Modern Olive Green Kitchen Before + After!

Our kitchen renovation is DONE! I’m excited to share the full room tour of our modern olive green kitchen with stacked tile, light wood details and matte black fixtures and hardware. In the before and after video, I’ll share all our design dreams and how we balanced DIY and contractors to make it happen in our budget!

3 Ways: How to use Printable Practice Sheets for Hand Lettering

Ever wonder how to use the printable practice sheets I share to improve your hand lettering? Here’s THREE ways to use them for brush lettering. Including how I use tracing paper for practice and how to use a light box to practice watercolour and brush and ink lettering with thicker paper!

68 Flares 68 Flares ×

This post has been sponsored by Home Depot Canada- see my full disclosure and policies here.

A few years back, I made a gift guide for Father’s Day full of things I thought weren’t lame. I really love to give gifts but honestly- we are at a point when spending money on gifts that aren’t needed/wanted feels wasteful even though they’re totally thoughtful and bring a smile. So as we’re busy working on renovations for our home- gift cards are on the top of Shane’s wishlist at every holiday. Even though I KNOW that GCs are top of his list, I feel like that’s totally boring on it’s own. So, when I was challenged by Home Depot Canada to share my idea for a perfect Father’s Day Gift… I thought it was time to get creative. So the kids and I teamed up and made it a bit of a challenge for him to get his hands on it with this DIY Gift Card Crate!

Now, you could totally gift it with a pry bar to help them break in… but we already have those and the kids think he should use a hammer to pry each nail out instead- I figure we’ll let him decide how to get into it.

Making this is really simple! Especially if you take advantage of Home Depot cutting the wood for you (did you know they will do that!?).

I used one 1×8- the shortest one available is cool. Have it cut to size there or bring it home to chop up on your own. This means two square pieces (7 1/4 x 7 1/4) and 4 pieces slightly smaller (6 1/2 x 5 3/4) is what I used. When you get them home- just nail them together. We used some finishing type nails we had on hand but as long as they’re 1″ or longer, you’re set. We used a LOT more nails than you need to since the piece of wood we had was a tiny bit warped and half the nails didn’t get nailed in quite straight- but the hammer operators were sure cute, so it was worth the patience ;).

I had planned to build the box myself and let them hammer on the lid, but they were too excited to help, so they helped with all sides (which took a reaaaally long time). If you are having kiddos help build this- I found it was easiest to nail the corners in myself, then to start all the other nails and let them go at it. I tried letting them do the first nail and it was a mess… but they totally loved it. Aubrey was actually the star of this operation which was a total surprise to me! Usually Emmitt is the big helper but little miss stuck around until it was completely finished and nailed the most out of everyone.

When it’s done, you could gift it as is, give it a nice stain to make it look classy, or let the kids decorate it- which is what mine chose. I took photos after they wrote his name on, but they decorated all sides within minutes after.

Well… That’s it! I also shared a video of the process on YouTube, I’ve added that in below for ya. If you make one of these, I’d love to see a photo! Share with me on social media @colleenpastoor or by email colleen@lemonthistle.com