Great Grandma's Brag Board

As I have mentioned before, this Christmas I am attempting at making a lot of my gifts. This is something I decided to make for my Grandmother, since very soon I will be presenting her with her forth Great Grandchild. I took the idea from Pintrest, I very loosely adapted this project.

I started with a piece of wood that I had purchased from a local lumber yard  it cost about 6 dollars and I had them cut it so I had a 2 foot piece, and another chunk that is living in the trunk of my car. Makes the place smell great! :-)

I painted the wood completely black, and dug a few clothespins from my bucket. These I painted as well. This was ten at night, and I didn't have any pink, so I went with purple for the girl, blue for the boys and yellow for a future just in case.

The next day, after they dried, I wrote the kids' names on them with a fine Sharpie. I don't know if it was the paint, or the marker, but I had a hard time with it. The ink kept disappearing, so I had to constantly scribble on a piece of paper to get it back. This is why they look so scribbled and uneven.

As for the board, I set the clothespins on it with pictures clipped to them to measure out where my writing would be. I just freehand wrote 'Great Grandma's Brag Board' in pencil, so it would appear shiny on the black pant.

And then I painted over it; I had to use two coats of paint. After this, I did the edges of the board and let it dry another overnight.

Finally, I glued my clothespins on with my glue gun, putting them in order by age. I got each parent to pick their favourite picture of their little ones for our Grandmother to have on her board, and I just sent them to Wal-Mart for printing.

These are just some prints of Kyristan I had in my desk, I used them for placement purposes.

All that is left is to put something on the back for hanging, and I may have to get my Dad to do that as I am not great at that sort of thing!

So, this wraps up all my Christmas gifts, I have a couple more to post about but this was the final creation. All I have left to do to be prepared is make a batch of shortbread and one of maple fudge, then we can get the show on the road!

I am pretty much prepared for baby, to. Less than three weeks now! I started packing last night and am doing some laundry today, aside from sterilizing some bottles, everything is ready to go!

Hope everyone is having a great week!!

~Natasha.