Make Something: Corn Hole aka Bean Bag Toss DIY

As part of Jason's 30th Birthday Extravaganza my gift to him was a completely DIY'd corn hole/bean bag toss board set.  This was my first multistep building project and I'm pretty proud to say it turned out swimmingly.  And Jason liked it, so that's always a bonus.  There are multiple steps involved, which I've called phases to keep them straight.  Let me know if you have any questions!  *Caution: lengthy post ahead.

I followed the instructions from here, although I didn't need the sewing instructions or the painting instructions.

 Phase One - Construction

First up is the actual construction part.  Check the instruction list for a full list of supplies.  When purchasing your 2x4' try to get the straightest ones you can find.  I rummaged through about 24 before I picked the ones I needed.  If they have any decent bend or warping, it's going to make squaring up the frame kind of sucky.

Also, Home Depot (at least mine) sells pre-cut boards that are the exact size of the top of the frame.  The good news about this is that you don't have to rely on the Home Depot employees to cut a piece of plywood down for you.  The bad news is that the selection was minimal.  As a result, I had to buy much cheaper wood than I would have liked.  This resulted in my needing to improvise Phase Two.  Buy the smoothest wood you can find.  I could have gotten a piece of plywood sized down, but I have only had terrible luck with Home Depot doing cuts for me so I decided to use the cheaper pre-cut wood and smooth it over with a healthy amount of spackling paste.

One other note, the instructions say that the clamps are "optional."  I have no idea how you could build this thing without them.  I was working alone and I would never have been able to put together a square frame without the clamps holding everything in place.

Document proof that you're actually the one doing the building.  And notice the super trendy safety googles. Better that than to lose an eye.

When I cut the 2x4's, I clamped the boards to the saw base.  This prevented me from having to concentrate on balancing the wood while using a saw.  Generally I'd advise against concentrating on anything other than the saw when using something that could cut your fingers off.  The clamps also make sure that you don't mis-cut anything.

Alternatively you could leave all of the cutting to the Home Depot guys.

Measure twice, cut once.  Or in my case, measure 10 times, cut once.

Finished with the cutting.

The instructions don't mention this, but I used a rough sander to smooth down some of the rougher ends of each board.  I also used pliers to remove the staples that are in the boards.

And do notice one of my not-so-handy-but-pretty-cute-assistants.

So this is where the instructions get a little confusing and the clamps get pretty necessary.

Once you are ready to assemble, take the corresponding pieces and clamp them together into an L shape and hold together with the clamps.  I used a scrap piece of wood to help hold both pieces in place.  This will help keep everything flush when you start making the screw holes and inserting the screws.

The holes/screws you are making are pretty decently sized.  You'll need to create pilot holes using a variety of drill bits.  Start small and work your way up.  The drill bit with the tape is actually one size larger than the actual screw.  I used this at the very end to drill a tiny way down.  This widens the top of the hole and countersinks your screw so that the head of the screw is not protruding from the side of the wood.  This isn't necessary for the frame but is necessary for the top.

Your pilot hole and screw will pass through the horizontal board and into the vertical board and thereby (thereby, I am obviously a lawyer) join the two together.  I eyeballed the locations, but tried to aim for 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the bottom.

Keep adding piece by piece until your frame it complete.  You may need to tweak the last piece to get everything flush.  If your 2x4's were fairly straight this shouldn't be too difficult.  I didn't have much trouble.

Once the frame is complete center the boards on top of the frame and screw them together, using the countersink method above.  You will also need to make pilot holes for this part as well.  The screw heads really need to be below the board to prevent your bags from catching on anything.  And to be honest, screwing the top in place was the worst part of this entire thing.  I stripped an embarrassing number of screws.

Measure where your center hole should go using a compass and a pencil.  Or in my case a Martha Stewart Circle Measurer thing.  I'm lazy like that.  To cut out the hole use a jigsaw, which is what I did.  It's not a perfect circle but it gets the job done.  If you want it to be perfect you can buy a hole saw to attach onto your drill.  In retrospect, I probably would have just bought the bit and gone this route.  The fact that my circles aren't perfect drive me a teenie bit crazy.

The legs are kind of tricky.  You need to round the tops so that the legs will move freely from resting to standing and so that the feet are flush with the ground.  Read the instructions for complete details, I don't want to mess anyone up.  But below are some progress photos.

I will say that I skipped the stack your board until it's 12" of the ground step.  I am not serious enough about corn hole for that kind of precision.  Instead I just measured 12" from the point that I mitered the feet.  It's not exact, but no one has complained so far that I don't meet "competition requirements."

I will also say that a 3/8" hole is pretty freaking big.  A bit that size wasn't in any of my bit kits.  I ended up making a special trip to Home Depot for the appropriate size bit.  Just a reminder to check before you start.

Insert your bolt, washer and wing nut and tighten.  The legs should move without too much resistance and rest flush on the ground when extended.

Construction is complete!

Phase Two: Spackling

As I mentioned before, my plywood was not at all smooth.  I was fairly concerned that this was going to prevent the bags from sliding across the surface of the board.  You already need to spackle the holes you made screwing the top to the frame.  I took this one step further and spackled the entire surface.  Spackling will give you a super smooth finish regardless of the condition of the wood.  Plus it's basically like frosting a giant cake, except that you have sandpaper to make the surface super super smooth.  I didn't intend to spackle the entire thing, but I'm really glad I did.

You can see the surface wasn't super smooth at first.  But that is easily fixed.  Simply sand the spackle down using various degrees of sanding paper.  And don't worry, spackle sands super easily so it's a fairly quick and fairly easy process.

Once everything is smooth apply a couple coats of primer.

Phase Three: Painting

Once you have finished priming it's time for my favorite part, painting!  I decided in advance that I wanted the boards to have the shape of Texas and be in two contrasting colors.  I enlarged a map image of Texas until it was close to the size of my board.  I printed it out, taped it together (I think it was 6 pieces of paper), cut that out and then traced it onto contact paper.

My theory was that I could put the entire image onto the board and then paint over it.  Peel the contact paper off and voila! Texas!  This did end up working perfectly.  To make the contrasting boards, I needed to have the base color of one board be blue and one board be white.  What I ended up doing was painting a small section of base color roughly in the shape of Texas.  I did about 3-4 coats of the blue and 3-4 coats of the white (simply because I already had to wait for the blue paint to dry).  By not painting the entire board, it made covering up the blue with the white paint much easier. Once the coats dried, I stuck the contact paper down making sure it was only located on the blue/white section of the board, respectively.

I then used a credit card to smooth the contact paper out as much as possible.  This will help prevent any bubbles and keep your shape as clean as possible when you paint the top coats.

One other piece of advice.  When using contact paper, the side with paper is actually the back.  Soooo when you trace your shape onto the paper side, flip it over otherwise it's going to be backwards.  Ask me how I figured this out.

Your contact paper Texas goes on the blue part and then gets painted over with white paint.  It's the complete reverse for the other board.

Once you get the contact paper on simply paint the entire board using the contrasting color.  Another 3-4 coats and your boards should be painted.  Let the paint dry fully before you attempt to remove the contact paper.

I used my handy dandy razor pen to gently peel up a corner of contact paper and then began ever so gently peeling it off.  To be honest, I was slightly terrified removing the contact paper (hence the lack of photos).  It was SO exhilarating once I realize that it was crisp and pretty dang awesome looking!

After that simply slap on a couple (dozen) coats of schellac and your boards are done!  Full disclosure, I bought eggshell paint because I hate high gloss paint.  But the boards need to be high gloss for the bags to slide across them.  As a result, I have applied about 20 coats of schellac and am still going.  You can avoid this by getting high gloss paint from the beginning.

Phase Four: Sewing and Stuffing the Bags

Lastly you're going to need some bags to throw at your new and very awesome corn hole game.  You can actually buy these from a variety of sellers online, but I've ever been one to go that route.  I picked up white and the darkest blue duck cloth I could find and set to work.  If you have any experience sewing, it's really as simple as sewing a pillow.

I bought the paint pen in case I need to do touch ups, but I didn't end up using it.

I wanted my bags to replicate the Texas that was on each of the boards.  So I shrunk the same Texas down to fit on my bags and cut it out from another piece of contact paper.  (This Texas was actually backwards once I pulled the paper backing off.  So remember, flip it when you're tracing.)

I had a bit of a tricky time getting the contact paper flush with the duck cloth to prevent the paint from bleeding.  I tried a rolling pin and credit card.  The credit card worked the best.

Once the pieces were dry it was simple a matter of pinning, sewing, ironing, and stuffing.  Leave a couple inch gap on one side so you can stuff it with your filling.

Stuffing them kind of sucked.  Each bag needs 1 lb of stuffing and you kind of have to force it to get it in there.  I opted for rice this time, because it was the cheapest and easiest thing to get.  I plan to buy the plastic pellets sold specifically for corn hole bags very soon in the future and simply replace the current stuffing with the plastic pellets.

Supposedly you can stitch the final side using a sewing machine.  But after breaking two needles, I decided that my sewing machine was having none of that.  So I ended up hand stitching each bag closed using a very small loop stitch.  It was very tedious and I was already exhausted.  But it actually didn't take entirely too long and then the entire project was FINISHED!!

They've already gotten a decent amount of use (clearly they neeed to be cleaned).  All in all it was a very doable project; not one time did I ever think it was going to be a complete disaster. 

I hope this inspires you to make your own set.  It is so much satisfying to tell people you built those babies from scratch.

Painting Party

Two posts in a row! What what!

Last weekend we celebrated by friend's birthday with a night at Painting with a Twist, which is an instructor led painting session and you can bring in snacks and wine.  So basically it's most of my favorite things rolled into a 2 hour party.

I call myself the traveling party, because more often than not my trunk is filled with a variety of party essentials: platters, decorations, you name it.  But this party takes the cake in the traveling department.  I knew I wouldn't be able to get home and back to the painting place before the class started and have time to set up so I left home with a cooler filled with cheeses, snacks, and wine and trunk full of platters and plates...and carried it into work.  It's days like those I'm thankful that I have my own office to hide random things in.

Snacks included Marcona almonds, brie, the most delicious blue cheese ever, and a sharp white cheddar, some fruit, and various crackers.

A huge shout out to this Whole Foods for carrying a gluten free chocolate cake!  Jennifer can't eat gluten and this is the first time I found a gluten free cake.  ...my baking skills are not quite ready to tackle that feat.

 The beginning on our painting adventure.

The end.

Also, unrelated to the painting party, but I made this as a gift to one of my coworkers for her 10th anniversary with my firm.  I call it crafting: attorney style.

If I finally upload some pictures from my real camera, I may make it three days in a row!

Make Something: Dresser Redux

A while back I painted my dresser green.  You may remember it's less than beautiful appearance on a pervious post.  Truth be told, I hated that color almost immediately.  Initially I had planned on paining it chartreuse, but Jason was way slightly freaked out about the color.  So I tried to strike a compromise and go with something a little less in your face...and ended up with the pale celery.  Is that even a color?

I immediately wanted to repaint it, but I didn't know what color.  So, I left it like that...for almost 2 years.  When I finally stumbled on the perfect pillow fabric, I knew the green had to go...it only took almost another year for that to happen.



So Tuesday night, after missing my yoga class due to a  Girls' Trip planning sesh (yay!), I randomly decided it was high time to paint that stupid dresser.  So I lugged it outside in the 100+ degree heat and went to painting it.  Being the lazy person that I am, I only carted the dresser to my outside landing, which is about 4ft x 8ft.  This did not leave me much room for picture taking, so my apologies for the scant in-progress photos.

Here's the pastel celery in all its glory.

First coat of paint.  It would have covered better if I used primer, but I didn't have any on hand.  And I'm lazy.  The trick with painting is to use thin, even strokes.  Don't worry about perfect covering with only one application.  It's probably not going to happen.  You'll be better off doing 2 or 3 coats (this one took 3) than glopping 1 super thick coat on.

After the 3rd coat of paint, I used a really dark stain (Minwax walnut) to give the paint some extra depth.  I find that paint by itself is a little boring.  There are no picture of this step because it's super messy (I was literally spotted after I finished) and you have to move pretty quickly before the stain dries.  The key to staining something is to cover a small area, let the stain get somewhat tacky and then buff off whatever you do not want.  If you let the stain dry too long it'll be almost impossible to remove.

After staining and letting it dry for over 6 hours, it was time for the shellac.  The instructions said 24 hours for the shellac that I was using, but I figured sitting in the 100 degree sun for 6 hours should be plenty.  The stain wasn't tacky to the touch either, so I was good to go.  Shellac is the easiest step.  Simply brush it on in an even coat and let it dry.  I use a water based polycrylic, because it dries fast and can be cleaned up with water.

 Much better.

Because I am crazy enough to actually paint a rug (DIY)

Awhile back, Sarah Baltare over at Sarah Wandering posted an awesome rug painting tutorial.  After drooling over her creation for an embarrassingly long time, I realized that I had the exact same rug that she'd painted.  And better yet, I'd be wanting to replace it for a while.  Jason thought I was nuts when I pitched the idea to him, but like most of my crazy ideas, he smiled and told me to go for it.  I figured even if I screwed up I'd only be out the cost of paint (since the rug was given to me in the first place.  I'd be lying though if I I said I wasn't a little nervous about the first paint stroke; I mean there wasn't any turning back at that point.  But happily enough, the results came out far better than I hoped for and I'm so glad I didn't chicken out.  So let that be a lesson, sometimes the best results are the ones with the greatest potential for failure.

Annnd when buying all of the supplies, you may want to refrain from telling the guy at Home Depot that you're going to actually be painting a rug.  I mentioned something about painting a rug and he tried to sell me a drop cloth to protect it, as if I don't have a billion of those already.  Pretty sure he thought I was certifiably nutso when I told him my purpose was to paint the actual rug.

Alright, enough jabbering.  Here's the breakdown:

Materials:

• an old rug.  Mine was a sisal rug from Pier1.  I will also be painting this rug from Ikea, which I already own, so maybe you could try that one.
• Latex based primer- and lots of it.  I bought a quart thinking it would be enough and was WAY wrong.   I ended up using almost an entire gallon in addition to the quart.  As a side note, I always by Kilz, but that's just me.
• Exterior grade latex paint.  As Sarah explains in her tutorial, exterior paint is a little sturdier since it's meant to go on houses.
• Arcylic craft paint and paintbrushes

Instructions:

• Vacuum and clean your rug, as best as you can.  You really do not want to paint a dirty rug.

• Using a "rough" brush roller (I think the one I used was meant for stucco.) Begin to paint the rug.  Apply it liberally, but not globbily.  You want to completely coat the fibers.  This is the suckiest and most time consuming part.

This is the incorrect way to prime your rug.  See how many fibers are showing?

This is the correct way to prime.  Much  more even.

And if you're house is prone to hilarity as much as mine, then you're boyfriend may come home and find this:

or this:

And FYI, getting primer off a dog is not exactly fun.

• Once you have the entire rug covered, let it dry.  Then do another coat of primer.  Yes, that's right 2 coats of primer.  Trust me, it'll make the latex cover much much better.  And here is what it will look like after the second coat of primer.

• Let the primer dry and paint with your latex paint.

• And then finally adding the details.  I pretty much copied Sarah's rug, which got it's inspiration from an Anthropologie rug.  The color and pattern matched perfect with my dining room.  Love it when that happens.  Because I didn't want to mess up, I free handed the flowers on the rug with chalk.  I had a print out of the Anthro rug nearby and kept referring to it as reference.

All chalked up.

Paint from the center out to avoid stepping in what you've already painted.  

Finished before I erased the stray chalk lines.  And in case you're wondering, the chalk part took about 30 minutes and painting the flowers took a little over an hour, which is about 3x less time than the first part.

Ta-da!

Honest, I could not be happier with it.

Now get out there and paint your own!  Let me know if you have any questions!