doin-it-myself.

we all know it's coming. the end of summer. maybe some of us are praying for an indian summer...which, in my case sounds something like this: c'mon weathermaker! this summer has been ridic. torrential downpours and hail storms, followed by smothering humidity and a billion degree weather, couldn't ya please just give us a break? and, let this beautiful weather stick around for another month... pretty please?! while i feel this is a respectful and fair demand, i'm not gonna get my hopes up. fall is imminent. and probably coming sooner than we think. so, i've been trying to get my summer fixes in while i can. this included a recent outdoor, do-it-myself, arts & craft day. my friend was inspired to make some wall art after gawking it on a design website, and i figured it sounded like fun, so i decided to help her. i actually planned on making some terrariums, but got side tracked at the store that day and didn't get all the necessary components. #easilydistracted.  thus, i ended up making one of these whatchamacalit things, too (see pic below).

we set things in motion for this project by hitting up the local home depot. now, math and lumber are not stereotypically a lady's strong suit; but, i'd say we fared rather well for ourselves. we got some fairly cheap paint samples, brushes, nails, and had a friendly gentleman cut up some wood for us (we bought six 1x4x8 pieces of lumber, and had six 14" pieces cut and the rest into 12"pieces) and we were ready to get after it. now, as you'll see from the finished project, the gentleman who cut our wood, while friendly, was not the most accurate with the hand saw, so note to self: if you want something done right (duh) do-it-yourself. meaning, that if we continue gettin' crafty with lumber in the future, we may have to invest in a table saw.

this project was super easy. we painted the wood pieces. let 'em dry. nailed the frame together and painted that too. then, we stuck the wood pieces in the frame once it was dry. problems we didn't foresee: the thing was uber-heavy and wasn't get nailed to anyone's wall. maybe, leaned up against a wall. but hung? definitely not. so, if you wish to attempt this, aside from making sure you get accurately cut wood, you'll want to pick lighter/thinner pieces than we did (which if i recall, was just your average type of wood, i know, real specific, right? imagine the guys' faces at home depot when they asked us what we needed, and we were like, ugh, some wood... cut like this- insert ambigous and conflicting hand gestures). also, when i referenced our math skills earlier and said we fared rather well, let's just say that we thought our measurements would enable us to make three of these things. but, alas, they only yielded two. #mathisformen? #pleasedon'ttakemetooseriously #yes,iknowidon'tknowhowtousehashtags.

and, voila! here is the finished project. a bit janky, yeah, we know. but, it was fun. and, it was a day spent not drinking or sitting around being lazy. so, i'd say the 18$ we spent to make the two of these things was well worth it. plus, we have left over brushes and paint (which, i hope to make use of at a bob ross party we plan on hosting in the very near future).

the whatchamacalit wood things...almost done. 

the whatchamacalit wood things. done.