I just received my Jingle Voxbox from Influenster and I love unboxings so I wanted to share this one with you guys! Here is what was in my box;
You can get things like I got here by joining influenster for free! Click below to join;
http://www.influenster.com/r/561844
I love making crafts that are simple and can be done fairly quickly.
I came across a sign i loved on Pinterest, but my relationship with Pinterest is not always a good one. I’ve tried numerous things that just wind up overwhelming because either something was left out of the steps, or it looked a lot easier then it actually was.
I figured I’d give it a try and with imperfections and all, i really love the outcome!
These steps can be done for any sign you’d like to create from scratch. Here are are steps;
I was able to get a thin piece of plywood from a box at work. It is about 2′ x 3′ which was just the right size I wanted. I lightly sanded the sides of the plywood because it was splintering all over.
Next, I took some white acrylic paint I had on hand and just lightly coated the board.
Then I added some text from my “Phonto” app on my phone, and then sent them to my computer to print and printed and taped them where I wanted then on the board.
After that, since I didn’t have any carbon paper, I added led to the back of the printouts, and then traced over then to transfer the lettering onto my board how I wanted it.
The tracing takes a little bit of time, bit it’s worth it to get the font you want looking nice and neat.
My issue is, with the next step, which was using the black & red acrylic paint, I didn’t have a small square tip paint brush on hand, so I used a small rounded make-up brush I had laying around (yes I did). It worked great except it was hard to square my letters like I wanted and they came out a bit rounded and no longer perfect. I figured it was OK because I’d be sanding it next to give it a vintage/rustic look.
^ This was before sanding and you can see how my painting didn’t go so well.
To sand this, you can do it by hand with sandpaper but I had a small orbital sander on hand and used a 60 grit paper on it. I did a little deeper sanding in some areas and lighter in others to give it the look I wanted. You can see where it’s just about down to the plywood. It also allowed me to make my letters look a little better and the imperfections to almost disappear.
The last step I did was add a light gray stain. I used “classic gray” from Minwax, it’s only $4.50 for a tiny jar that’ll last forever for craft projects.
I almost want to say I could’ve done without this step. I feel like I looked the white a bit brighter and I might sand it down a little to take some of the stain off, but I’m torn. I do like the way it turned it more rustic looking and I don’t have to work about it getting dirty since I’m using it as a holiday decoration on my front porch.
Let me know what you think and if you wind up trying this project!
This past week I had the privilege of testing out the Mazda 6 Grand Touring from DriveShop. That gave me something else to be thankful for during the Thanksgiving week!
This beautiful deep red color I had is called “Soul Red”. I was never a big red car person. I mean, they’re nice, but I usually go for the black or beige colors. Wow. Wow is all I can say. I felt so luxurious and stylish driving around in this beautiful red car. I had so many compliments on it everywhere I went. It is for sure a show stopper.
Surprisingly affordable, the Starting MSRP for this model is $21,495. The navigation system and sirius satallite radio come standard in this vehicle at no extra charge which is a bonus!
Mileage is 28city/40 hwy which is what you’d expect from a sedan.
The inside of this one is not far behind the luxury of the outside. In fact its right on par. Having a family of 4, and both kids being in car & booster seats, space is always a number one concern. That is the reason I went to a “mom mobile” aka an SUV sometime back. The Mazda 6 was shockingly roomy an fir us all with room to spare. The boys loved it an called it “The red car”. I thought my 3 year old was literally going to cry when I had to give it back! There was a small sunroof that made it feel that much more open and let some extra light in. It was cold an the heated seat feature got a lot of use! The interior color in this model is Black/Espresso. The black makes it easy to hide dirt generated from little boys! LOL!
Did I mention that the driver seat has a memory button that remembers just how you like your seat? Two of them to be exact. How convenient because I hate getting in the car after my husband has the seat pushed all the way back and I can’t reach the pedals! Pushing 1 or 2 lets the seat do all of the work to get it back to exactly how I like it, and quickly.
The trunk space is another thing that shocked me. It fits almost as much as my Mazda CX-7 does and that’s an SUV. It isn’t too high, but the depth of it makes you actually have to step back and figure out how it goes back so far!
The active driving display, or as I like to call it, the futuristic dashboard is one of the features that makes the Mazda 6 one of the top rated safety vehicles of 2015. It has something I haven’t seen before, which is the ability to tell you when you’re riding far enough away from the car in front of you. It’s funny because that is one of the things my husband always criticized about my driving. He says I tailgate the cars in front of me often… I don’t agree, but this feature sure helps me be mindful of how far back I should be to be at a safe distance. The other safety features are the back up camera, the blind spot alert on the side view mirrors, and the drifting lane alert. It’s a little hard to see in a photo because it’s through a glass, but here is the active driving display showing some of what I covered above.
After having this vehicle for a week during the holidays, it really made me think about how I’d love to have this vehicle even though it is a sedan. I do miss it, as do my kids. It is certainly a contender in any of our choices for a sedan in the future if we decide to go that route. Mazda has outdone itself again!
The warranty it comes with is 36 month/36,000 miles bumper to bumper. 60 month/60,000 mile powertrain warrantly.
#ZoomZoom!
