Reclaiming a bit of History


 I can't tell you how proud I was- when my daughter called me a few months ago and said she wanted to put the commercialism of the Holidays aside, and make homemade gifts.  She had just found a homemade laundry detergent on Pinterest(she will be posting about this soon) and wanted to share it with all of us.

 When I called my mom she was a little disappointed, but agreed that she would make some of our favorite baked goods.  My niece is a true-blue farm girl who cans everything from her garden, so she had no issue with sharing her stash with the rest of us.

Now it was my turn.  I had to come up with something fabulous!  So I did what anyone would do- I Googled.  I searched and searched and searched, to the point I was so overwhelmed I thought I would literally go crazy.  It seemed hopeless until my daughter mentioned the laundry soap again.  She said she was so inspired that she and her husband had decided to redecorate their laundry space.  BINGO!

After a phone call to my mother, hubby and I were in the truck, heading towards the home farm.  Once there, we trudged down to the barnyard and there it was.  An old corn crib. 

Here is the door of the corn crib. It took hubby a few tugs with a crow bar, but thankfully it came off without any damage.










And here is one of the signs we made from one of the pieces of the door.  This one went to my niece, because it is her favorite saying and the color's matched her cute, country kitchen.


My daughter on the hand-had a specific location she would need to fill, so I made a call to her hubby.  The planks from the corn crib door were not thick enough, so we searched around inside the crib and found several larger pieces.

This is the completed version.




The how to on these projects were pretty simple.  Even though the wood was aged (awesome) it was not rotted or damaged.  A light sanding to remove any impurities that would show after painting was done with a medium grit sandpaper.  Than it was time to put the base coat on.  We went to Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite stores) and purchased several bottles of Patio Paint.  I can't tell you how amazing this paint is for covering and drying quickly.  Once dry-we used stencils( that we also purchased at Hobby Lobby), and let dry.
That's it!  There was no need to add a coat of poly, because these signs would be out of the elements.  But, if you are making signs for outside, I would recommend doing so.

So-there you have it.  I succeeded at making a homemade gift!  It was simple, made with love, and best of all, now each member of our family has a part of our family heritage hanging in their homes.





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Published on January 09, 2014 15:16
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