Funky Friday Feature: Our Seven Dwarfs

Hello to our friends at Funky Polkadot Giraffe!

We are incredibly excited to be here! Thank you to Kyla for giving us this opportunity!

We are Shannon & Jill of Our Seven Dwarfs!

Our blog started in November 2010, but we have been busy crafting and growing! Our crafting together started after an unusual beginning of friendship. We are breast friends. Yep, you read that right. Our firstborns connected us through a breast-feeding support group. There we met each other and a few more very close friends! We are thankful that our breast-feeding struggles and our kids brought us together! Here are our wonderful families at Christmas.

Shannon's family (left to right): GraciAnn, Shannon, Mariella and John

Jill's Family (left to right): Jill, Anna, Chris, Evan and Ryan

As you can see, our families keep us busy, therefore taking time to craft keeps us sane. Our crafty talents include decorating, crocheting, crafting with wood, using the Silhouette, sewing, sharing recipes, making wreaths, gift giving, and rocking the mod podge. We do all this to teach our readers how to do it easily and step by step!

Today, Jill will be sharing a tutorial for a Bathroom Rules board.

Needed supplies:
MDF board or other wood board (cut to size of your choosing)
Paint and foam paint brushes
Silhouette (or Cricut) with vinyl of choice OR Stencil (see #5 for more options)
Transfer tape

Board or wood tip: Any of the big home improvement stores have large sheets of mdf or other types of wood. I bought a large sheet of mdf for $21. I had them cut it down to sizes that would be good for making decorations and giving gifts, which cost 25 cents a cut. (This made it much easier to transport home too.) I got 10 boards out of this sheet of wood. That's 10 projects or gifts for about $2 a piece, can't be that! (I've already made two advent boards, a religious subway art board, this bathroom rules board out of this one sheet of mdf).

Tutorial
1. Choose what size board you would like to work with. Mine is about 30 by 21.

2. I used four cans to prop up my board so that I could easily paint the sides and top. You might have small pieces of wood to prop yours up, I didn't so I got creative.

3. Paint your board. Mine took three coats of paint. Red paint always seems to take more coats. I highly suggest painting one coat vertically and then switching to horizontally for the next coat and so forth. This will help any lines from the foam paint brush from showing up.

4. Design what you would like said on your board. The same process can be used for any saying. Here is a screenshot of the start of my design.

5. Once you have your design set, cut it using your Silhouette on the vinyl of your choosing. I am sure you could do the same on a Cricut using SCAL. Shannon also made a tutorial where you can stencil on words, it can be found here. You can also print off words, cut it with an exacto knife and mod podge it on. (This is quite tedious and precise though).

6. Peel off the excess vinyl. Take your vinyl and practice where you would like your design by placing it on your board.

7. Once you like the placement, take transfer tape and cover your design. Use a scraper and adhere the vinyl to your tape. *A scraper could be a credit card, a pampered chef stone scraper (I've used this before) or a scraper made for vinyl.

8. Peel off the paper backing and place your design on your board. Use your scraper again and adhere your vinyl to the board.

9. Peel off your transfer tape and adhere any other pieces of vinyl. That's it! You have a finished decorative board now! Attach the appropriate hanging fixtures or display on a shelf.

10. Vinyl is very forgiving. You can easily peel it up and place it back where you want it. My vinyl has an adhesive back, but if you want to secure it permanently, you could put on a layer of mod podge. This step isn't necessary though.

I found this saying on a board at a store and thought it was cute. I wasn't about to spend $40 for their version. My board cost about $4 and was customized to the exact colors and size that I wanted. The next time you see a decoration that you would like for your house, don't be afraid to make it and save yourself some cash!

Thanks again to Kyla for featuring our tutorial! We really appreciate it. We are big fans of the Funky PolkaDot Giraffe! If you would like to see more tutorials, please visit Our Seven Dwarfs!