So I come from a pretty decent size family. Not huge, but not tiny...I'm one of 5. My husband's family has almost twice that many kids. So now that we're married, we have a LOT of dates to keep track of...especially birthdays. If you count our still-living grandparents, parents, siblings, in-laws, nieces, nephews, and ourselves, we have 59 birthdays with at least 1 more on the way! So when I saw this excellent project from Do It and How, I knew we HAD to make one for our house!
Here's what I used:
(sorry there's no picture of supplies...this has been a project over time so I didn't have everything when I first started)
--Drill with a 5/64 and a 5/32 bit
--1/2" Screw eyes
--2" Wooden circle discs (1/4" thick)
--1/4"x4" plank cut to 30"
--Paint (various colors) & brushes
--Fine point paint pen
--Wall hanging mount
--Hammer & Nail (if you're hanging it from the wall)
Now when I first embarked on this project, I knew I had to get at least 58 wooden circles, plus a few for those I would inevitably screw up with either the drill or the paint, and then a few to grow on. So I went to craft stores and balked a bit at the prices. A pack of six for $3? Yikes... I was looking at $30 at a bare minimum JUST for the discs. A little much for me. So i picked a smaller size that gave me 20 for $3. Much better! Until I started drilling... My cost effectiveness went out the window with the number of discs I screwed up.
Anywho. Fast forward to a day I was working on this blog, and it happened to be my brother-in-law's birthday and the day after my niece's birthday. I was talking to my husband and we decided we had to get some sort of calender up to remember these things, so naturally I had a drive to get the birthday calender done! I then set to looking up places to find better sized discs and hooks and eyes that match. That's where Craft Parts comes in. They mainly have wooden craft parts, but they have some accessories for them as well. So for $32 (including shipping) I got 100 circles, hooks and, and a couple of wooden things I had been wanting for my photography! Then there was a slight issue with my order so I emailed them and they straightened everything out within an hour. Can I just say I definitely recommend them? Okay enough endorsing. Let's move onto the project! :)
Because it's easy to break the wood or accidentally drill through one side, I highly recommend doing the drilling first. I started with the bigger bit and drilled a hole into what would be the top of the discs.
I then changed to the smaller bit and try to line up the edge to the hole I just drilled so I could create an opening for the hook. You don't have to drill all the way through, just enough so that the hook won't split the wood when you put it in.
Once you have all of your holes done, Let the painting commence! I wanted to do a color for each family, but I started to have issues with getting enough noticeably distinct colors across the 17 families we needed to represent. So we went by generation, and and we decided to go with the colors of our dining room and living room which were golden yellow, purple, turquoise, and navy. Well...we had a couple of trials to run through first...
But then we picked our colors, and I started painting! I painted both sides of the discs so it wouldn't look awful if people turned them over.
Once the discs were dry, it was time to add details. Each disc has a name and a number to represent the date. They'll be hanging under the month so writing that wasn't necessary. And then we decided to put the year on the back to keep the front uncluttered, but it still allows us to figure out ages if we forget. :) We used paint pens--white for the navy and purple, and navy for the turquoise and yellow.
We didn't have the board to hang them from yet, but we wanted to go ahead and add the hooks and connect them in chronological order. We didn't put hooks in the bottom ones, but the holes are there in case we have people to add later. Here's what they look like all in order and with the hooks pulled through the holes in the top:
Once we got the board to hang them from, we measured out where the holes would go, marked them, and drilled them. Since our discs are 2 inches, we measured 1 & 1/4" in from the edge for our first mark. That would leave 1/4" on the edge with the hook centered on the disc. Each mark after that was 2 & 1/2" apart. That gave us 12 marks, and 1 & 1/4" on each edge. Yay math!
Then we painted it (with less color indecisiveness this time). We only painted the front and sides though.
Then we added the lettering. If you have a Cricut or a Silhouette, this would be a great use for it, but I don't...So I just free-handed it.
Once all dry, we added the mount to the back and screwed in the hooks so we could hang it.
Lastly, we took our rows of discs and hung them from the board.
We put it up on the wall, and we're REALLY happy with how it turned out!
Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. Love y'all!
-Kittye
(sorry there's no picture of supplies...this has been a project over time so I didn't have everything when I first started)
--Drill with a 5/64 and a 5/32 bit
--1/2" Screw eyes
--2" Wooden circle discs (1/4" thick)
--1/4"x4" plank cut to 30"
--Paint (various colors) & brushes
--Fine point paint pen
--Wall hanging mount
--Hammer & Nail (if you're hanging it from the wall)
Now when I first embarked on this project, I knew I had to get at least 58 wooden circles, plus a few for those I would inevitably screw up with either the drill or the paint, and then a few to grow on. So I went to craft stores and balked a bit at the prices. A pack of six for $3? Yikes... I was looking at $30 at a bare minimum JUST for the discs. A little much for me. So i picked a smaller size that gave me 20 for $3. Much better! Until I started drilling... My cost effectiveness went out the window with the number of discs I screwed up.
Anywho. Fast forward to a day I was working on this blog, and it happened to be my brother-in-law's birthday and the day after my niece's birthday. I was talking to my husband and we decided we had to get some sort of calender up to remember these things, so naturally I had a drive to get the birthday calender done! I then set to looking up places to find better sized discs and hooks and eyes that match. That's where Craft Parts comes in. They mainly have wooden craft parts, but they have some accessories for them as well. So for $32 (including shipping) I got 100 circles, hooks and, and a couple of wooden things I had been wanting for my photography! Then there was a slight issue with my order so I emailed them and they straightened everything out within an hour. Can I just say I definitely recommend them? Okay enough endorsing. Let's move onto the project! :)
Because it's easy to break the wood or accidentally drill through one side, I highly recommend doing the drilling first. I started with the bigger bit and drilled a hole into what would be the top of the discs.
I then changed to the smaller bit and try to line up the edge to the hole I just drilled so I could create an opening for the hook. You don't have to drill all the way through, just enough so that the hook won't split the wood when you put it in.
Once you have all of your holes done, Let the painting commence! I wanted to do a color for each family, but I started to have issues with getting enough noticeably distinct colors across the 17 families we needed to represent. So we went by generation, and and we decided to go with the colors of our dining room and living room which were golden yellow, purple, turquoise, and navy. Well...we had a couple of trials to run through first...
But then we picked our colors, and I started painting! I painted both sides of the discs so it wouldn't look awful if people turned them over.
Once the discs were dry, it was time to add details. Each disc has a name and a number to represent the date. They'll be hanging under the month so writing that wasn't necessary. And then we decided to put the year on the back to keep the front uncluttered, but it still allows us to figure out ages if we forget. :) We used paint pens--white for the navy and purple, and navy for the turquoise and yellow.
We didn't have the board to hang them from yet, but we wanted to go ahead and add the hooks and connect them in chronological order. We didn't put hooks in the bottom ones, but the holes are there in case we have people to add later. Here's what they look like all in order and with the hooks pulled through the holes in the top:
Once we got the board to hang them from, we measured out where the holes would go, marked them, and drilled them. Since our discs are 2 inches, we measured 1 & 1/4" in from the edge for our first mark. That would leave 1/4" on the edge with the hook centered on the disc. Each mark after that was 2 & 1/2" apart. That gave us 12 marks, and 1 & 1/4" on each edge. Yay math!
Then we painted it (with less color indecisiveness this time). We only painted the front and sides though.
Then we added the lettering. If you have a Cricut or a Silhouette, this would be a great use for it, but I don't...So I just free-handed it.
Once all dry, we added the mount to the back and screwed in the hooks so we could hang it.
Lastly, we took our rows of discs and hung them from the board.
We put it up on the wall, and we're REALLY happy with how it turned out!
Close up:
-Kittye
Cool idea!!
ReplyDeleteI really like that idea!
ReplyDelete