Home made display dice

So this has been a busy week for me. I had to work 5 out of 6 12 hour shifts with only 1 day off (poor me) all while getting this nasty cold. I managed to finish up a couple of orders and get them shipped. I also got a backup furnace put up in the house so we don't have to go without heat again (yeah me). We also put a furnace in the wood shop for me which will make being out there much more bearable this time of the year :)

On to more fun things. I saw those big yard dice on pintrest awhile ago and thought those would be cute in the house. So I finally took the time to make some. 

So how I made them coming up they were so simple and can be done in any color. I am thinking about making more. The are of course so much cuter in person than I can picture. My pics for this tutorial did not come out great but that is because most of it was made during the night time :)

First I cut two 2x2x2 blocks. (this is what wood I have custom made for my ornaments but really any square wood will work)

The next step was to paint black around the edges (this will be for your underlying color after sanding) I don't paint the whole thing to conserve paint since I do so many blocks you don't have to do it this way just my way :)

So once the blocks are dry the next step is weird but works great for distressing. My secret ingredient is chap stick. I put a small amount on areas that I want to come through in the distressing. So pretty much ran it along all of the edges. This is the step that will help that black paint come out easily. (no it doesn't have to be cherry that's just what I had on hand)

I painted both blocks completely white.

I used my silhouette cameo to create the dice. I just did a file by hand using squares and circle in the program.

 So I then just placed them all on each block and painted the dots all black.

So once they are painted on I peel off the vinyl to let them dry. I don't wait for paint to dry on the dots because it comes off easier and since they will be distressed again it doesn't have to be perfect. So this is without any distressing and you can see that the edges are already coming off and that is because of the chap stick. You could just leave them like this or you can sand more and make them more distressed. I personally love more distressed so I chose to sand more.

And the end results are

I love how they turned out and how they look on my shelves. (don't mind my laziness of not taking my old sign down before putting the love sign in front of it hehe) I don't have all my valentines stuff done and up yet so that's how far I got) Okay long boring tutorial but I thought why not.

Now off to bed we are driving to and from Delaware tomorrow to pick out our new puppy and then we have to do the 7 hour drive again in 2 weeks to pick him up, but I can't wait to see the little guy tomorrow I am so excited. Will post pics of him soon.

Well we have been out of heat for several weeks due to our natural gas line being part of a rolling shut in so every other month now they will shut our gas off to conserve what is left in our tank. We didn't know this so since we don't have a back up heat source we had to go without heat since right around Christmas :( let me tell you how much that sucks living in Ohio. Thankfully we have had a mild winter so far with the temperatures staying pretty decent. So as of this weekend we finally have heat again. We ordered a propane tank for back up so we don't have this problem again in February but it is so ugly sitting in the yard :( I will have to figure out a way to cover it up so it doesn't look so bad in the spring :)

On to brighter things. Having heat finally means I can get back in the craft room and get so work done. I have a few orders left over from the holidays and new ones coming in now so I have to get my butt to work :) I have been inspired to start working on a few more signs and blocks for the shop so I will post a couple of tutorials as soon as I get them figured out :) In the meantime here are a couple cute pieces that are available in the shop. Hope everyone has a great day!!

It has been so long since I have been on here (I suck, I know) but I thought I would give another go at the blog. A little about me (since it has been so long) I am a Cardiac RN and work night shift. I love to craft and pintrest is an obsession of mine. I have a wonderful etsy shop that I love making signs for. My BF Donny and I have been together for 16 years now and we have a 2 year old great dane (Gracie) and one great dane puppy to be brought home to use mid feburary. Unfortunately we had another great dane named Gally that we had to put down in November at the age of 6 due to him forming cancer :( pictures of him are below. I dable in a lot of different things but I would say crafting is my favorite. If  I could stay home and work in the craft room all day that would be amazing. Well that is it for now. I will start posting more as I get time, until then have a great week :)