I’ve been applying to many jobs over the course of this week now that my portfolio is pretty much done. I haven’t had much of an opportunity to work on anything else so I thought I’d highlight a past piece of work. Mason has a number themed room (and I swear, because of it, he learned all of his numbers earlier than most) and I wanted to get him a cool clock to match. But I’m usually ahead of the times when it comes to shopping for a specific item and this one was no difference because it’s never been made. Yet. Usually a couple of years after I have my grand scheme, something pops up in the marketplace that would have been perfect.
Anywho, I had an idea of a floating numbers clock. Initially, I wanted the clock to just be a bunch of wooden block numbers glued together into a circle shape so that the wall could be seen through them. Of course, none of these wooden numbers in my head existed within the craft stores of my area (this always happens!). So, I revised my plan and bought a wooden pine circle with a hole in it from Michaels (used my 40% off coupon so it was $6). It was sold as a clock kit so I figured the hole was the perfect size for the clock mechanism that I bought on clearance for $1. I shopped around everywhere trying to find the right numbers and finally found these at Beverlys. The large numbers for the 12, 3, 6, 9 were thicker blocks – pretty much what I wanted initially, just too large to do more than this. The small numbers were actually cardboard for scrapbooking. I think I spent the most money on this purchase because I just could not find anything else nor did I want to buy online and have to pay shipping. So I think I spent $1 each on the big numbers and then bought 3 packages of cardboard cuts in various sizes for $4 each. So in all, the project cost about $25.
First I painted the large circle using the same color paint as the wall color (we have spare paint from when we painted his room). Then I had some red acrylic paint from when I was back in college and taking all of those fun painting and color theory classes…so I used that to paint 2-3 coats on the coardboard numbers. Then I laid out the 12, 3, 6, 9 where they looked good and glued those on with Elmers gue and let them dry. After that was dry, I randomly placed numbers in the center, trying to make them all fit together the best way possible, like a puzzle. I glued those on one by one and let the entire thing dry overnight.
The next day I added the clock mechanism, hung it all the wall (there was even an existing screw) and viola! In my opinion, the coolest clock on the block.
