Archives for March 2011

This post is dedicated to the old carpenter’s adage “Measure Twice, Cut Once.”

I made a lemonade stand for my kids a few years back over an April vacation that we stayed home. They’ve gotten tons of use out of the thing and it’s big, beautiful, and well-made. I designed it myself and had a lot of fun putting it together. The kids have sold all sorts of things at this stand; lemonade, cookies, organic cupcakes, home-made pickles, and hot chocolate on winter days. Sometimes they rally together to sell stuff, or sometimes just one child decides to drag it up to the curb and will sell by themselves for awhile. Luckily I put it on large industrial rolling (and locking) casters so it’s relatively easy to roll around considering how heavy and large it is. One year Maia spent an entire day outside selling lemonade and cookies and gave all of the $165.00 she raised that day to the Humane Farming Association. The kids raised money to send to Haiti after the earthquak. It’s a fun lesson for the kids on hard work, community, and philanthropic endeavors.

It surprises me that 3 years later it’s still in really good shape, except that the lemonade sign is getting a little worn and faded and the top of the stand, or counter might be more correct, could use a fresh coat of paint.

I’ve recently started my Free Range Friday’s in which I’m selling my fresh eggs to a small group of people that get an email blast on Thursday night’s announcing that there will be eggs for sale and how many dozens I have. As the summer progresses and my chickens start laying more productively with the warmer weather I will enlarge my email distribution list.

I’ll add things as they become available, like honey later in the summer, excess vegetables from the garden, and home-made pickles, jams and preserves.

So I thought it was time for a Crafty Farm Girl farm stand sign. I didn’t want to remove the “Lemonade” sign, but wanted to make a farm stand sign that could be removed should the kids want to have a lemonade stand. I wanted it to look more “farmy”, so I thought making it out of 6″ board & batten siding might work well and to give it that barn look I’d use a red milk paint on it. I found a bunch of cute thing to embelish the sign with on sale up at Joan’s Crafts, and blew up my logo at the local Kinko’s so I could transfer the design onto the board.

I started with a piece of plywood I had in the garage. To this I cut the board & batten to the length I wanted, fit them together and screwed them in place onto the piece of plywood.

I used a countersink drill bit to make the screw holes so they were recessed into the wood, so I used a quick-drying wood filler and filled all of the screw holes, let it dry, and then sanded it smooth before painting.I also drilled two larger holes clear through the board that would be where I hunt it from on the current “lemonade” sign. I sanded that hole with tightly rolled sandpaper to get rid of splinters and rough wood.


I painted it all over with a barn red milkpaint and let it dry.



Then using the enlarged logo I’d copies and some carbon paper I transferred to lines of my logo onto the board.



Then I painted the logo using a combination of milk paint and craft paints.



Now I attached the rooster weathervane and the two birdhouses to the top of the sign. All finished and ready to hang up on the lemonade stand. I measured the two hanging holes and drilled in two really large screws into the original ‘Lemonade’ sign to hang the new farm sign from and lifted it into place.

IT’S TOO SMALL! There’s like 6″ on each side where you can see the old lemonade stand behind the farm sign!



This is where I’m finally coming around to the first sentence of this entry. My dad taught me “measure twice, cut once” throughout my life. I have learned by that mistake on more than one occasion. I measured the existing sign probably 3 or 4 times, and even added to to the measurements so it would completely cover the sign., yet somehow here it is; too small. I’ve been busy formulating how I will fix this in my head and I think I’ve come up with a plan. It’s going to drive me crazy until I get it right.

In the meantime, here’s the sign for now. Heavy sigh.

I’ll show you the Second Edition when I’ve got it right.