Gettin' My Craft On With Crafty Wood Cutouts!

Last week I was contacted by a company wondering if I would be interested in helping them out.

Now, before I get going, I need to tell you, dear reader, that I'm often contacted by different companies. Chalk it up to being a mommy blogger --I think a lot of us (some of us? a few of us? I don't know) are contacted by businesses who need to reach their demographic, namely, those people who read mommy blogs. Even LDS mommy blogs, if you will. Anyway, I usually turn them down. Or if I agree to help, it's because I like their product or what they are doing. And rarely, rarely, rarely will I allow myself to be compensated monetarily. My blog is for personal use; it's not a business. All those buttons on my sidebar? Over there? Not one of them is paying me. A few have given me incentives and a few I have used as a business --but I paid them for their services.

This company is no different. However! I did take them up on one incentive --I got to use their product for free in exchange for this soon-to-be awesome blog post.

Why all the intro? I'm an honest person. I don't like to wax poetic about a product unless I like it.

This, dear reader, I liked!

The company is new --they just opened almost 2 weeks ago in Orem, UT. It's called Crafty Wood Cutouts and I had the privilege of visiting their store.
What I loved about their humble place:

1. Awesome front sign (it's just their logo from their website, but I love the logo and design!).
2. The smell of wood! Fresh cut wood! They cut it there in the back and then sell the products out front.
3. Each product has a finished design on display above it to give the customer a great example of what they could do with their blank "canvas."
4. There is a children's area where you can take your kids, buy a product, and work on it in the store!
5. This is a crafty project I CAN DO!!

I'm not a crafty person, dear reader. I tend to fail spectacularly on my crafts, but I was thrilled to find something that not only interested me (I buy these types of wood products all the time), but it's something I can do! So, I took one home. And I did it!

I chose this one:



But when you buy it, it's just plain wood. Which makes sense. You know.

Now, BEHOLD! My finished product!

Yes, I know. I totally got the "O" backwards. But you're talking to a non-crafty person, eh? But guess what? Who cares!? It still looks good! And if you turn the "O" around, it looks like this:

Not bad, eh? I also have enough paper left over that I could re-cover and paint if I needed to. But I probably won't. Because I think it looks just dandy the first way. Or, I might take the vinyl lettering and put it on the front of the red paint. Or I might...well, whatever. It still works, no matter what!

How to do make your awesome Crafty Wood Cutout or How I made my awesome Crafty Wood Cutout:

1. Buy the wood product you want. Also, buy paper and paint and glitter and sticker-thingies and ribbon and vinyl lettering (which comes with most of them) and whatever you want for your project. There are a lot of great options!
2. Sand it (if you want. I'm lazy, so I didn't. Besides, I like a rugged, unfinished look. Yeah. That's it).
3. Decide if you'll paint it all or paint and paper or paper only, etc. and then paint first (I painted and papered).
4. Trace and cut-out paper.
5. Mod podge the paper onto the wood and mod podge over it to give it that awesome look (or use wood glue first and mod podge over the paper).
6. Remember to put the vinyl lettering on before you mod podge the front (unlike me. However, it still stuck!)
7. Realize that you should have checked the vinyl lettering color against the paper color first to make sure you can see the vinyl lettering once it's on.

8. Shout for joy when you realize you can just color the vinyl lettering with a black sharpie pen (I TOLD YOU! I'm NOT crafty!).

9. Behold your awesome finished craft!

And you know what, dear reader? I don't care my project didn't come out perfectly. It's still gorgeous. I can't wait to put it out with my other Christmas decorations next month. And the best part? It took me less than 2 hours to do everything. It was fun and relaxing and gave me JOY. Get it? Joy? Hahahaha...sigh.

But just imagine what YOU could do with these projects, dear reader! I'm guessing this is right up your alley. And if it's not? It might be anyway. Just like it was for me.

You better believe I'll be going back to Crafty Wood Cutouts to get my craft on. I'm so excited to find a craft I can actually do --and enjoy doing! Huzzah!

P.S. Find them on Facebook here.

What kind of crafts do you like to do? Do you craft? Do you dislike/hate crafting? Why or why not?