my new nephew and a tutorial

He's here! 

He's here!

My newest nephew arrived Wednesday, August 14th.

His name is Wesley Paul.

I love him. 

And don't you just love how people say "arrived", like new babies just show up like a package you ordered from Amazon? Now having delivered my own child, I think that term is a bit flawed, as it does not *quite* include the fullness of bearing a child you carried around helped make for 9 months. 

But seriously, he is awesome and I haven't even met him yet. 

And my sister looks AMAZING, no? 

Wesley Paul, 

my first Carroll nephew,

my seventh overall nephew:

I love you intensely with a kind of "you're family!" love that you will one day understand. I pray for your little life-- that you will be healthy and love Jesus-- and I pray for your family that they will know how to love you well. 

I made Wesley's two older sister's name signs when they were born, and wanted to carry on the tradition. This time I had Pinterest, so I steered away from the traditional paint on canvas and got a little creative…and manlier, in my opinion. 

If you want to know how to do this, it's simple I promise. Either go to Pinterest and type in "string art", or follow these simple steps:

-Find a cool board you want to use. I had a piece of barn board that had a cool knot in the middle. I liked the unevenness of it. I scrubbed it clean, since it had been in an actual barn for many years, and then did a slight white wash over it. I didn't want it to truly look too white, so I kept it faint. 

- Then find a font you like. Type up the name and print it as big as you need it for your board. The thicker fonts will probably work better. 

- Buy some old nails for 50 cents from your local, family owned hardware store. You don't have one of these stores? I feel sad for you. Start nailing! I nailed about 1/2 inch to 1 inch apart, all around the letters. I really liked the look of the rusty nails with the barn board.

-Once all your nails are in snug, tear up the paper. You should be left with just an outline of the letters. 

- Now find a comfy spot, and get out your string. Then get to it! I discovered that it was best to go around the outline of the letter a couple of times before filling it in. Once you've done that, then the "secret", if there is such a thing, is just making a bunch of different paths from nail to nail, as many times as you like. Obviously the more you do this, the more filled in it will be. 

There were a couple of times I thought one nail when with a letter and it didn't and I had to retrace my steps [which is the outlining it first worked best], but otherwise it is fairly fail proof! 

I've seen it done with each letter being a different color, or using multi-colored string. Kali wanted one color, as this was an accent in his room…and because she is a one color kind of person. 

It really was a fun project, and I can't wait to see it up in Wesley's room. But more than that, I can't wait to see him!