Goodbye 2009, Hello DIY Magnetic Scrabble Board Project!

Hello, my dear blog readers! How are you? It has been a couple of weeks since I've posted, I know. Shortly after my last post, hubs and I were both hit with a really nasty bug/virus of some sort - two of our children had already been dealing with it and our third got it right about the same time we did. The kids are now mostly better, but hubs and I have pretty much been bed ridden for two weeks. I've had to get out to do some grocery shopping and to take some of my brood to the doctor, but other than that, we've been horizontal, ugh! We had a lot of Tomorrow is another day - and another month, year, and decade! plans for our winter break, but none of them worked out. But tomorrow is another day - and another month, year, and decade!

I guess it goes without saying that my little studio is not complete - I did not reach my goal of having it completed by the end of the year. Prior to us being sick, hubs wanted to spend two or three weekends laying more hardwood flooring, so that was work time that took away from my studio ...but I don't mind. I'm thrilled to finally have some more real flooring! I've decided that my goal for 2010 is to not stress about reaching my self imposed deadlines. This year - {this decade!} has shown me that life happens - things beyond my control, and that I need to just try to roll with it. I want to continue to enjoy our projects as we get to them and complete them, but I don't want to take the fun out of it all by being discouraged over missing deadlines or worrying over "what I'm going to blog about?!". It's all good, for there is nowhere to go but forward!

Before this bug knocked me to my booty, I was able to complete a fun project for the studio. I made my own large magnetic board from scratch! Yup, I stumbled upon some nice trim hidden away in the garage, bought a big piece of sheet metal and plywood, and that was the beginning of a pretty nifty project! About finding that trim in the garage...it was completely serendipitous! I had been envying the same trim at Lowe's recently but it was too expensive and very much out my budget. But I had forgotten that I had bought a lot of the same trim a few years before when it was a little ...It was completely serendipitous!cheaper. Weird, huh? Imagine my surprise when I found enough of the trim to use for several projects!

I'll share with you the steps to making your own magnetic board at a later date, but here are a couple of photos of the board I made nearing completion. The magnets that I made for the board are actually 300 vintage scrabble tiles that I purchased from Ebay a while back. I super glued thin, rare earth magnets to the backs of them. It took a while, but they work perfectly!


I didn't want the sheet metal on my magnetic board to show, so we {my ZuZu and I} decoupaged vintage dictionary pages to the entire board. Here in this photo, we're just getting started laying out the pages. The first layer covered all the edges and the center, but for the second layer, I placed the pages haphazardly as if all the dictionary pages had just fallen from the air. Actually, there was a lot of strategy that went into the placement {let's face it, even in the dictionary, there are some words we'd just rather not look at everyday!}, but overall, it was a nice random pattern. You can see a bit of the painted and distressed trim in this photo. I think it looks great against the vintage dictionary pages! When I'm well and can be up and about without coughing until I gag, hehe, I will take photos of the finished project. I think it's one of my most favorite Twice Remembered projects thus far!


I hope you all have been well and stay well and I'm looking forward to continuing to share with you in 2010 all our cottage happenings here at Twice Remembered! Thank you so much for visiting! Until next time...

"May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.
May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.
May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.
And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through!"

My front yard, 2007. We only dream of another snow this winter!