't even begun talking about the blessing that go above and beyond my needs and desires.

Today I am over flowing with gratitude for all the blessing in my life. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Checkers

For the record, it is MUCH easier to paint a checker board than it is to paint a scrabble board.

Today I ordered 5 inch circles for the checker pieces.  It is the one thing I am not going to try to cut myself.  I honestly don't even know where I would start.  It will make this part of the process much more simple.  I will still have to paint them but at least I will not have to figure out how to cut them.

I am happy with both sides.  I look forward to distressing everything and getting the varnish on both sides.  I am defiantly not a perfectionist and so my painting leaves much to be desired.  The distressing helps my painting skills out considerably!!!

I am making strides to being done by Christmas.

Flip Side

One of the reasons I have for making this game board into a table instead of doing tiles is so that we can have 2 sides.

And so... the flip side!!!

I am now laying out the checkerboard on the flip side of the scrabble board.  It has been laid out and the red is on.  I will wait for that to dry and then put on the black.

After both sides are completed I will then distress both sides with sanding and stain and varnish the entire thing.

Before I stain and varnish I will also need to have the table part ready.  That is the plan for this week.  We are supposed to warm up to 45ish and so it will be warm enough to work outside on the table. 


At this point all of the painting and varnishing has to be done in the house do to the cold weather.

Ready for Varnish

Each tile, after they were all stenciled with the painted letters and numbers, then had to be stained.

I choose a light colored stain that would bring out the slight grain in the wood without "hiding" the black painted letters.

So... we have 100 letter tiles (well 98 and 2 blanks) painted stained and ready for varnish.

Soon I hope to start the process of putting the table together.  I think that will be the hardest part for me.  I also have to paint the checker board side of the game board.

Letter Tile Process

It is quite a process to make 100 letter tiles.  After I had cut them all to a 3 inch square, then each time had to be sanded on all 6 sides and all 12 corners.

After the sanding was complete then I began the process of of painting on all of the letters and numbers.

Thank goodness for 2 blanks!

Cutting and Sanding

Wow, I had a friend help me cut my board to the right size and cut the board that will be the base to the right size.  That was so slick, he has a very nice table saw.  Sometimes it IS about who you know.

I used my Cricut to cut out some stencils for the letter blocks, they turned out nice.

Now I am sanding each of the 100 letter blocks.  CRAMP!

1000 Little Steps

What we have here is the makings for scrabble.  But let me tell you what I see.

With every cut of the saw and stroke of the paint brush I can see in my minds eye my family gathered together in our screen porch, sometimes just our core family and other times with extended family and friends around us, laughter and love making real words and words we are "sure" exist.  You know someone is going to be dragging out the dictionary!

That is what I see.

We Have Color

Wow... it looks like a whole different board.  I am so excited to play on this thing I just can't stand it.  I am willing to sit out in the freezing cold screen porch in December to play a game of scrabble on this thing!!!

So... onward with the country screen porch scrabble.

Still in Love

All of you DIYers out there will appreciate this.... you find something, or you dream it up... you decide to make it... you get the stuff... take the time to put it all together... you put it up... and you start to use it... Then you realize that it is NOT what you pictures or NOT as useful as you imagined... bummer...

That is so NOT what happened here!!!!

I can't tell you how much I love this shelf.  It fits right next to my message board, and is easy to grab on the way out the door, so I always know where I am going... or supposed to be going.  It makes something that I need, my life planner, even more usable.

I love this shelf!

Life Planner Shelf

The shelf is complete.  I sanded it, I painted it, I sanded it again, I stained it, and finally I gave it a coat of wax.

Then... I took a very deep breath as I always do when I am going to make holes in the wall and I screwed it into place.

WWWOOHHOOO!!!  I love this shelf. 

Board is waiting for color

Our country game board is coming along.  One step at a time.


Finished painting, let the paint dry, took off all of the vinyl.  That was a LOT of vinyl.

Fixed all the letter blocks and now they are all the right size.  I am getting ready to start the painting on those.




I now have to add the colored blocks to the board here so that it stars to look like a scrabble board.

I am starting to get very excited for Christmas!

Multitasking

It seems silly to spend all your time on one project.  So....

We (my family and I) live off my life planner.  It is not just a day planner, when this precious book is missing, even my husband starts to get all nervous and upset.



I need a wall calendar and a planner.  However, that does not work for me.  If I write it on the calendar on the wall when I think of it, then when we are out and about I get a new thing that needs to be written down, then I have stuff in 2 places and whenever I need it I find that it is not in the right place.  YIKES!




I have come up with a solution for my need for both and my need for only one.  A little shelf!  This shelf will hold my planner on the wall and when it is time for us to leave the house, I can grab it with my phone and purse and kids and keys and crating the dogs and stoking the fire and turning off the lights... and I will have it with me.

I took a 1x4 and cut it into about half.  Then I added a piece of molding on the front so that it will hold the book from sliding off.  Then I painted it black.  I will be distressing it tomorrow and putting on some wax and then screwing it into place on the wall.  I will put up pictures when I have it in working order.

Christmas Gift for the Family

I contiune on with my project for my family for Christmas.  We WILL have scrabble on the patio!

Wow... lots of work.  So I painted my board cream and then put vinyl squares on the board (15 x15) and painted over it black.  I did 2 coats and after it dried I took off the vinyl.  Presto!!! We have a board.  Now I just have to add color.



I did make a measurement error and didn't figure it out until after I had cut 100 squares for the letters and so I will have to take a 1/2 inch piece of 2 sides of each block... seriously, what was I thinking!!




That will slow me down a little bit, but I am still on target to getting all of this done.  Now I just have to cut out stencils for the letters.  This is coming along!

WARNING

There are some things in this world that you just shouldn't try because once you try them they could ruin your life.  Drugs for instance are something that it is just best to totally avoid because once you start few have the fortitude to go back to the life they had before the drugs.

With that said... you all know that we have been working on a screen porch.  So I have been searching the Internet for ways to decorate and other things that I can do to make this area of our home a blessing are, not only in looks but in activities.


(Here is were the drug reference comes to play)  In searching the Internet I found Pinterest, now if I was you I would just take my advice and stay away from this place it can take over your life!!

I found this amazing picture of something I wanted to try in my screen porch.

If you look closely, what you see if a tile floor that is also a scrabble board.  HOW MUCH FUN IS THAT!


So... in thinking about my screen porch and trying to figure out how scrabble will work into my flooring, what I realized is that by the time I am ready to put something like this down on my floor my children will be 40.  Knowing that it is still okay to play scrabble at 40 but not wanting to loose all the years in between I have concocted a plan that will get me something similar (as far as the idea goes) that I can have now... and so....

I am now working on plans to build a coffee table type thing that will be both a scrabble board and a checker board.  I am so excited... as my plan continue I will let you know how it is going.  It is the beginning of November and I want to be able to give it to my family for Christmas!

I better go get busy!!!