DIY Magnetic Alphabet board (courtesy of Pinterest)

So a friend of mine suggested I put some of my craft ideas/attempts up here, and that honestly, might hold me more accountable to actually FINISH them, hahaha!

So, for the first time in a long time, I finished a craft that required me to do a lot of little things (and had I had two days uninterrupted, I probably would have gotten it done way faster, but the only time I had to work with was nap time and bed time).

So to start, here are all the supplies I bought (and a rough estimate how much they cost, I already forgot haha, everything I found at walmart)

Large Oil Pan ($10)
Paint ($3 it is only a 32 oz small can)
Paint brushes ($6, assorted sizes)
Alphabet block puzzle ($4)
Glue sampler kit ($3)
Large Magnetic tape roll ($4 and I have a lot left)
Foam stars ($5)
Large pack permanent Sharpees (don't buy if you already have most colors, needs to be permanent) ($4)

What I didn't pay for:
26 large paint swatches, assorted colors
5 large paint swatches in a light gray color

What I didn't pay for, but didn't know you had to pay for (and I feel really guilty about it)
Paint sample colors, I did all my letters in light blue and brown (blue for the dark swatches, and brown for the light swatches) and the basic roy g biv plus gray, black, brown, and white.

Extra items around my house were a lead pencil, tape, a computer with printer access.

Okay first thing, something I will do different if I EVER remake this: MAKE SURE YOU SAND YOUR METAL OIL PAN BEFORE PAINTING.  I have a tendency to jump right into things without thoroughly thinking them through (and sometimes reading the directions, this was a case of the directions). The paint does some silly stuff where is pulls away from the metal in funky areas, and when you put your second layer on, it looks really divoty (if that's even a word haha). And I don't think you have to sand it a lot, just enough for it to not be smooth any more.

So painting the pan is what took the longest.  I literally put a new coat on for 4 days straight.  The first two days, ding bat Randi didn't sand the metal pan and left it outside to dry and it was very windy those days, so there was all kinds of dirt particles and pieces of leaves, etc, dried into the paint.  Gah.  Third coat, one of the cats stepped on it and left a paw print, as well as a few blue paw prints on my table and I touched the almost dry paint, smudging it.  Finally, the fourth layer made it look decent enough to show others.

Painted Oil Pan

Alrighty then.  Next, I printed off the alphabet, A-Z with small letters included in a font that I thought was easy to read and easy to copy.  I also printed off characters the represent each letter (apple, banana, cat, etc).  On the multi-colored paint swatches, I transferred each set of letters on the bottom.  I actually traced around the letter instead of just the general idea of the letter so I would have a reference of where I needed to paint in the lines.  I then used my brown and blue to paint each letter (yes, pain staking, but first of all I could not find ABC flash cards, and by doing this, I probably saved 5 bucks, oh yea, big saver haha!).  Once all those dried, I then transferred the images to the corresponding letter.  Here's how I transfer something from printer paper to something else:

Your general supplies, printed images, the item you want to transfer it to, markers, scissors, tape, and a pencil.

Cut out each image, as you can see, my printer was low on ink, but that doesn't really matter much, these are just the objects you are tracing onto their permanent place cards.

I labeled front size (the side my printer prints on) and back side (for clarification purposes). 

 On the back side, using your pencil, darken where your image is printed on the other side.  The darker you make this the better.  It isn't about how hard you press, but how thick the lead is on the paper, so you don't need to gouge into the paper, just keep shading until dark enough.

 Tape the image to its card (so it doesn't move around on you) with the shaded side down. Trace your image (whether it is the general idea, or it is the actual outline so you can paint it in)

I am so far from perfect, haha, my apple looks crazy. But you have the general idea.

Color in as desired.

 These are my first 6.  I would suggest, for my next time or your first, don't use super dark paint swatches, like dark brown or black.  The drawings you put on your swatches don't show up with permanent marker, so I had to take the image on my printer paper, color it, and attach it to the card.  I honestly don't know how sturdy it is (my son will destroy it in 2.5 seconds I am estimating).

So, don't pick on me, but Y & Z are on the same swatch, because, apparently, I can't count and only picked up 25 swatches at the store, and honestly I just wanted to be done with it, so I didn't make a second trip back to walmart for one stinking swatch haha!

Along the left side are color samples, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Black, Gray and White (on the top, I wrote the spanish word for the colors too).  All I did to make those was cut the 5 paint swatches (or however many you want) in half, put paint in the center, and rounded it with my finger (because the brush was not working for me haha).

Then I glued all of these cards on the pan.  I am considering putting a clear lacquer paint over the top of all the cards to help seal it in.  Anyone think I should??

When Ethan woke up from nap, he found this on the floor (I had just finished gluing it together about 1/2 an hr before and was letting the glue set).  He was SO excited to see objects he knew.  He proceeded to tell me, mommy: apple, banana, cat, elephant (but of course, his translation is app, nana, tat, fant, feesh). He was super excited!



 I tried to use words Ethan already knows, such as cat, dog, zebra, some words were really hard, like xylophone, yoyo, octopus, question mark.  We are going to be working on those I guess.

Okay, so lastly, instead of buying those cheap plastic magnetic letters that always get lost, I thought the larger, block letters would be awesome.  So I glued on the magnetic tape on the back of the block letter puzzle pieces (glued, because even though the magnetic tape is tape, it kept trying to curl back up and off the letters). I also glued on pieces of magnetic to the foam stars.  What I had to do seemed like an extra step, and next time I will look for foam pieces that don't have removable backing to make them sticky. I thought to myself (after I gave Ethan a couple stars to play with and found the peeled off backing on the floor and the stars on my table): if it is that easy for him to remove the backing, then putting the magnetic strip on the back of that paper would be foolish.  But then I thought: if I remove the entire backing, then its going to be sticky where the magnetic strip is not and end up ruined anyway.  So I had the brilliant (and kind of annoying in the end) idea of putting the foam stickers on a pieces of paper, cutting them out, and THEN putting the magnetics on them.  Well, it worked, it was just a pain in my behind doing roughly 30 stars.  Yes, I said 30. I should have stopped at 5.  But I had already stuck all 30 stars on the paper.  (Another example of not thinking things thoroughly).

Ethan had a great time helping me put the matching letters on the matching cards.  Hopefully some time soon Kris will mount it to Ethan's bedroom wall.  Once it is actually there, I will put it on a separate post.  I am just so proud of myself for actually finishing such an intensive project!!!