Tag Archives: wood

New Machine, New Beginning and a New Year

First of all, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!! 2018 seems like it flew by but I am totally ready for 2019!

Last year I decided to make a big purchase to hopefully help A Sweet Berry Designs grow. The Inventables X-Carve has brought me lots of joy in the last couple of months!

The Inventables X-Carve is a CNC Router machine that you program via the computer. Why did I buy a CNC router you may ask! Some of you may know this, but my dad was a master carpenter at the University of South Carolina for many many years! In his spare time at home he would build furniture and other wood items. He would build shelves, entertainment centers, desk and even lake docks! He has installed shelves in my garage as well as some neighbors garages. We have several of his shelves in the house! He even built my desk that is in my “office” space. He has slowly started passing down some of his power tools to me and I have been using them like crazy the last couple of years! Some of the items I have made, such as my North Carolina cut out ornaments are repetitive cuts and the X-Carve helps with that and save my back in the process!

So, after lots and lots of research and youtube watching, I ordered one!!!! Over the next couple of weeks, boxes started coming but I made myself wait to open any of them until everything arrived. Inventables has different size X-Carves. I decided to get the big one. I had a feeling that if I got the smaller one, I’d want the bigger one! But they all came just before we were going on a big trip to Chicago so I had to wait a little while to get it together.

And guess what? Everything had to be put together, from the railings to the circuit boards. It was crazy! It was definitely a family effort! Lots of little bags of screws, nuts and washers. Stepper motors, homing switches and wheels. My mom even had a part in it!

So, after about 7 or 8 hours or so, it was complete and ready for it’s first run. I was nervous as heck but it was worth the nail biting to make sure it was going to work! Oh yeah, I also bought a new ShopVac! The online software for the X-Carve had a test carve that was super cute (see pic below).

The boys thought the amount of saw dust was amazing and loved being able to vacuum it up! They’ve been awesome helpers when I am carving! Give them the vacuum and they are set!

Here are a few projects that I have done and a lot of them that have sold!!! I have lots of plans for the new year!

Letters, words and detailed cross ornament cut outs!

Puppy and Dog Paw cut out Leash Holders!

Christmas cut outs on a wood round!

State and tree cut outs! I’ve cut out NC, VA, CO, CA and FL.

Engraved items: Photo boards and Nativity boards

I put my logo on a store bought wood round!

And today, on day 1 of a new year, I created……

This Personalized Backpack Holder for a friend! She is going to hang it right by her front door so that her kids can hang their backpacks up as soon as they walk in the door! I sat and watched the names being engraved the entire time. It’s very mesmerizing and therapeutic!

2018 was fun, but 2019 is going to be an awesome year! I definitely hope to blog a little more in the new year! I’m also working to add items to my Etsy shop!!

So, if there is anything that you think you might want carved or engraved and made, let me know and I can tell you what the possibilities are!!!

Well, until next time……

Hot Glue Love Wood Sign

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Yay! It’s Craft Lightning time again!

In honor of a book that my crafty friends Angie Holden (The Country Chic Cottage) and Carolina Moore (30 Minute Crafts) recently wrote together, Hot Glue Hacks and Crafts, this months Craft Lightning theme is Hot Glue!!!!!

For my Craft Lightning project, I created a Hot Glue Love Wood Sign!

What I used:

Hot Glue Gun
Glitter Hot Glue Sticks
Paint Brush
Paint
A piece of wood
Sawtooth Picture Hanger
Pencil

How I made it:

I painted the board. I used Folk Art Color Shift Acrylic paint. Let it dry.

Warm up the glue gun and insert the glitter glue stick.

Using a pencil, I drew out the word that I wanted to write. TIP: You could use any word, I chose “love”.

Using the hot glue gun, trace over the pencil strokes. Allow the hot glue to dry.

Turn over the board and attach the sawtooth picture hanger.

Clean up all of the little hot glue strings.

Now it’s time to hang up or give it as a gift!

Be sure to click the photo below and check out other great Hot Glue Craft Lightning projects. Also, be sure to check out Angie and Carolina’s book on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. It’s full of lots of crafts that make using hot glue fun! There are so many ways that you can use Hot Glue other than using it to glue stuff together!

Until next time…..

Busy Kid Project – Painted Door Signs

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Need a quick DIY project to keep kids busy? Well, these Painted Door Signs are perfect for a quick DIY project for kids. They will love having their own personalized signs on their bedroom doors!

Materials Used:
Pieces of wood
Acrylic Paint
Paint Brushes
Sticky Letters or other sticky designs
Screw eyes (two for each sign)
Yarn or other string

First, the wood pieces were painted with a base color. Think about what color you want your letters to be! That is the color that you want for the base.

Using my Sizzix Big Shot and Laura Kelly’s Lemonade Capital Alphabet Sizzix Dies, I cut out each letter of my children’s names.

Once the base color was dry, I let them place the letters where they wanted after removing the backing. Making sure the letters were pressed down nicely, it was time to paint over the letters! When the paint was dry or at least close to being dry, I removed the letters with a pair of tweezers.

We let the signs dry completely. Then I screwed in the screw eyes and attached a piece of yarn to them. The boys were so excited to have their very own DIY Door Signs with their names on it!!!

This project took about 15 minutes excluding the drying process! It was super easy and fun and it kept the kids busy!