Scrabble Tile Wall Art (my mother's day gift 6 months later)

I so ripped this idea off from Remodelaholic, a ridiculously cool blog all about crafts and decorating.  I emailed the link to Jason, last April with a note that said, "possible mother's day gift". In November, Jason asked what I would like for Christmas and I said, "my mother's day gift".  He looked sheepish.  The instructions on the Remodelaholic blog were pretty simple.  But I'm married to an engineer.

Do I need to say more?

 After four or five visits to various hardware and lumber (not lumbar, like I originally typed - thanks Martha for picking up where spell check is weak), places, he settled on some douglas fir posts around 4x4.  Did you know that 4x4's are not actually 4x4?  He then meticulously sawed a bunch of tiles out of that and sanded them.

 Hannah wondering what we're doing in 'her' back yard.

 After sanding he tried out a couple different stains and decided to just go with a clear polycrylic coat.  Look how cute he was balancing each tile on styrofoam cups so that they dry nicely.

 We went to a bunch of craft stores to find vinyl stickers or stencils.  He even called some area vinyl lettering companies. We either couldn't find any with the right font or the right size to get the correct scrabble tile dimensions.  I would have been fine with them not being 'perfect', but, have I mentioned I'm married to an engineer?  He found the font online, sized them to the correct size and then printed them on freezer paper in a mirror image and transferred them to the tiles.

 Then went over them with a sharpie.  Below is what it looked like when he printed them out.

 I can't find pictures of the next steps.  The remodelaholic website hung each individual tile with hooks. Jason wasn't sure that would work that well, especially in the high traffic area of the front hall (I actually think that's the only hall we have on the first floor, but doesn't it just sound more grand, front hall).  Anyhow, he glued then drilled them to strips of thin wood, leaving a couple of the end letters off.  He attached it to the wall by drilling the empty spots then glued those tiles on.  It's so up there.

 Need I point out from first paragraph that there was the first email to Jason in April about what I wanted for Mother's day and then my next mention was in November.  I do believe I showed tremendous restraint in not nagging, cajoling, guilting or strong arming to get what I wanted.

Good things come to those who wait -- I love my mother's day present.

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