Guest Post: Angela from Love Sweet Love

As you may remember, Brooke had her baby girl last week. Both Brooke and her little one are doing well. Our first guest poster is my in-real-life-before-we-both-blogged-friend, Angela. Go check out her amazing blog, Love Sweet Love when you have the chance. She's got TONS of holiday ideas for kids and fun decorating projects. Love her!

Hello fellow Wayward Girls lovers, I am Angela the voice behind the blog Love Sweet Love! I am so honored to be here today guest posting for the sweet Brooke as she is having her first precious little baby! I am also honored to know Mrs. Jaime personally. Like we've taken a Jazz dance class together, stayed up till 2 am talking and were part of a super exclusive group called JAM back in Orem, UT :) Wayward Girls and Love Sweet Love started about the same time, and it's been so fun to watch them grow and now I get to be apart of it!

I use my little corner of the blogging universe to share my creative ideas that involve easy DIY projects for the home, craft ideas for kids, thrift store makeovers, and holiday decorating (the reason I started blogging!). My life is over-flowing with Sweet Love and I needed a place to share it!! If you pop over for a visit you'll notice that every one of my blog posts has the words Sweet Love in there somewhere (kind of like a Where's Waldo type thing with words :) ) just to keep things fun!

Today I wanted to share with you a simple, fun tutorial on how to make a set of 'FAMILY' blocks. You could use this tutorial to create a set for any holiday/season to add fun decor to your holiday decorating!

Just to give you an example of other ideas, here are some blocks I've done for different holidays:
Valentines:

St. Patrick's: (this is actually just on the backside of the LOVE blocks)

Easter/Spring:


Ready to make some of your own?! Start with 6 wood blocks. Mine are cut from a 2x4 so they are each 2"x 3".


Give them a light coat of spray paint (I chose black) and then a light sanding to give them somewhat of a worn look.


If you don't want to hang the blocks, just skip the next 2 steps and you can make them to be free-standing and they'd still be super cute! If you do want to hang them, decide how long you want them to hang from your rod (mine is a $1.50 silver curtain rod from Walmart that I spray painted black) and cut 6 pieces of ribbon. Each of my ribbon's are 8 inches.


Next, I used a staple gun to staple the ribbon directly to the block-one staple on the back and front of the block.


Then you'll want to pick a few sheets of coordinating scrapbook paper. My living room colors are deep reds, browns, and creams so I chose these:


Cut your papers to be the same size as the front of each block.


I've done this part using mod-podge previously, but this time I decided to just try it with a glue stick and it worked great-even better then the mod-podge because I didn't have to deal with the air bubbles you sometimes get from it. Just cover the back side of your paper with glue and stick it on to the wood!


After all my papers were glued to the block, I very lightly sanded the edge of each block.


I just wanted my blocks to give a slightly worn look, not full blown antique.




Next, I used my cricut to cut vinyl letters to attach to the blocks. You could also use scrapbook stickers if you don't have a cricut. Then I covered each block with a light layer of mod-podge to seal everything together.


Now Embellish, Embellish, Embellish!!!




And that's it, you're done!


I love the look of the hanging blocks, but wouldn't they look so great stacked together on a mantle or in your TV hutch?!


I loved spending my day here with you today. Thank you so much to ALL the Wayward Girls for the opportunity to be apart of your FUN blog! Come visit me over at Love Sweet Love anytime!