Double Sided Fall Decorations For Halloween and Thanksgiving

If it weren’t for other people, I don’t know if I’d manage to work in time for “fun” crafting very often – especially right now when I seem to spend most of my days in the garage working on laundry drying racks or running kids to swim team practice or karate.  However, I get pretty cranky when all I do is “work” so when I was asked to put together a craft for the women’s group at a local church (last year) I was pretty quick to agree.  I love introducing people to one of my favorite hobbies!

It didn’t take us long to decide on an easy (and hopefully quick!) 2×4 craft for Halloween and Thanksgiving – yes, it’s double-sided!    The easier it is to change out holiday decor and the less space it takes up in storage, the better, right?  The front side reads “BEWARE of little Monsters” and the back side says “THANKS for little Blessings.”

We ended up with almost 30 people signed up for the craft – Yay!  I was told most of them have never done anything crafty so I thought extra hard about how to have it all go as smoothly and easily as possible.  I ended up pulling together a kit for everyone and while I was at it I figured, hey, why not pull together a quick How To for the blog.  I haven’t done one of those in a while.

In the kit they found the wooden blocks, vinyl lettering, patterned paper cut to size, a couple of pieces of ribbon (which I forgot to put in the photo!) and even a nice little reference sheet with step-by-step instructions.  I took the extra time to type up the reference sheet because 1) a few of the people wouldn’t be able to make it to the craft session but still wanted to make the craft on their own and 2) with that many people they may not be able to have the example blocks right in front of them and I wanted them to at least have photos for reference and 3) some people learn better/retain things better if they can read it instead of just listening to a quick explanation.

*For those of you that are going to ask (and I know someone is going to ask!) here is a quick run through of the sizes for the wood pieces.  You can use a 2×4 for all pieces (I got 2-3 sets out of one 2×4).  Cut out two pieces 7 1/4″ high, two pieces 4 1/8″ high, and two pieces 3 1/2″ high.  For the base block I cut it 14″ long then ran it through the table saw (or rather, my awesome husband did) so that it was 2″ high.

The rest of the process is pretty easy:
-paint all sides of all wooden pieces.  (Actually I would have preferred to stain them, but the stain has to dry overnight and it really messy so I figured paint was a much better option for craft day)  It will probably take two coats.
-cut your patterned paper slightly smaller than the size of the blocks.  Adhere patterned paper with Modge Podge or similar adhesive
-apply vinyl lettering
-apply another coat of Modge Podge over the top of everything, including the sides that are only painted (this keeps the finish consistantly glossy on all sides).  When I craft at home I also add a coat of poly which really helps protect everything, but as it takes longer to dry I skipped that part and was sure to tell them they could do that on their own later if they wanted to.
-when dry, attach ribbon embellishments using wood glue or a hot glue gun.

Told you it was easy! 😉  Now for the beauty shots.

 

 

The big craft day went great!  Of course it took a little longer than the time we had planned, but everyone was enjoying it and that was fine.  I spent my time wandering from table to table answering questions and getting to know everyone.  Most of the women had been able to arrange child care but one baby was too little for that and I happily carried him around with me half the time so his Mom could have her hands free for crafting. I’m always happy to be the “extra hand” when I am crafting with friends that have little ones because I remember how hard that used to be when my kids were tiny.  Now that my kids are older I know that if I don’t get my own craft finished before they get home it won’t be a big deal to finish it on my own – with or without their help! 😉

Wow.  I just realized how long it has been since I had a craft day with friends.  Do you like to craft with friends?  Has it been a while since you’ve done anything crafty?  Maybe we should challenge ourselves to make a couple of phone calls and get a craft day on our calendars!?!

Linking to:  Pretty Pintastic Party, Your Turn to Shine, A Little R&R Wednesday, Made By You Monday, Inspire Me Monday, Merry Monday, Sundays Down Under, Learning from each other link party, BFF Open House, Tip Me Tuesday,