DIY Tic Tac Toe Game

I hope everyone is enjoying their gifts, especially all those handbuilt gifts!  Today I'm sharing this tic tac toe game that's great for gift giving all year long.  Inspired by my fellow blogger Amy at Her Tool Belt who built an oversized tic tac toe game with free plans here:

Amy's version uses 4x4's for the blocks and I love the chunky size and Christmas motif!  I made this smaller version using a 1 3/4" square dowel for the blocks:

My plans for this smaller version are down below.

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Walk In Closet Makeover plus built in plans

Now that everyone is in full-on organizational mode, purging and cleaning all those closets, I thought it would be a great time to share my walk-in closet makeover.

Fair warning there are A LOT of photos in this post because frankly who doesn't love an organized closet ;)  But for real I tried my best to show you the before and after in all cases plus how I rebuilt, reconfigured and added-on to the existing built-ins.  In addition there are free plans down below to match these built-ins if you're feeling tempted.

This walk-in closet has 3 walls of built-ins and the fourth wall is a window.  Above is the long wall and below is the short wall:

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DIY Truck Shelf

Friends there's still time (14 days to be exact!) to make gifts and today we're sharing a super fun truck shelf.  It's a bookshelf with truck features ready to hang on the wall or sits on its own.  

Today is build #11 of this year's Handbuilt Holiday series with Ana White and myself.  We have done 11 gift plans these past 11 weeks, hopefully you found a plan just right for that special someone and are hard at work building away! 

In case you missed any of the previous plans links to each one are here.  But today is an extremely cute and functional truck shelf and I'm in love!

(PS - it's not just for kids!  I couldn't help myself and threw some trees in the back you might have seen it over on Instagram!)

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Smart Door Hardware Giveaway

Everything is getting smarter these days, including home technology.  I must admit our home is definitely not the smartest (yes I manually adjust the thermostat every morning and night) so one of my goals for 2016 is to make small changes that will help our home work better and smarter.  When Schlage contacted me asking to try their new Schlage Sense^™ Smart Deadbolt I had to give it a whirl and bonus they are offering one lucky reader their own Schlage Sense^™ Smart Deadbolt and Handleset!

Look who's smart now?  I can control the deadbolt on my phone.  I can even have Siri do it for me with voice control!  No more fumbling with keys while my hands are full because my phone is usually in my hands anyways.   The Schlage Sense^™ Smart Deadbolt is designed to work with an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.  And if you happen to have an Apple TV in the home remote capabilities are possible too.

Naturally you would most likely be standing outside to unlock the door but I was having too much fun playing with the app inside I snapped this picture.  The Bluetooth technology works up to about 40 feet in range from the door so you can unlock from the driveway with no problem.

The giveaway entry details are down below.  Schlage has a variety of styles and finish options to choose from for both deadbolts and handlesets, you can see them all here.

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