#citychickens hash tag sign + Uncle Adam's urban homestead

My brother Adam will soon be getting backyard chickens! For the past few summers, he's had a big vegetable garden. What was once one bed, has multiplied into three-plus, so the next logical step is chickens. He's developing quite the urban homestead in his tiny city backyard!

He and my dad have been building a coop for the past few weekends, and it's almost ready. I wanted to make the new chickens a housewarming gift. My brother is using the hashtag #citychickens whenever he posts about them, so I thought it only appropriate they have their own #citychickens sign.

You know, so all the visitors to his backyard know how to tag when they tweet about them. ;)

I took a dated crafty wood sign I picked up a while ago at Goodwill outlet and just painted over it with leftover exterior paint I already had. I was going to do some proper lettering like I've done before, but I've been trying to break my perfectionist ways in order to create more time for myself. So I went with freehand. 

Is it perfect? Not at all. Is it OK for chickens/brother? Yes. Plus it has that down-home farmy feel. (Probably should have misspelled something for authenticity, though.)

While we were delivering the sign, we explored the garden. Gardening's not really my thing. (There's only so many hours in the day!) So Elise is thrilled to get some time in at Adam's house.

She picked tomatoes and peppers. And she is super excited about the incoming chickens. (She wants to name them Friendly and Hunter. Her suggestions were noted.)

Leave it to Elise to find a Minnie Mouse tomato.

We also explored the inside of the coop. This will probably be the only time I ever let them climb inside, because pre-chickens is the cleanest it's ever going to be.

Kid's room: Double E monogram wall art

I never thought I would be one of those people who names their kids all with the same first initial, let alone the same first and middle initial for both kids, but here I am! Elise Elliott and Etta Emily. It's kind of fun. And not many people have the same initial for their first and middle name. (That was something I really wanted to repeat whether we chose an E name or not for baby #2.)

Anyhow, as soon as we settled on Etta Emily, I knew I wanted to incorporate the double Es somewhere in their shared room. Last summer, I found two E's at an antique mall for $1.25 each. They are made of some type of plastic and are fairly heavy. I don't always have an immediate plan for the things I buy, but if they are cheap enough, I buy them anyway, and they usually become useful later.

I painted the E's a bright pink with craft paint, and then set out to find something to mount them to. I came up short at home, but found this "stunning" piece of "art" in the clearance aisle at Home Goods for $4.50. It's no 

70 cents, but it was the right size (12" x 16") and sturdy enough to hold the weight of the Es on it. A simple piece of lumber would have also worked, but this was halfway finished already.

When I got it home, I realized that the backside was even more perfect than the front. I could make sort of an open shadow box. (And I wouldn't even have to mar the true love print.)

It did have a few staples into the backside of the frame where the joints came together. I used wood filler to smooth those out, then sanded and repainted the entire frame with a couple of coats of white paint. I made sure to tape off the inside of the frame because I didn't want random paint splotches showing through the fabric on my final product.

After not finding anything that would work in my fabric stash, I found this pink scale cotton print at Hancock Fabrics. I bought a half yard, but only ended up using about a fat quarter. The piece I had cut was about $2. Cheaper than paper.

After ironing all the wrinkles out, I used Mod Podge to adhere it to the back of the frame. (For those unfamiliar with how to decoupage with fabric, this post explains how. Don't be intimidated. It's one of my favorite things to do.) After the Mod Podge was completely dry, I used hot glue to stick on the Es. Quick finish!

And it's just the hit of pink we needed on the wall above the crib!

Recreating a vintage hand-painted sign

I wasn't going to post this because it's just another one of my weird gifts I made for my weird brother, but you're probably not reading this blog for generic ideas. So here it is.

Almost a year ago, my brother and I were at an antique mall. We saw a vintage, hand-painted "haircuts" sign for $40. Although the price seemed a bit high for what it was, I tried to talk him into buying it. Of course, he didn't want it. Then like a month later, he wanted it.

We didn't go back to see if it was still there, though. And I didn't even bother taking a photo of it when we saw it originally, so this is my version from memory (with my own ideas thrown in, of course).

For details on the process, I used the same sort of letter tracing technique I outlined here. The paintbrushy font is called One Direction. My thoughts are it could be a piece of art for his backyard, so I made sure to seal it with an outdoor polyurethane. The wood was leftover from this DVD shelving project and the paint, I already had on hand, so it was a no-cost gift!