Craft Time

 

Time sure flies by lately. I have missed a few weeks but in general I feel like I have missed a few weeks of life as work has been so busy. I miss crafting and sleeping and baking. It all feels like one big haze since mid August.

I did do a little craft. I made a painted letter. Way back when, we painted letters like this at a Birthday party that I had. Everyone came up with their own designs and used the colours of their choice. I quite liked the one I made. I still have it. It would look perfect on the door of a nursery or little kid’s room and I have a perfect little sweetie to make one for so take a look at the creation that I made.

First of all you will need a wooden letter. I picked an S which I got from the craft store. The one I got was painted white.

Next choose your colours and design. I went with a soft bright purple and I decided on a lady bug crawling design so I also needed red and black paint. I based this off a another S I painted at my Birthday party. I basically used a lady bug stencil and I traced out a path for my lady bug to follow.

You want to completely paint your letter with a few base coats and allow to dry before you start marking out your design.

                                   

Once it’s all dry then you can trace out what you want to paint or you can free hand it. I plotted out where I wanted my lady bug to go (three points) and then with a pencil I made a little dotted line path for it to follow.

I painted the lady bug in red with a thick coat which I let dry overnight and used black for the antennae.

Next I painted over my sketched dotted line with black ink.

Lastly after everything was dry, I sprayed it with a sealer so that it would last longer.

Now all I have to do is wrap it up and give it away!

Champagne Beach - DIY Glass Etching

This week is going to be a fun one! We picked a shade called “Champagne Beach” by Tarte and it’s a gold sparkly shade which I’d love to try out. So sparkly, so gorgeous! We are going to do something that we have never tried before and that’s glass etching.

Inspired by our shade of the week, we are going to try glass etching on champagne glasses.

Before even starting, we went on a field trip and bought some champagne glasses (we were surprised at how inexpensive they were and such good quality too). We also picked up a glass etching cream by Folk Art. You can buy some stencils (sticky ones are good for this) or you can do what we are doing and that is to make your own (we are doing this in a couple of different ways).

When we got home we thought up some designs for these glasses. We bought six of them so we are going to try out a variety of techniques and designs. We went with some more generic and Summery designs that can be enjoyed at any time but this would be a fun project for weddings and bridal showers as well. In our research we saw lots of initials etched, but that might be better with a bought stencil as nice lettering is harder to cut freehand like we are doing to make some of our stencils.

We printed a turtle and seashell on sticky label paper and cut them out like this...

Another way to put a design on a glass is by creating a design with masking tape or painter’s tape...

To make polka dots, we will use reinforcements on the glass.

As something different, we wanted to make the entire glass have that etched look and then make our design “clear” so we're punching out a couple of sizes of hearts (on sticky labels or paper) and scattering them on the glass.

Before even starting, please read the instructions on your glass etching kit/cream. Make sure you are in a well ventilated area and have on something to protect your clothing as well as rubber gloves and maybe even a mask. You don’t want to get this stuff on your skin so make sure you are careful.

First of all make sure you have a clean protected area to do your glass etching. Make sure the glasses are wiped with rubbing alcohol and then washed with warm soap and water.

Prepare your glasses by laying out the designs.

Now apply the glass etching cream to the areas on your glasses that you want. Remember not to apply the etching cream to any areas of your glass that you don’t want etched. Cover these areas and tape them off.

The etching cream that we used was quite runny and thin compared to the thicker ones that we saw on some video tutorials. We tried shaking it up but it still stayed very runny so we applied a couple layers.

The first layer was thinner so we patted it on and tried to make it as even as possible. Since it was so runny, we had to lay the glasses down as they were drying so that they didn’t drip. That didn’t work 100% for us though.

After the layers have dried (for the brand of cream we used, it was about 15 minutes from the last layer that we applied) you can run the glasses under room temperature water and wash off all of the etching cream. This will also help loosen the stencils and tape that you applied on. Make sure you wash the glasses really well before using them.

We were pretty much happy with how they turned out. Some of the etching cream must have run through our stencils or the stencils weren’t stuck down enough so you might want to try a vinyl peel and stick style stencil or just make sure the stickers are really stuck down. Or you might want to make sure that your etching cream is a thicker one.

Overall, our glass etching turned out quite well. At first we thought the etching was kind of light but after leaving them a couple of days, we can actually see it quite nicely on the glasses!

DAD Card

Father’s Day is coming up and today we’re sharing a really simple idea for a card for dad.

All you need is patterned paper, cardstock in the colour card you want to make and one for a layer, glue, letters to trace, and scissors.

First of all find some letters that you can trace and cut out. We are using the Silhouette to cut our letters, but if you don’t have one, no worries, just find letters in Word and in the font and size you want and print and cut them out to trace.

Pick a colour for your card first. We chose a dark brown for our card colour as it matches the patterns that we like. We made the card our regular 6 ¾ x 4 ¾ inches.

Now choose a layer the top. We went with Kraft as it matches the card and pattern well. On this layer, you are going to using a cutting machine to cut out or trace on top and cut out, the letters DAD. Our card is vertical but if you want to do a horizontal one, then that works too.

Pick one pattern or multiple patterns to put behind your DAD. Our letters are roughly 1 ½ x 1 ½ inches in size. We are using the same pattern for the top and bottom letter so we just glued one strip down for both and then a small piece of different pattern paper to go under the A. If you’re using multiple patterns then you can glue pieces of each behind the letters.

Now glue the top layer onto the card and you’re done.

We left ours blank inside but you can stamp or print words on the inside if you like.

Soooooo simple, but a really neat looking card for your dad this Father’s Day.

DIY Thanksgiving Placemats

Thanksgiving is on its way and we’re going to do a post today about getting your table ready. We’ve done napkin ring holders, place cards, and how to set the table before, so we’re going to create some place mats with a Fall – Thanksgiving theme. 

These are really easy to make and the kids can get involved. You can make them as creative as you want to or as simple as you want to. I have made them before for birthdays (one was a circus theme and one was a tea party). 

For our placemats we bought a pad of newsprint from the dollar store. They are quite thin, so you can get a thicker type of paper if you prefer and in the colour of your choosing. Our paper measures 11x15 inches which is a good size for a placemat; that way you can fit the dishes and cutlery all on it.

We created two different ones with different techniques.

 Nicole made one using cut out cardstock shapes. She used her silhouette and made a “Give Thanks” pie. She cut an orange pie top, a tan coloured crust, and rusty coloured hearts for the top of the pie and corners of the placemat and glued them all on. She also printed “Give Thanks” on the crust part of the pie with her glittery brown pen. It’s very cute and sweet.

I made a very Fall earthy themed placemat. I used coloured pencils and a felt pen to outline after I traced my shapes down. First of all I traced a simple little square boarder around the edges using  stencil that I had from a craft stencilling book. Then I simply found a big maple leaf, cut it out and traced it in the centre of the placemat two times and coloured it in.