DIY Photo Clipboards

 I hope your week is going well so far! I've been having the best time in my craft room the past couple of days working on some small projects for our home. 

Love Grows Wild

The one I'm sharing today is a tutorial for making my version of some DIY photo clipboards inspired by Liz at Love Grows Wild. I featured Liz's clipboards last August on Friday Finds and thought they might be just the thing for a long narrow wall space above my family room sofa.

My Television Console

 I changed the finish on my version of these clipboards to fit the vintage feel of our family room and tie in with this white chalk painted media stand with a dark walnut stained top that's on the opposite wall. I've been wanting to display photographs of the beloved furry members of our family for the longest time, and I think my informal distressed clipboards are just right for some lighthearted four legged artwork. 

Following Liz's tutorial, I started with a 1" x 12" x 6' pine board. I cut the length into five 13" pieces to make five clipboards. After sanding, I applied a coat of dark walnut stain and let it dry overnight.

  

The next day I applied two coats of homemade chalk paint. When the paint was dry I used coarse sandpaper to distress just down to the dark walnut stain. After sanding the boards once more with fine sandpaper I applied a coat of clear furniture wax for protection. 

  

I didn't like the way sawtooth hangers made the clipboards stand out from the wall, so I improvised my own hangers by wrapping some floral wire around two small nails. I measured each hanger carefully to make them all the same.  Taking the time to do that made it much easier to hang all the clipboards level with each other on the wall. 

 

I hot glued squares of cardboard over the nails so they wouldn't scratch the walls. 

 

For clips I found these cute miniature clothespins in the craft section at Fred Meyer. I dropped them into some dark walnut stain and then drained them on a rag and wiped them off.

 

I used a piece of 8"x 10" scrap paper to figure out where I wanted the clothes pins to hold each photo, marked the spot on the board with a pencil line, and then used a thin line of hot glue to apply each one.

 I probably should have used wood glue for that step, but I was impatient and didn't want to wait for it to dry. So far, so good, though. The hot glue is holding the clothespins just fine. 

I think it took me as long to find and prepare my photographs as it did to prepare the wood. I edited and re-sized each photo to 8" x 10" using Photoshop. If you don't have photo editing software on your computer, I highly recommend PicMonkey. 

 

At this point, my printer ran out of ink. Grrrr...  When my sweet husband brought me some home that night, I printed out my photos. 

 

I trimmed the photos on my paper cutter, but scissors will work great too. The last step was the easiest: clipping the photos onto each clipboard.

 

And here they are! Our little ragamuffins! 

 

Our family room has a high bank of windows on one wall. We love the view of the trees, but they only leave a narrow strip of wall above the sofa on which to hang artwork. 

 

I think our new photo clipboards fit here perfectly. 

 

Every time I walk into the room and see our furry family members looking at me, they make me smile. Each photograph captures their unique personalities; Tucker, my black lab, is smart and he's always watching me attentively to see where I'm going and what I'm doing. It's hard to see here, but there's a big grin behind that lolling tongue. Molly, a golden lab and my oldest grand dog, is loving and gentle. Jake, the West Highland Terrier and my youngest grand dog, is always looking for trouble. He's so darn cute, though, he melts our hearts, and no one can stay annoyed with him for long. 

 Our pets enrich our lives so much. They really are family members, and we're happy to give them a place on the wall. And in case you're wondering, my daughters' photographs are hanging on another wall in our family room. I haven't forgotten the humans!

I'd love to know if you display photographs of your cherished pets around your home too.

Thanks so much for coming by today, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week! 

 

{Check out my Spring and Winter clipboards, too!}

Let's Party!

From My Front Porch To Yours 

Elizabeth & Co. 

Beyond The Picket Fence 

Rooted In Thyme 

My Repurposed Life

It All Started With Paint 

Cozy Little House 

Jennifer Rizzo

Knick of Time 

 

 

 

I Went Shopping

I misplace days... all the time. 

I have no idea what happened to Wednesday, but I know I had it here just a minute ago. 

Anyway, I went shopping today, Thursday, and I'd love to share with you what I bought. I've been thinking about these purchases for quite awhile (I don't spend money lightly), and I'm super excited to finally have them.

My first purchase is the Creating Your Masterpiece Ebook by Shaunna West of the Perfectly Imperfect blog.  I just might be the last person in blogdom to buy this e-book about refinishing furniture. It was on sale for $10, and after an easy download it's sitting on my laptop, just like a real book sits on a real desk top. I can open it and look through it whenever I want. But this book is even better than a regular book because it has video instruction!

Perfectly Imperfect

My second purchase is the Photography 101 Class by Shoot Fly Shoot. (You can read my previous post about Shoot fly Shoot and the class here.) After registering and paying the $69 fee, I have access to the course online whenever I feel like studying. The class is a series of videos designed to get a beginner digital SLR photographer off automatic settings and into the exciting (if intimidating) world of manual settings. 

Shoot Fly Shoot

 
I know a little bit about both these topics (refinishing furniture and photography), but I want to know a whole lot more. I'm frustrated with wasting time learning from my own mistakes. So I started slogging through the tons of written material available online, reading my new camera manual (oh, ugh!), and finally decided it was worth the investment to purchase really good educational materials that fit my learning style, which is visual and hands-on. 

Now I can set up my laptop near my work space, watch the video tutorials, and "do it" as I learn.

But since I lost yesterday, I have to wait until tomorrow to start. 

New Camera!

Fellow bloggers out there: do you ever have post remorse? Like when you publish a post one day, and the next day go, "What was I thinking?!"

Ugh.

But today's another day, and a mighty fine day it is...

this incredibly lucky woman, yes, moi...


has a new camera!

I'll write about the process I went through to choose and purchase this particular camera next week, but today I just wanted to share it with you. Here's a photo I took with my phone of my table right now as I prepare to install all that camera software you see there. 


Just feast your eyes on that little beauty.

I'm the luckiest person in the world tonight. I'm going to curl up on the sofa with my glass of wine and watch the Canon Training DVD. What more could a girl ask for? 


Hope you have a great evening, too!





 

Photography Class

I'm thinking about signing up for Kevin Palmer's online photography 101 workshop at shootflyshoot.com I watched the video about it recently on Kevin's blog, The Lettered Cottage  (which, incidentally, is one of my all-time favorite blogs).

I've never taken an online course before, but Kevin and his partner, Josh Moates, make it sound like a lot of fun. Okay, I admit they're really cute, and who doesn't want to take a class from two really cute men? But also, the workshop is taught using online videos, and as a visual learner I like the idea that I can watch that video over and over again until I grasp whatever concept is being taught. Especially all those adjustments of camera buttons and knobs. Reading about how to do all those complicated adjustments just wouldn't cut it for me, I need to SEE it!

I could just picture me (no pun inttended) in a real classroom raising my hand the gazillionth time asking the teacher, "Uh, could you show us that one more time?" while the rest of the class groans out loud. No thanks! But Kevin and Josh won't even know I've had to replay their video a gazillion times (until the ol' light bulb goes off in the ol' noggin.) 

Plus, I happen to think Kevin Palmer's photography is amazing on The Lettered Cottage. Definitely something I could (humbly) aspire to. 

Source

I'm really excited about taking this course, actually. There's only one little problem... 

I need to buy a camera with all those buttons and knobs first! : )

Source