One Month Late...Idea Stealing!

Howdy Blog Hoppers and Welcome to the...Constellations Blog Hop!

We have swapped up the order for the hop this month so in case you're confused (admit it, you're confused aren't you?)  Feel free to hop on back to The Club Scrap Blog.

So in December I went to a little local craft show and saw the cutest idea for a project.  I planned on stealing borrowing it for the Reunion Blog Hop...except I got busy.  You know how December is right?  Cray-cray!  So one month later I adapted my original idea for the Constellations Kit and came up with a little something like this...

It's a wooden wall hanging with clips so you can change out the photos whenever you want to.  In the little booth I saw they had them going both vertically and horizontally in all different shapes and sizes and colors.  I saw kids themes, sporting themes, you name it!  So here are the easy steps you can take if you want to make one for your very own!!

Step One-Buy some wood.  I ended up with a 1"x8" 8 ft long from our local Home Depot.  I had them cut it in half at the store (this makes it easier for transporting.)  I actually chose sort of a mid-grade wood.  It is worth it to have as few "knot" holes as possible.

Step Two-Lay out your idea to see the final size your wood should be.  Considering my work table currently looks like this...

I decided to lay mine out on the floor.  You aren't really having to go for perfection here just a general idea.  I used three 5x7 scraps of paper as a guide and left spacing for the clips and the stencil letters and then I made a pencil line so I would know where it needed to be cut.

Step Three-Find someone handy with power tools.  I know, I could have done this myself but sometimes it is ok to ask for help.  Leslie said to be sure to score your cutting line on the top side with a box cutter, this assures you will have a clean cut.  If you don't do this you might just need to do a little sanding.  No biggie.

Step Four-Paint your wood.  Try to find a cat free area and protect it with something.  This old plastic tablecloth works nicely.

I used three coats of white acrylic paint to cover and then I added a layer of silvery glitter acrylic paint as well.

Step Five-Fix up your decorations.  I cut 3 ea. mattes of 5x7 Constellations paper (the 12x12 Navy star print and the 8 1/2 x 11 burgundy star print.)  I also used the stencil to draw and then cut out my WISH letters.  It helps if you draw your pencil lines on the back side of the paper you want to use (flipping the stencil backwards.)

Step Six-Put it all together!  I used Club Scrap bookbinding glue to carefully glue down my 5x7 mattes, my WISH letters and my ribbon.  Using the grid ruler here is super helpful to make sure you keep even spacing between your mattes.

Step Seven (optional)-I went ahead and added two layers of mod podge over my entire project.  It really helped everything stay down and in place.  Both my ribbon and my mattes got a little "bubbly" in this process.  Luckily on the mattes it doesn't matter because they will be covered with the photos.  The ribbon?  Well it just has a little more character now.

Step Eight-Attach your clips.  Again there were power tools involved here but I don't think there would have to be.  I saw different clips that could be glued down, nailed down or even magnetic.  These grey ones came again from Home Depot.

The final step involved me hurriedly getting a few photos printed, racing to pick them up and adding them to my project with the clips so I had something neat-o to show you all today!

Ta-da!

I hope you like it (if you buy a whole piece of wood you'll have plenty to make two!)  Thanks for joining me, Leslie and AJ the cat as we hopped today.  Next stop is Ink Stains with Roni!