Budget Friendly Baby Shower Gift

 If you are one of my friends and family members (or even my poor, unsuspecting boyfriend), you have probably fallen victim to my "thrifty" (read college budget friendly) ideas of gift giving and have received some form of craft as a present for whatever occasion allows me to get those creative juices flowing and give you some gift you will probably never use but that I had tons of fun making and put way too much thought into (and that's really what counts right? or so my Mama always told me).

Which leads me to the next series of posts. I have completed numerous projects over the past few years and have decided to do a little back tracking (since my super busy nursing student schedule leaves me very little free time) and post some already finished projects along with some how-to's and of course, pictures! YAY VISUALS! This first project was a gift I gave my amazing friend Jessica (and her hubby) at her baby shower for Peyton (who is not so little anymore.... She's crawling!! I still can't believe it!). Jessica and I have been friends for a few years now and she is such a genuinely kind and caring person that I wanted to give her something that meant more than the standard onesies and baby blanket (unless you have time to make a baby blanket which I didn't so....) I decided to find out what the colors and theme of the nursery were going to be and after finding out pink and green (which my inner Lilly lover adores) and tulips (which happens to be my favorite flower) I decided to take a trip to the local craft store (read: hobby lobby).

I came out armed with the following supplies:

1 Unfinished Wood shadow box

1 Unfinished Wood Letter P (in the girliest style I could find)

2 Unfinished Wood Tulips

3 small bottles of acrylic paint in pink, green and white

1 piece of sand paper (if desired)

1 beautiful, pink polka dot pressed paper (found in the scrapbook section)

Extra glue sticks (just in case I didn't already have a million of these at home)

The total cost for all my supplies was $5.00. Everything I needed was 1/2  off that day! Gotta love a bargain!

Other supplies needed:

Glue gun

scissors

paint brush of choice (I used a foam brush and a smaller synthetic hair brush for the details)

Ribbon (if desired)

When I got home, I lay out some plastic sheeting on the kitchen table and went to town. 

Step 1: Remove the back and the glass from the shadow box (as seen above). You could buy any shadow box to do this but I wanted mine to be more homemade and I didn't want to take the extra time to sand down an already finished box.

Step 2: Using  the back of the box, trace the exact size of the box on the back of the scrapbook paper and cut it out. Then using your glue gun (or any other craft glue), adhere the paper to the back of the shadow box backing (Where the baby angels are in the picture above)

Step 3: Paint the entire box white making sure to not over fill the area the glass should be in. You could also tape the glass off with painter's tape if you prefer but I'm a mess 99.9% of the time so it was in my best interest to just remove the whole thing. Let dry completely. Add 2-3 more coats, waiting for each coat to dry, until the paint is even and no spots show through. 

Step 4 (optional): I wanted to make the frame look loved, so next I sanded down some of the edges and applied a wash of green paint. A wash is when you dilute the paint with water and apply over the area you want the color. Then take a rag and wipe the area down to leave a vintage feel. Allow to dry completely

Step 5: While the paint is drying on the shadow box, gather your wooden letter and tulips and paint the first coat. Allow to dry between coats). I painted the letter and the stem of the flowers green and the actual tulip pink. 

Step 6: Decorate the letter with whatever pattern suits your fancy. I have a thing for polka dots so I painted white polka dots on top of the green with a thin brush.

Step 7: As you can see in the picture above, the stems on the tulips are very long. Cut the stems down on the tulips to the size desired. I played around with how I wanted to the finished product to look before I made the final cut. The stems are pretty thin and cut easily with a pair of scissors. Tie a ribbon around the stems if desired. I used a 1/8 inch pink satin ribbon and tied it in a neat bow.

Step 8: Touch ups! Make sure all the separate pieces are finished and that no spots are showing! Touch up any goofs with paint.

Step 9: The fun part! Assemble all the pieces together using hot glue. I glued the painted letter on top of the scrapbook paper frame back that we had set aside to cool earlier. Then I cleaned up the glass to make sure there weren't any finger prints inside and put the glass in and  the back on. After that I glued the two now dry tulips onto the predetermined locations.

And, voila... a custom made piece of art for the baby's nursery. 

I took the time  to write a message to sweet Peyton on the back letting her know how much I looked forward to meeting her and watching her two amazing parents raise her. She's too little to realize this yet but she is in such good hands. I am truly blessed just to know Jess and Greg and I love watching their family grow! 

And finally... the moment you have all been waiting for... I have moved a grand total of 26 times! That's more moves than years I've been alive! Insanity right? Grant it, 3 of those moves were our cabins in Wisconsin but all the rest were houses my parents have owned (aka my permanent residence) and the places I have lived in college (aka my mailing address) which varies from dorms, to my sorority house to numerous apartment complexes! I'm surprised I don't have instability issues. Which means... the winner is... CAROLYN! Expect your gold star in the mail! I'll  have to come up with another craft idea and mail it to you!

My next craft related post will be two-fold... a baby boy version of the shadow box idea from above and a surprise craft! Get excited! I know I am!