Baby Name Sign DIY Tutorial

I love the idea of name signs in a child's nursery! They can be so fun, colorful, and add a touch of personality to a room. When decorating my daughter's nursery, I decided to make my own name sign.

Here's what I used:

- Wooden letter cutouts

- Scrapbooking paper to cover the letter cutouts

- Acrylic paint to match the paper above

- Mod Podge

- Pencil

- Paintbrush

I wanted to have fun, bright colors for my daughter's name sign, so I chose some scrapbook papers that had a variety of colorful floral and geometric patterns. I think you could really play with different patterns and colors depending on the gender and the theme of your nursery!

Here's how I made it:

1. Start first by flipping the letter cutout so that you are looking at it backwards and place it on top of the backside of the scrapbook paper. Now trace and cut out the letter! Put your new paper letter cutout to the side for later.

2. Start painting the sides of the letter cutout with a contrasting or matching paint color. Let it dry. (Otherwise, you will end up like me and have a bit of the paint getting on the front side of the letter).

3. Paint Mod Podge over the top of the letter cutout.

4. Place your set aside scrapbooking paper cutout on top of the wooden letter cutout VERY carefully!

5. Place more Mod Podge on top of the scrapbooking paper. You can use your paintbrush to help smooth out any wrinkles that form. I also use my fingers and fold down the edges of paper that stick out from the letter. Let it dry. 

6. Repeat for any other letters you may have!

7. Hang up your letters with some command strips. I used one large strip per letter, and it worked great. For the "A," since the tip of the letter was very thin, I cut one large strip in half lengthwise, and attached it to each side of the "A."

And voila! There you have it! After everything is dry, you have yourself a cute little name sign for your baby's nursery! Enjoy!

My $13 Patio Set Project

After moving to Arizona, my husband and I knew we had to have a patio set. We love being outdoors, and so having meals outside is a lot of fun for us. In Arizona, you can pretty much go outside all year round, even in the 100 degree heat of the summer, as long as you're in the shade.

After looking at patio sets all around town, we found out that patio sets are expensive! For a little two seater, you're looking at paying at least $100 brand new! For us, we knew we wanted a set with at least 4 seats, and we knew that we wanted to pay as little as possible for it!

I was able to get a very sturdy metal table from my parents for free, but it had a bit of rust. It had been my grandparent's, and I remember going to grandma and grandpa's house and having lemonade out on the porch in the summer at this table. So for sure, even with the rust, the table was a keeper!

The only problem was that I had no chairs! For a couple of months, my husband and I took our dining room chairs outside with us because we refused to buy expensive or cheap or uncomfortable chairs brand new. I even looked all over at every thrift store I could find, but alas, no chairs.

Our patience paid off, however, and a nice lady in our church sent an email out that there was a table and chair set her husband's coworker was giving away. Well, just luckily, there was another girl who wanted only the table, and I wanted only the chairs, so it was a match made in heaven! (I had to double check that she didn't need the chairs though, because I honestly couldn't believe it).

The only problem? The chairs looked like this:

The chairs had this dark green metal frame and cushions that looked like they came right out of the 90's. They weren't exactly ugly, but they weren't exactly pretty at the same time. I decided that since they were free, and the cushions were actually very comfortable, I could definitely find a way to make them work!

For the table and chairs, all I needed to give them a facelift was four cans of spray paint and about 2 cups of chalk paint, and that's it! I got two cans of spray paint for free from Ace Hardware (I had a $10 off $10 coupon) and two cans at Home Depot for about $4 each. I had some leftover chalk paint that I had bought at Joann's for another project, and I had just enough to paint the cushions. (I had a 40% off coupon, so it came out to be $5). I was a bit disappointed that the chalk paint allowed a lot of the fabric's 90's pattern to show through, but for the most part, it covered the chairs pretty well and tinted the chairs to provide some contrast.This is the end result when all was said and done:

For my entire project, I spent a grand total of $13 for my patio set! Woohoo! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and we spent way less than what it would have been to buy one cheasy patio chair at WalMart!