DIY Song-Lyric Canvas

Valentine's day shopping for guys is hard.  As it goes, it tends to be a "girl's holiday."  Therefore there are tons of ideas for girls, but not the other way around.  I know that Zach doesn't expect anything, but I like to do something for him anyway.  A lot of the time I just get him something off of his Amazon wishlist.  Not super romantic, but at least it's something he wants.  Etsy's top recommendations were cuff links, bow ties, and personalized flasks.  If you know my husband, none of these would be on the top of his list.  So to Pinterest I went.  Is Pinterest anyone else's answer to almost anything??

There were lots of cheesy ideas, but I finally found something I thought I could adapt.  This was my inspiration.

Source

She wrote the lyrics to the song that was playing when her husband proposed.  I loved the idea of using song lyrics to a meaningful song.  I decided to use the lyrics to the song, "Better Together" by Jack Johnson.  We walked back down the ailse after we were pronounced husband and wife to this song.  And it was one that Zach picked, and helped me learn to love, as I am not a Jack Johnson fan most of the time.  Her directions seemed a little complicated, so I'll show you what I did.

Materials:
-Canvas
-Sharpie
-Packing tape
-Ruler

Start with a blank canvas.  I chose a burlap canvas, because then I could get away with not having to paint my background.

12x24 canvas from Hobby Lobby

I copied the song lyrics into Word, and divided the song into 24 even-ish lines. 

I traced the canvas onto a piece of fabric so I could practice how small I needed to write.  I had decided to just use one of the verses if the entire song was too long to fit.  

I used a piece of packing tape, and laid it across the width of the canvas, one inch from the top.  The tape served as a straight guide without making any marks on the canvas.  Once I came to the end of a line, I just moved the tape down another inch.  Also, when I had letters that hung below the line, I just peeled the tape back, drew the letter, then put the tape back.

Every once in awhile, I had to adjust my words and move one up or down a line if I ran out, but typing it out first gave me a pretty good guide.  I guess you could write the whole thing out on your practice fabric, but I am not that patient! And I also didn't have that much "Zach out the house" time.  I actually ended up finishing this project at my office over my lunch hour.  On Valentine's Day.  Don't judge.

The other thing I did was make some of the words bigger.  I think it breaks it up, and makes it look a little more interesting.  I started writing with a paint pen in the beginning and because I was writing on burlap, it ran out about 4 lines in.  There are no stores within 40 miles of us that sell paint pens.  After that I just used a sharpie, and it worked great!  You can tell where I switched, but I'm not a perfectionist, so it didn't bother me that much. 

 Here is the final product.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Have you found or made any great gift ideas for the guy in your life?  I'm always looking for more inspiration!

Valentine's Lovin'

We had so much fun getting ready for Valentine's Day this year!  I love that Lyle is getting old enough to do crafts with, so I searched Pinterest for some ideas.  My inspiration came from here, we just changed some steps to make it work better for us.  Also, we spread this craft out over the course of several evenings.  We just worked on them as long as his attention span would last, then picked up again the next night.

We made these hearts, and sent them out to family. 

First, Lyle colored on coffee filters with markers.  I set him up in his high-chair while I was cooking supper.  I only gave him one marker at a time, and he told me what color he wanted next, or when he was ready to start a new one.

Once they were all colored, I let him paint on them with water to bleed the colors.

The rest of the steps, I finished for him... Tracing a heart.

And gluing some construction paper to the back, so they wouldn't get crushed in the mail.

Add a little love note and you're done! :)

Lyle took these to daycare for his friends! 

You can find the template here.

 Lyle made this at daycare, and it makes me smile every time I think about it.  Just in case you can't read the picture, this is what is says:

"Lyle's Recipe for Love"

5 kisses

5 pancakes

1 daddy

1 mommy

5 purple combines

Stir, stir, stir in a bowl. 

Put in a box.

Cherry on top.

Eat it.

This is a pretty accurate description of what he loves right now.  The number 5, and especially pancakes and combines.  I'm thinking the kisses and daddy and mommy were prompted answers. :) (Although he loves those things too!)

Instead of flowers, Zach send me this goody box from the Popcorn Factory.  A win in my book! Yummm!  AND he got me a yogurt maker.  Is food listed as a love language?  I think it might be mine.  Well done, Zach, well done.

I made him a gift, but I plan to do another post on that!  I know you will be waiting with great anticipation to find out what it is! Hah!

Our Valentine's evening consisted of Freddy's for dinner, a three hour car ride up to Kansas City, and a book on tape!  And I enjoyed every minute of it!

Snow and Other Fun

We have been having all kinds of fun in our little corner of the world lately.

Zach and I went to a comedy show last week at the Cotillion, with Aziz Ansari.  Most of you would recognize him as Tom, from Parks and Recreation.  It was a great show, with lots of crowd interaction.

Last Saturday was our church's annual Pancake Day.  We serve pancakes, the most amazing sausage you will ever taste, and homemade pie (because everyone has dessert after pancakes, right?  No? Just us?) from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm in the local fair barn.  The whole community comes out and it is so fun to chat with everyone.  Free will donations are taken and used for community needs through the year (like if someone has a house fire, etc.)  My mom and dad came down to watch Lyle while we helped during the mid-day shift.

After the pancake festivities, my sister Carrie and her family came down to help celebrate my dad's birthday.  We made Chipotle burritos, enjoyed pie, ice cream, and cake, and let the kids run wild!  The girls enjoyed catching up, sharing sewing tips, and learning new recipes.

Sunday I had great plans of having all our Superbowl snacks prepped and ready before the game started.  Little bud decided to take a crazy long nap, and we eventually had to wake him up to get going.  Zach's parents let us invite friends over to their house, so we headed out there to get started.  We made Pioneer Woman's BBQ sliders and potato skins again, and friends added cheese dip, tapioca, and italian nachos.  The girls prepped snacks through most of the first half, but made sure were done in time for the half-time show.  We were stuffed by the end, and had such a great night relaxing with friends!

This week has brought about 8 inches of snow, and supposedly we are supposed to get more tomorrow and Friday.  School was cancelled yesterday and today, but of course not work.  Every time it snows I am so thankful my husband insisted we get all-wheel-drive for our CRV.  It drives so great in the snow, and I don't have to worry about being stuck in a ditch somewhere!  I think Lyle was the only kid at daycare yesterday (and probably today!), but at least he got to play in the snow!  I also go to catch up with my sister Kristen, and chat about the sweet twin babies I am going to be an aunt to come August.  So fun!

Snow cream was a tradition in my house growing up!  Mix snow, milk, sugar, and vanilla.  It's so good!

One last little shout out to my husband.  He is amazing.  And I am lucky.  We usually buzz his hair at home, and most of the time he does all of it, then I come and touch up the stray hairs on the back that got missed.  He called me upstairs to help finish, and handed me the clippers to shave his neck, (which I thought still had the shield on to buzz his hair).  Well one swipe up the back of the head, I realized what I had done.  WHOOPS!  Now his whole head is shaved, and he just laughed and told me it was fine when I was crying because I felt so bad!  So that's when you know you have a good guy, when you accidentally shave his head, and he just laughs about it!

There was a rainbow on the way to work this morning.  It was gorgeous! (Much more beautiful than this picture shows).  Have you ever seen a rainbow with snow??

Hope you are all having a great week, and staying warm wherever you are!