Craft Time with Blake: Mother's Day Frames

One of my new year's resolutions (which I made in April...whatever it's been a busy new year) was to do more craft projects with the kids, so me and Blake kicked things off with some Mother's Day projects.  I was able to get a very cute picture of the boys together (by promising Blake a lollipop if he took it) so I thought it'd make a perfect Mother's Day Gift.  I found 4 of these plain MDF frames at Michaels for $1.50 each, so off we went

I wanted to make these white to have a backdrop for Blake to paint on, and I probably could've just primed/painted them really easily, but I had been itching to try to spray paint something so I went with that instead.  I don't know if it was the fact that they were made out of MDF and not wood, but these took A LOT of coats of spray paint (w/a built in primer).

The left side is about 2 coats in, and the right hand side is the finished product, about 6 coats in.

That might not seem like a lot, but considering that I had four of these to do, and I had to also paint the backs of the frames, and the backing pieces, this took a lot longer then I originally had planned for.


Once these were as solid white as I had the patience to get them, we took a drizzly afternoon at home and put the boy to work. I limited the color palate to 4 colors of craft paint so we didn't end up with muddy brown pictures and Blake got painting. I did tell him who each frame was for before he painted them, so these are 100% personalized by Blake.



Once these were done and dry, I inserted the aforementioned Boehmke boy pics and I used these great corrugated cardboard letters that I found to personalize even further. One of the frames I found had a wonky back that wouldn't let the frame stand horizontal, but stood vertical fine, so I dished out a 2nd lollipop and snapped another pic. The price we pay huh?

Although this is very belated, much like my resolutions, a very Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there who make me laugh, smile, and not feel so alone in this crazy world of child rearing!!

Things I'll Miss About Pottstown

Blake's School - He went there since he was 8 months old and just about every teacher/kid/administrator knew who he was.  Really hard to take him away from that

Giovanni's Pizza - If you've ever eaten there with us, you know exactly why it will be very hard to live without this place!

The Schuykill River Trail - perfect place to take the boys and Cash to stroll and throw rocks.  Happy that we got lots of pics during our last family photo session

Craft Ale House - We will definitely be making treks back to this place, but it'll stink not living only 10 minutes away

The Spring Valley YMCA - If you're thinking LDale Y, you're very mistaken.  Going to outdoor pool was basically like spending the day at a small water park.  Another place we will take day trips to

Our House - Even though there were a million reasons to move when we did, we will always miss our first house.  It was wonderful and will always be the place we started our family

The Playground - We spent countless weekend afternoons and nights at the little playground around the corner from the house.  I can remember taking Blake down the slide in my lap for the first time, and it was a great touchstone to see how big he was getting

The Little Gym Crew - Blake (and he LG BF Lila) started going there when they were both around a year and it's amazing to compare these two big kids to the little wobbly guys who first started!  Time to move on (and start again with the 2nd generation) but this place will always hold fond memories for me