Have You Met Bobadoo?

If you've been following our business for awhile now then you know who Bobadoo is. If not, let me introduce you!

Bobadoo, named by our son,  is our Computer Numeric Control machine, better known as a CNC machine. It's how we do all our woodcutting these days saving not only HOURS of hand cutting but also my back!  It's allowed us to create things that hand cutting couldn't allow such as larger letters and consistent shapes. To be perfectly honest - Bobadoo saved my business as I just could not keep with the wood cutting any longer. It also allowed my husband to come into the business and he now does all the wood cutting letting me focus on other areas such as the beautiful artwork! I rarely breathe sawdust anymore! Ahhhhh!

We've been cutting full time with Bobadoo now for a little over a year so I thought I'd show off some pictures!

Here he is, in all his glory! Bobadoo. My life saver!

 

A close up view of a sheet of letters that just finished cutting.

 

The letters are now cut, but they still all have tabs on them to prevent the letters from coming up and flipping all over the place or getting sucked up by the vacuum while the machine is running. No tabs = disaster! We remove the sheet from the machine then we take each letter off the wood and remove the tabs, one letter at a time!

Close up of the tabs.

 

After the letters have the tabs removed they are all sanded smooth with a rotary sander and organized, ready for shipping or painting!  We create a lot of scrap!

 

Want to see Bobadoo in action? Click here!

 

New! Rustic Wall Letters

These new wall letters are just perfect for a softer look, a nature theme or a nursery that has a lot of busy patterns in other decor aspects such as a patterned wall paper. These Rustic Wooden Wall Letters come in nine different colors as shown below. Available in lowercase Cheri font only they are painted, distressed to the perfect look and ready to hang with D-Ring wire hooks on the back. Mix and match the colors for a completely original look!

Hmmmm, what color would you get?

 Buy them here: Rustic Wooden Wall Letters

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Finally! Big Girl Room Reveal!

So it's been more than a year since I last posted about my oldest daughter's room redo. It took me awhile to get it all done, then we found out we were expecting number three and we had to do some reorganizing of all the rooms, including the toy room, to make space for the new bundle that arrived this May.

Life got busy! Customer's orders come first and I'm embarassed to say that I JUST got her letters finished up for her room now. She's four! At this rate, the new baby will be a teenager before I get anything done for her!

But, it's finally ALMOST done. Done enough to show it off. There's  still a few finishing touches I've yet to do. I've been searching high and low for the perfect area rug, so far to no avail. I have the image in my head of what I want but I just can't seem to find it. Also, the light fixtures are still fish from when it was a Finding Nemo room. I would like to replace them with a nice chandelier of some sort. We also need to put the base boards back on. I wanted to paint them white, but the window and door trims are oak so we decided to just leave them.

So without further ado......here it is! Hope you like!

See this blog post to see how I finished the dresser and night stand!

The little pink dress in the frame is the dress I came home from the hospital in and so did my daughter!

Credits

Tissue Pom Poms - Pom Love

Necklace/jewelry holders - My Adornables

Letters - Bouncing Off The Walls

Set of three watercolor prints - Little Piggy Prints

Wall Color - Behr's River's Edge

Bedding from Jysk

Nautical Alphabet Package

Over the past couple of weeks I've been creating some new alphabet package to sell both painted and unpainted. Here is the first one!

This nautical themed alphabet package comes painted as shown or unpainted for you to work your own magic on. With a lighthouse for the "i" and a life preserver for the "o" it's sure to be an eye catching wall of art in any room!

Available online at Bouncing Off The Walls it's one of many new alphabets that will be gracing our pages in the next while!

What do you think?




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Not Good Enough

Not Good Enough. That is what I keep hearing from BOTH of my children when it comes to writing, colouring and drawing. My son is 5 and in kindergarten, my daughter is 3 1/2 and in preschool. They are like oil and water when it comes to their personalities and learning styles.

My son is all about the gross motor skills. He's a natural born athlete. From the time he could hold a baseball bat he could hit a ball pitched to him. He can drive a golf ball off a tee better than some adults I know. He has amazing coordination and ability with pretty much every sport he tries, but he hates colouring. And writing. And pretty much anything that requires him to sit down with a pencil in hand and put lead to paper.

My daughter is the opposite. Sports aren't her thing. She's the kid who complains of tired legs two minutes into a walk and has no interest in playing any sports. Give her a colouring book and some crayons however and you'll hardly see her all day. For three years old it's clear that she has some natural born artistic talent. Glad to know I passed SOMETHING on!

The problem? They BOTH think they're not good enough. My son had vision issues and when he was three we learned he was extremely far-sighted. Two years, glasses and an eye surgery later his vision is drastically improved. We blamed the eye problems for his lack of interest in writing or colouring. Now, I'm not so sure. He started kindergarten in September and at the time the only thing he could write was his name. I wasn't too worried as I figured that being in school would get him improving in no time. We signed him up to work with an occupational therapist because they're free and available to kindergarten kids. I have trouble trying to teach him this stuff without him getting frustrated so I figured we would use the resources available to us and go from there.

Today he is not a lot further ahead. I question a lot of things: Have we just not worked with him enough? Did his vision issues put him that far behind? Is it simply where his interests lie? (This is a kid who went to a Titanic exhibit that was in town and can now tell you everything about the Titanic so I know it's not about learning!) Socially he's ahead of the game, has a great attention span and is quite mature for his age so I know it's not a behaviour issue.

Tonight I think I may have put my finger on something. With MUCH arguing and bribing we all sat down as a family to work. My son with his dad ( I figured he'd have more patience than me!) and my daughter with me. My son has some work sheets with simple X's, diamonds and diagonal lines that he has to trace that will help him with pencil grip and control. With my daughter we just worked on her name.

Well it was a disaster. My son drew one line and his first response to his work was, "But it's not perfect! I didn't stay on the line all the way down. It's wobbly!" See picture #1 to see just how NOT wobbly and imperfect his line is. My daughter? I wrote out her name and had her copy it. She drew a perfect "D." And then started crying. "I can't do it! It looks silly! It's not beautiful like yours!" See picture #2 to see just how NOT imperfect her "D" is.

Picture #1 (His are the pencil lines over the black lines)



Picture #2 (The blue is mine, she drew the orange "D." She's THREE)



It got me thinking......did I create this? Now, I'm a self-admitted perfectionist. I'll be the first to admit that I uttered a lot of those same phrases as a child (and even as an adult my husband would tell you!) but I'm pretty sure I never put those expectations on my children. Knowingly. But what if I have unknowingly? Children mimic what they see, right? What if, in my own quest for having everything perfect I've somehow taught my children that they have to be? Even though we are always very encouraging and supportive I guess it's perfectly reasonable that actions speak louder than words.
I will also admit that I RARELY sit down and work on these things with my kids so I KNOW I haven't been putting unrealistic expectations on them!

Does my being an artist come into play here? I actually don't draw or do crafts with them much anymore because they know what I can do so they want me to do it ALL. I tell them that they should try and draw a cat for example and they'll counter with, "I want you to draw it because yours is better!" So now I hand them their craft boxes and I don't join in. I let them just have at it by themselves. I don't personally know any other artists with kids so I have no one to tell me if they've encountered the same thing.

What do you think? Do you have kids that strive to be perfect? Is anyone reading this an artist with similar issues when it comes to their kids? If you've been through this any suggestions? I would LOVE some feedback here!

To show you, here is a video of my daughter on her second "D" drawing attempt. Just so you see what I mean!

Watermelon Pink!

It's been awhile since I've blogged about the redo of my daughter's room. Mostly because it's been awhile since I've actually done anything! Finding the time is hard around here and I was waiting for two major items. One was a new bed and the other was a dresser and night stand.

The bed we purchased this weekend. The dresser and night stand had been in our shed for the past while waiting for me to do a makeover on them.

This dresser set is one that my parents owned before I was born. I won't tell you how old that was but let's just say that Elvis was still the King! It had a dark brown stain on it and brass hardware. I took the set with me when I moved out on my own and about 11 years ago I sanded them down to their natural wood and they remained that way until yesterday.

Now, when I sanded them and varnished them the first time I swore I would never redo a piece of furniture again! It sucked. Really. I do not have the patience for all the sanding. BUT, I knew that this time would be different. For starters, I was going for a shabby chic sort of style so making mistakes is a bonus. I wanted it scuffed and worn looking. Since they'd already been sanded to their natural wood I didn't have to do much sanding at all.

I got really lazy with the paint. Now I may be a painter but I can't stand painting furniture! Again, no patience and no time! So I bought spray paint. Really! Krylon spray paint. Two colors, watermelon and ivory. The only pink and off white that Canadian Tire carried! Grand total of about $16!

I started out by doing a pretty shoddy job of spraying everything in the ivory color. It took about 10 minutes to dry then I sanded around the edges and areas I wanted to have the natural wood showing through. Then I sprayed it all in the watermelon. When that was dry I again did some sanding to let some of the ivory and natural wood show through. The entire project took about an hour and I am SO happy with how they turned out!

I've ordered these knobs (what a steal they were!) and can't wait for them to arrive!

At this point her room is about 90% finished and I can't wait to show it off! Stay tuned!

Before:


After:

And The Winner Is......

I've been so busy lately that I didn't even notice when my Facebook page went over 5,000 "likes." For those that have been paying attention you know what that means! I promised awhile back that once my page got over 5,000 wonderful fans that I would donate $250 to the charity of YOUR choice. Tonight I was able to make that donation!

The list of charities in the running was created by YOU. All you had to do was let me know about a charity that you wanted to support and it went into the draw. Chosen by Random.org the lucky charity that received the $250 donation was the Children's Cottage Society!

The Children’s Cottage Society offers a wide range of programs for parents and children in Calgary, Alberta strengthening families by demonstrating leadership through a network of Crisis, Respite, and Support Services.

Their Services Include:
• Crisis Nursery
• Respite Care
• Family Support

Their Mission:

“Preventing harm and neglect to all children and strengthening families through crisis, respite and support services”.

The Children’s Cottage Society believes asking for help is a sign of strength. The Children’s Cottage works closely with other agencies to connect families to appropriate resources that can meet their needs.

Check out their wish list to see if you have any items you can donate to them:

Wish List

I have loved doing this giveaway as it has really shown me some fantastic organizations that are out there really making a difference. I can only hope that by doing this I've been able to spread some awareness and teach you about some of them as well.

Click here to learn about all the great charities that were in the running!

Thank you to everyone who participated!