Sunday, November 28, 2010

Hat and Costume Tree Rack Tutorial

My 2 year old daughter loves hats. Pirate hats, cowgirl hats, funny animal hats, princess crowns....I could go on and on. If it goes on your head, Scarlett is happy. She's also a fan of dress-up and has two wonderful grandmas who constantly buy her costumes. Needless to say, she has a whole lot of stuff and nowhere to put it. Enter: the Hat and Costume Tree.


I normally refuse to do any craft type shopping without a coupon, but the growing mountain of dress-up paraphernalia was making me crazy and I headed over to Lowe's. I bought a 2' by 4' sheet of wood, 3 packs of curved hooks and 6' of chain to hang the costumes from. I was also super lucky to get a big can of $32 mistinted blue wall paint (which happened to be the color I was looking for) for $5! I already had some acrylic paint and Mod Podge at home, so it wasn't completely new materials. :) Here's the fun part. I took my sister along with me for supplies and we got a little carried away with the paint samples...

I started off by painting the wood. I ended up using 2 coats. *note to self-next time don't pick a windy fall day to paint outside!*
Forgive the mess!
 Once it was dry, I took a pencil and sketched out two tree shapes along the left and right sides of the board.

Next, I measured out 3 rows of 8 hooks each on the front and marked with pencil for the hooks. I also started drilling the holes. Yay! Power tools! Once my holes were drilled, I used acrylic paint to color in the tree trunks. I tried my best to paint it on thick, but ended up happy with the texture so I didn't bother with a second coat.



I took the paint samples from Lowe's and divided them into two piles, greenish and red/brownish. I decided to do a summer tree and a fall tree. After I had two piles, I started to cut out leaf shapes from the swatches. With a little Mod Podge, I started layering on rows of leaves. *I screwed in the hooks that were going to be in the trees before I started with the leaves*



After the trees were finished and the glue had dried, I took my trusty MP and coated a sealing coat all over the tree tops to keep them there and make them glossy. :)



While that was drying, I painted on a few butterflies, flowers and a caterpillar as decoration and screwed in the rest of the hooks.

Here's the mostly finished project:


And here it is in use:


I haven't attached the chains to the sides of the rack yet, but I haven't picked up any toddler hangers for her costumes yet either, so they are currently in a reusable shopping bag for now... *I decided not to hang up the chains. She's too little to use hangers anyway.


Hope you like it!


I've linked up here:

Pink Hippo Party

Making


6 comments:

  1. This is sooo stinkin adorable! What a lovely solution to the dress up mess (I have the same problem at my house.. only in the form of boy costumes!) Thanks for sharing with the Pink Hippo Party.. can't wait to see what you come up with next week!

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  2. Hi! I gave you a blog award! Hope you claim it @ http://pinkapotamus.blogspot.com/2010/12/31st-and-91st-birthday-and-award.html

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  3. Sarah, this is the first time I've visited yor blog and I love it. Your hat and costume tree is awesome. I'll be checking often, as I do with scarletts blog. Love you! Kisses to Scarlett.
    LOVE,
    Gramby

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  4. too cute!! Thanks for linking up yesterday!! I appreciate all the posts I can get!!

    ~ Nikki

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  5. Very clever and cute- Thanks for auditioning for American Crafter!

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