I know that I can be happy now, and it would be sad and selfish if I lived with the attitude of "when I have kids I'll be happy", or "when ____ happens, then I'll be happy". (Plus, don't we all know that there's hard things at every stage in life??? I thought I wanted to be done with college and be a real adult... until I realized all the responsibility it held! haha)
So, here's to things that I love about my life RIGHT NOW!
NUMBER 5: Magnet Chalkboard for Quotes
So, the only thing that has gotten me though this whole "infertility" madness is reading the words of the prophets: from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and current-day. I love quotes and scripture that help to build faith, give comfort, offer advice, or are answers to specific prayers (I have fun searching here for scriptures, General Conference talks, Mormon Messages, etc). Since I find comfort and the ability to "keep going" after hearing these quotes, I decided that I needed a board dedicated to that. However, I love them so much that one quote just will not suffice; no it will not.
With much help from your Dad, we were able to concoct this wonderful chalkboard magnetized wall of framed goodness :)
Step 1- Screw a LARGE piece of sheet metal into the wall. (We ended up going to Main St to some random business since it was WAY cheaper than the hardware stores.) This beats putting a bazillion holes into your wall for your individual frames... only to see that it ended up crooked.... grrr. We wanted to save the stress on that. We only had to measure/ level one thing, the sheet metal.
Step 2- Paint your piece of sheet metal with chalkboard paint. At first, since the metal is shiny, the chalkboard paint doesn't adhere too well. We probably should have primed it, but the paint said it could adhere to metal, so we didn't. We ended up painting about 3 coats total. After the last coat, we waiting 24 hours before attempting to touch it with magnets/ frames.
Step 3- Glue magnets onto the backs of your frames. We used thin circle magnets. We estimated on the number of magnets we needed in order to hold the frames up. For the 5x7in frames, we used about 4 magnets. For the medium frames we used around 6-8 magnets. For the ginormous wood one on the bottom right of the chalkboard, we used about 20... no joke. I had to keep adding more and more otherwise it was just sliding off because of its weight. It was a guess and check game. Needless to say, we spent WAY MORE on the magnets than I thought--- oops!
Step 4- BEFORE writing anything on the chalkboard, you will need to "prime" it first. This means you will take a piece of chalk and lay it flat (on its side) on the chalkboard and "color" the whole chalkboard. After about 5 minutes, you should erase it all. Sounds kind of silly, right? Well, this will prevent a ghost shadow lingering after you erase your text/design/picture off. You don't want your chalkboard to not erase fully now, do you? After all your hard work? No, definitely not. So, do this. Don't. Skip. This. Step. (P.S. In the future, if you want to wipe down your board with a wet cloth to clean it, make sure you "prime" it again before using it.)
Step 5- After you've primed the board and erased it, you are now able to create whatever you want! Have fun! I know I do! :)
This is when Uncle Scott came home from his mission from Japan. I took off all my frames and drew this banner for him. Not perfect, but it was fun making it!
(In the picture from left to right: Gi-gi, Ba-ba, Kurt, Jordan, Scout, Me, Clay, Tiffany, Hana)
For Thanksgiving, we were able to have everyone write down what they were "thankful for" on a leaf and put it on our magnet board where Jordan drew a tree.
You can't see this too well, but we outlined a tree with lights and put all the Christmas cards that we received from our friends and family inside that tree.
Love,
Mom
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