Screen Door

Have you ever been to that restaurant in Portland called Screen Door?  That is what this post title reminds me of.  You can get so much fried chicken there, it is nothing short of amazing!  That's not the kind of screen door I'm talking about right now though.  The one I'm talking about just made my apartment feel more like home.  I made a screen door!  Now my cat can't escape when I want to leave the door open!  I've been waiting for my screen door for months, and I finally had time to do it :)

Here is a quick picture tutorial on how to make one yourself.  You will definitely need at least two people to do it.

Here is what you need:

5 pieces of wood
A drill and drill bits
Measuring tape
Clamps
A Ruler
A razor blade
Long screws, depending on how thick your wood is (I think our screws were around 3")
Other regular screws
A hand saw
Screen material
at least 2 hinges
an eyelet latch
a handle
a friend

The very first thing you need to do is measure your door frame where your screen will go.  Ours measured something like 80.5" x 36"

Then you will need to measure the wood pieces

We measured two long pieces and two short pieces.  All together your frame will have 4 pieces of wood.  Later you will add 1 more piece somewhere in the middle as a support.  We'll get to that in a minute!

Then we clamped our wood down to our coffee table (limited work space here!!)

We used the razor blade to make a measuring mark on where we wanted to cut the wood.

Annnnd SAW!!  When sawing it is best to "let the saw do the work." Just  rock the saw back and forth gently and it will cut through the wood super easy.  Be sure to have a vacuum handy because there will be sawdust!

Fix your beard and continue...

Drill two holes (for extra support) where you want your screws to go.  This depends on the width of your wood.  Our width was pretty thick so we had to drill through the wood as much as possible so that the screw would actually attach to the smaller piece.  Make sure the drill bit that you use to drill holes in the wood is slightly larger than the head of the screw that you are using.

Clamp the two pieces together and get ready to screw them together!

We got super cute blue screws at the hardware store.  They aren't meant for wood but they still work and they were super long!

We got pretty excited about making the skeleton of the screen door and we decided to test it out in the door frame...

It fits!

After all the excitement we added the support piece in the middle.  Make sure to place the support piece  lower or higher than the door knob to your main door!

We then added screen material to what we considered to be "the back of the door"  and we used a staple gun to fix it to the wood.  I stood on the wood while Brian pulled it SUPER taut.  The long side took about 10 staples, while the short side took about 5.  We didn't staple gun the support piece.

When we were done staple gunning the screen material, we used a ruler and the razor blade to cut off the excess material.  Ow on your knees if you have a hard wood floor!  Oh well.  It took about 8 minutes to do this.

Finally you add the hinges, about 10-12 inches down from the top and bottom of the door.  The short side of the hinge is affixed to the wood, while the long side is affixed to the door frame outside.  Make sure you know which way you want your door to open!!

This is the hinge after we fastened it to the door.

We also wanted the screen to lock from the inside, so we bought this eyelet hook piece.  The hook screws into the door frame, and the eyelet screws into the screen.  We put the lock at the same length as our support beam.  I guess you could put the lock wherever you want, though...

Lastly we added the door handle.  I think the handle is meant for drawers and stuff.  I liked the flower pattern and it was on clearance.  Perfect!

Here is our little country screen door all finished...

****NOTE:  Be sure to subtract the space that the hinge will take up in the door frame when you are measuring the short side of your wood.  I'd say it takes up about 3/16".



P.S. Screen Door Portland.  I want it!

Vote for me Elsiecake!

Here is a larger version of the photo I just submitted for the H&M personal style contest,
minus the Instagram filter :)

Fun Project: Glitter Banners!

I thought of making a glitter banner because my sister is having a baby shower and the party needed some festive decorations.  I love working with glitter.  It makes everything bright and sparkly and fun!  I think the project turned out really well and I want to do more banners in the future using different color glitters!

To do this project you will need the following:

1. Thin Cardboard 8.5x11 (Like a cereal box)
2. Letters printed out on 8.5x11 paper,  700 to 800 pts, any font, up to 2 letters per page
3. Spraymount
4. Exacto knife or blade
5. Glitter (I used Martha Stewart brand)
6. Paint Brush
7. Mod Podge or glue
8. Yarn or thick string
9. Scissors
10. A folder or a folded piece of scratch paper 8.5x11 or larger
11. Masking tape or scotch tape

I didn't get a chance to get the very first steps photographed, but they are the easiest to do!

First you need to spray mount your printed letters to the cardboard.  Cut the letters out with scissors once the paper has bonded to the cardboard.

Once you have cut out the letters, you will need to take your exacto knife or razor blade and cut out any extra white paper on the inside of the letter (for example the letter A will still have white space on the inside to cut out)



Once the white space inside the letters are carefully cut out,  use your paint brush to coat your entire letter with your glue or Mod Podge. (Finished example below). Only a thin layer of glue will be enough.

Once you have coated the letter with glue, you can sprinkle on the glitter!  Remember to put a sheet of folded paper under your letters to catch the excess glitter.

Once the glitter has coated the entire letter, return the excess glitter to it's container for later use.

Repeat these steps the desired amount of times to create all of the letters that you will use in your banner. (I did it 9 times for my banner.)

Allow banner letters to dry overnight.  The next day, put another coat of Mod Podge on top of the glitter with dabbing motions.  If you don't have Mod Podge, be sure to use a glue that dries clear.  This helps really well to seal in the glitter so it doesn't come off of the letters.  If the letters curl a little, try putting them under a heavy book for an extra night after they have completely dried.

When the letters have dried and are flat as can be, there is nothing more to do than attach the string to the back of them.  I literally just eyeballed about a quarter inch down from the top of each letter, and masking taped the string so that the tape was hidden from the front view.  I also Mod Podged the string over the masking tape for extra hold.  I am sure there is a cleaner way to do this.  Maybe clear tape would work better. Or perhaps you can crazy glue pieces of straw to the back of the letters and insert the yarn through there.  I'll have to try that next time.  Anyway, I would leave about 4 feet of yarn slack on either side for hanging the banner up.

Here's what it looks like done.  I'll be using it for my sister's baby shower next week!  (hopefully I will have photos to post for that too.)

Friday Favorites #2

Hey!  Here is some cool stuff that I found this week.  What did you find?
Happy Friday!

These fantastic toilet paper rolls

This seed baring cigarette

This "Sandwich Book"

These hipster Greek Statues

Adorable salt and pepper shaker set

•Everyone knows that Corgis are the cutest dogs ever, but what about a hybrid?  ALSO CUTE, FYI.

•The most amazing thing I've ever seen done in EXCEL

•I want him, its TOO CUTE!

•#hashtag banner

•Check out this cute LATTE ART

Aviation Submission Roundup

My friend Alyson  and I LOVE Portland, Oregon,  and we also LOVE cocktails, so entering the Aviation Gin photo contest seemed like a no brainer!!  We were hoping so bad to win a trip to "The city of roses",  and to tour the Aviation Gin facility, but sadly we were not the ones randomly selected in the drawing.  We were however, given a couple of  honorable mentions on the Aviation blog! Anyhow, we ended up with some pretty interesting photos for their contest, and here they are all in one place.

(Thank you Brian R. for being present at every one of these shoots, and offering your equipment, skill, and advice!)

Some things about the photos-

Photo 1:  I shot the bottle against a pink background and thought it needed something else, so I added a gradient and some circles in Photoshop.  I also got this thing called a "fry cup" at a restaurant supply store and added those colorful circles to it on Photoshop.  Its pretty much impossible to find snow cone cups anywhere, especially on short notice.  There was a lot of color tweaking in this photo.  I enhanced the snow cone color, and the color of my my hand.  I really did make a snow cone for this competition. This particular snow cone was cantaloupe, habanero and orange syrup.  The original idea for this photo was to have three hands and three snow cones of different colors, and I really did make the syrup for all three flavors, but I ran out of time, so I had to improvise with using only one flavor.

Photo 2:  I love the way this one turned out.  We pretty much stuck with the original idea of this photo,  "50s slumber party"-the only real change we made was that we used color instead of making it in black & white.  This photo kind of came together miraculously.  All of these pretty girls just happened to be free that day, and on a whim, I asked Hannah if she had a vintage hand held mirror and brush, and alas, she did!  I think it really enhanced the picture.  The only thing I would change is that I would take Dorian's watch off.  I totally missed that one!!

Photo 3: I felt kinda lost on this photo, but had fun hanging with my girl Hazel.  I bought clothes from Forever 21 (word to the wise, they do not do returns for a refund! ouch!) I made the best looking Spicy Red Snapper EVER (equivalent of a Bloody Mary).  It had a whole frekin' breakfast as a garnish: (veggie) Sausage, silver dollar pancakes, TATER TOTS, a hard boiled egg, celery, jalapeño, and habanero.  It looked like a million bucks.  I should have gotten a closer shot.  The scene is supposed to be a club or bar scene, with two people who are opposites, but are united by their gin drinks.  The drinks they have chosen define their personality, as opposed to how they are dressed.

Photo 4:  This was the first photo that we took for the competition.  I already have it somewhere on this blog.  I had to eat SO MANY (veggie) HOT DOGS for this damn photo shoot.  I will never eat another hot dog again, ever.  The burger was also vegetarian, and I think Alyson was sick of them by the end of it too.  It was really fun to have her and her roommate Scott over to do this shoot though, even if we did get sick of BBQ foods.

Photo 5:  I had a lot of fun hanging out at the park at night doing this shoot.  Aly jumped off of this ledge so many times!  It must have gotten really hot in that leather jacket and that hat.  We were at this park in Mid-City Los Angeles at around 10pm at night and there were still children playing in it!  We left around 11:30, and I remember seeing this couple pushing a kid on a swing that must have been no older than 2.  I guess there is a whole night park culture that I knew nothing about.  I had to Photoshop some of the water back in, because it got cut off!!

Anyway, hope you like these pics.