The Pictures

The pictures. I won’t lie and tell you that they were soooo much fun to do. They weren’t. They were a TOTAL pain the in ass because they were my first actual project, which meant I had to learn several things not known to the average person (or at least not to me).

For instance, that yeah…a 1X12? Isn’t a 1X12. It’s a 0.75X11.25. But I didn’t know that. *I* ASSumed that measurements were measurements, so when I grabbed a 1X12 and told them to cut it in sections of 12″ length, I didn’t HAVE perfect squares; I had obvious rectangles. I originally got the idea from this very popular pin on Pinterest. She calls for shelving board, which I either couldn’t find or something. I finally gave up and bought this exact piece and, since it measured 11 7/8″, I had it cut to 11 7/8″. FYI: Lowe’s will cut your wood for you. And while they say that they are “supposed to charge”, I was only charged once there, out of the several times I had them cut wood. I was never charged at Home Depot, even though they are also supposed to charge. And FYI, each individual store has their own pricing; with Home Depot, the one near work charged $0.50/cut, whereas the one near home charged $0.25. Neither actually charged me, but that’s what their pricing was. I also bought black matte spray paint.

Then I needed to find somewhere that printed 12X12 photos, which was NOT easy, to be honest. I finally happened upon this place, Scrapping Simply, and I must tell you that they have some of the most responsive, best customer service I have ever experienced in my life. One of the pictures is an OLD picture from years ago, and therefore the quality isn’t good. I knew there was a good chance that it wouldn’t come out, but the pictures were only $1.99 each, so it was worth it to find out. Instead, they did print it for me, but emailed me and said that the quality was poor, and therefore they didn’t charge me, but were sending it anyway! THAT is customer service. They came quickly, and the coloring was perfect on all of them.

NOTE: The original idea was to do 9 squares, like in the link above, but with the outer corners being scrapbook paper. I couldn’t find ANY that I liked in stores, so I poured through digital scrapbook papers on Etsy before choosing some that I liked. I had those printed as well, so in all, I had 18 photos printed. The “B” in the middle is something I created in MS Publisher. It took about a minute, to be honest. I printed 2, because I am anal particular

I also went and bought Command strips and this is where I got so aggravated at my lack of ability to count in pairs. I had to go out for more strips 3 times, I kid you not, and STILL didn’t have enough! I also realized that even after 3 OTHER trips to Lowe’s, I still didn’t have enough squares. At that point, I was so aggravated that I scrapped the entire idea of the digital paper and went with the crosses, which I had enough of. I spray painted the edges and about 2″ around the face, and let them dry. I cut about 1/2″ off the top and side of each picture with a paper cutter, and then just used double sided tape to attach the pictures. There is a Command strip in each top corner. They are attached to the wall in a specific way; since the baby is a complete masochistic tyrant in an exploring phase, we put them higher than I would have liked.

And don’t get me started on how badly the crown moulding needs painter’s caulk. Oh, so bad!!