Do you pin?

I've mentioned before that I've recently discovered pinterest and I love it. I created this mailing system based off of inspiration from there and now today I finally finished a second project.

I made these. We needed something to hang in our dining room and so using this as inspiration this is what resulted. I actually started this project a couple of weeks ago. I'm really bad about finishing projects. I think partly because it never really turns out as well as I imagined so I get discouraged halfway through and then quit. Marcus was tired of these 9 blocks of wood hanging out in our house so I decided I should just finish them.

I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to write on the black blocks. I didn't want to do something to cliche like "Live, laugh, love" so this is what I came up with. 

Some progress pictures. I used a board cut into 5x7 pieces (almost). I just painted the sides of the 6 pieces that would have pictures on them. Notice the one that's scribbled all over. That's a 2 year olds idea of help. 

Then Marcus and I just picked a few pictures that we've had taken from the last 2 years and used our home printer to print them. I think if I were to do this again I would use actually photos instead of printed at  home photos. The modge podge that I used to secure them wasn't very kind to the pictures. 

Also to paint the words I just printed them out in word, taped then in place and traced really hard with a pencil. This left enough of an indentation on the wood that I could then fill it in with white paint. 

We used nails and a soda tab as the wall hanger. Cheap and effective (This is another pinterest trick). 

The inspiration picture is a lot more polished but my project cost me nothing. Everything we used we had on hand. Although had I bought the materials for this project I think a pretty accurate estimate would be about $7 for the wood and the paint. (Since we printed the pictures at home).

Next up: Marcus was bored so I showed him an entry way idea that I liked and he went and built a shelf. He's sanding it here. Hopefully that will be finished soon.