Friendly Front Porch - Another Pinterest Inspired Project

I made a deal with myself when I realized how much time I spend on Pinterest.   I have to translate the inspiration I get from my pins into action. 


The Pinspiration:  Beautiful project by
9 o'clock Dance of Joy

This particular idea came from a pin from via The Diary of Dave's Wife who pinned a beautiful welcome sign posted by 9 o'clock Dance of Joy. 



I loved the original post so much that I immediately shared it via email with Superman.  Obviously, Superman loved it, too, because the very next day I had a post with a hook!  Time for me to get my fanny moving and figure out the rest of it.



My Silhouette machine made this so easy!

 Superman was able to take a board and use his router to give me the edge I wanted and a can of spray paint and some time with my Silhouette machine later, we had a sign for the post. 



Loved it just like this, but it needed a little something else.

I loved the way the sign with the post turned out and thought it looked really sweet with the cat we already had on the porch, but I felt like it needed something else.  So, I went on to use the spray paint to update some old plastic terra cotta pots to match and they are now lining the stairs to the front porch.    Looks fabulous!   Not bad for not too much time and $10, wouldn't you agree?

It is fabulous!  This is our interpretation...friendly, isn't it??

This was a simple project (at least the parts I did!).  Honestly, I think we spent more time waiting for paint to dry than anything else.  Oh, did I mention the best part, Sam-I-Am approves, too!

Sam, likes the flowers, too!

Pinspirations!  They're great, aren't they?



Scrabble Valentine's Tiles

I wish I could find the blog that gave me this idea, but a quick trip through my Pinterest boards didn't reveal a pin, so it is going uncredited.  Still, just know I didn't think of this on my own.

Aren't these cool?

Anyway, bought these giant Scrabble tiles for family friends for Christmas and when Superman saw them, he said he could have made them.  Well, yes, he could have, but we don't have a router set up to route the individual letters, and besides, I'd already purchased the gift.

See the slightly routered edge?  I love how the grain of the pine is so clear.

Turned out, Superman was right.  These were a quick and easy project.  He made quick work of cutting "tiles" out of 1 x 6 pine board, finished the edges with his router, sprayed on a few thin coats of lacquer and handed them off to me.  



Since they were specifically for Valentine's, I decided to use
a font with more flourish than the actual Scrabble font.

(I think I actually spent more time playing with fonts on the Silhouette machine than he spent prepping the tiles!)  I applied the vinyl letters (with their appropriate points value, of course) and they were done.



Scrap wood and a little time gave us a really cool decoration!

Love them!   Best of all, we used scrap wood, had the lacquer, and the vinyl, so they were a free project!

Wood Shop - Finished!

Last spring I had the opportunity to take wood shop via continuing education classes.  I had so much fun (and learned so much), that I decided Valiant should take it when it was next offered. 

Picking straight boards...

Using the router...

to put the finishing touches on the pieces...

 Proud wood worker!

From picking out the wood to discovering that, like his father, he's allergic to wood shavings, Valiant made it through and has this amazing Adirondack chair to show for his labors. Pretty cool, isn't it?

Cat Boxes

You might remember that we expanded our family this spring.  We got three kittens in a two week period.  To say it has been a ton of chaotic fun would be an understatement.  Seriously...these little fuzzballs have been so delightful to have around, I already can't imagine life at home without them.

Unfortunately, with cats comes litter boxes and more cat food.  Bringing three kittens into our home had us going from one cat who was mostly an outdoor cat and never deigned to use a litter box to four cats, three of whom used litter boxes exclusively.  Throw in two dogs who think the stuff that goes into litter boxes is candy and that kitten food was a readily available snack.  This was making me crazy and not a "fun chaotic crazy".  With winter fast approaching, I knew I needed to come up with a solution because the dogs will be in the house 24/7 when the snow flies!

Have you see these?   These are cat boxes disguised and furniture and I love them.  They're just so much nicer than the standard blue plastic (why are they always blue?).

This one is $169 at csnstores (marked down from $279).  I can't spend $169 on a cat box...no way!

Look at this one!  It is from BigFatKittyCat and is $215 ($49 shipping).  It has compartments...which would be nice.

I can't afford any of these solutions!  (Who can?!)  So, with some missteps and some trepidation, I informed Superman that I needed to learn to use all of his super-cool garage toys:  table saw, miter saw, router, nail gun, and anything else that I noticed out there.  Superman is super-cool himself, so he spent a day teaching me how to use all of his neat toys (he shares nicely, too).    A new drill and some used saw horses, some wood putty and some sandpaper, a few coats of primer, some spray paint, a few hinges, and some plastic and silicon for flooring and I did it!  Two new cat boxes made with my own hands!  I'm so proud of myself, I can't tell you.

I made one with compartments for upstairs, but I'm thinking that I'll give it to the Divine Mrs. M (she has three cats and a dog as well as two big kids and baby!).  We don't really want to have it upstairs (we had planned to put it by the bedrooms) and if she can use it, I'd love for her to have it.

She's measuring to see if it will work in her laundry room.  I hope it does...if it could help her contain her chaos even a little bit, I'd love to help with that.

Here is the one I'm keeping for our downstairs bathroom.  (Right now there is a bowl of cat food on it  (which means the door to the bathroom has to be restricted from opening all the way to keep the dogs out, but in a few more months, the two youngest kittens will be eating from the bowl on the washer and the dog issues will be done.  I'll be able to work on this bathroom - can you see the new flooring we got in January?)

See?  The litter box is far enough back in the box that the dogs can get to it.  The plastic flooring sealed with silicon will make clean-up easy.

I think both boxes cost us about $40 in supplies compared with $500+ for the two I found online.   Oh, and we just measured our spaces, figured out what features we wanted and drew up plans for our cat boxes.  They turned out exactly as we'd planned. Can you believe it?  I'm just so excited and proud of myself.  Now I'm checking to see what Ana at Knock-Off Wood  has for me next!