[FASHION + DIY Gifts] Mother’s Day Weekend Adventures

You guys. I am tired. My weekend was SO fun, but I am tired. Now, I’m not complaining, I’m merely making a statement of my tiredness.

I had the day off of work on Friday and I felt like such a rebel. I consciously didn’t make my bed. WHAT?!  I am a bit OCD about making our bed every day. And Friday, I was heading to Burlington to meet my sister and nephew for lunch and I took one look at the bed and said, “Nope. I’m not making you.”

As my husband so appropriately said, “You’re so metal.”

He’s so sweet.

Anywho. Saturday was JAM PACKED. I helped to throw my friend’s baby shower and it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Seriously. It was so awesome. I had a blast. And the girls who helped me put it all together were amaaaazing. I’m gonna blog the whole thing this week. You can bet your boots das right.

Saturday afternoon, hubs and I headed to Newton to spend time with his parents. Dinner, visiting, and whatnot. Sunday (Mother’s Day) we got up – went to church, bible study, and then came back to the house for some grilled chicken and corn-on-the-cob. Nom. Nom. Nom.

My mother-in-law (or mother-in-love, as the card I gave her stated) wanted some impromptu family photos – so these are my only “Sunday / Mother’s Day / Church FASHION” photos from the weekend:

[this is me, my MIL, and hubs. my FIL was the photographer – hence why he wasn’t in the photo]

[me and hubs]

[in case you were curious – my dress was $13 from Old Navy last fall, cardigan is from JCrew, belt is from Target, and necklace is from JCrew via eBay via Hong Kong.

husband is sporting: a shirt from Old Navy, Jeans from Old Navy, and Old Gringo Cowboy Boots – those were his “wedding boots” as he likes to call them.]

[below is husband and his mama. aren’t they adorbs?]

[this is random, i’m aware, but this lonely magnolia was blooming on the magnolia tree at his parents house and i just thought it was so gorgeous]

now, what did we do for mother’s day gifts? well, we did a couple little things – but we knew we wanted to make her something nice – and what’s more nice and sentimental than wedding photos? oh yeah. so, i did a little remix of my DIY wooden photo boards.

If you wanna see how I did the other photo boards, you can check them out here.

Now, here’s my DIY photo gift board remix.

I wanted to do stacked frames. So, I got plain wood cuts from Hobby Lobby.

I got SIX total – THREE 7×9 cuts, ONE 11×9 cut, TWO 5×7 cuts.

I printed ONE horizontal 5×7 photo and TWO vertical 4×6 photos at Walgreens. That way they’d match up. Now, I did print them in color cause I liked these shots better in color than in black and white.

[I got spray paint. Now, I have now used both Krylon and Rust-oleum spray paint. I will NEVER get Krylon again. It is horrible. I’ve had bad experiences with Krylon dripping and getting watery and pooling before but I thought it was a fluke. Nope. No fluke. Rustoleum just goes on so much smoother and takes a lot less coats to get the job done. Krylon takes SO many coats and it doesn’t even fully cover. Blech. Anyway. This is was I used, and I just dealt.]

[Spray paints your boards. And if you’re using Krylon, like I did, it will take you all day to let it dry and repaint. Let it dry. And repaint.]

[Once your boards are dry 17190281098 hours later after using Krylon (haha!) get your Mod Podge and photos ready]

[Put a coat of Mod Podge on the wood itself, on the back of the photo, lay the photo down and get it centered, then coat the whole photo on top and get it nice and covered. Now, remember, the Mod Podge goes on cloudy but dries clear.

Also, I learned this, BE CAREFUL when doing this to color photos (especially glossy color photos) – I started to notice the Mod Podge turning a hint of pink and was taking some of the color off the photo. Thankfully I caught it in time, but just be careful.]

[After your Mod Podge is totally dry (the length of a movie – i.e. a movie hubs and I watched) you can either use Polyurethane or Gloss Sealant to seal your photo boards. For my previous project, I’d used Polyurethane. For this I tried the sealant. I’m not sure which one I like better yet. They both work just fine. Anyway, seal that photo board!]

[Now, let it dry completely (preferably overnight). Now is the time to get ready to get your stackable frames, well, stacked. I had hubs help me with this part getting the frames centered and marked.]

[Because I am a BEAST with a hot glue gun, I took over this part. Now, you could probably use Gorilla Wood Glue for this, but I love hot glue. So I used hot glue. And I hot glued that mess RIGHT ON.]

[Now you gotta get it so you can hang your photos up. This time I didn’t wanna risk them being flimsy, so I opted NOT to get the hammer-in ones, so husband helped me get these on and centered.]

[And voila! Now, obviously they’re not hanging on a wall cause the in-laws weren’t sure where to hang them yet. But I thought they came out great! What do you think?]

Anyway. Sorry, I know that was a long Mother’s Day recap post. I hope you had a great weekend. What did you do? Did you do anything fun? Post your links in the Comment Luv section of the comments with a recap of your weekend. Or you can just tell me about it. Anyways.

xoxo, all for now.