Fabric Paint & A Canvas

So just like the picture above says, the big deal about this is using Fabric Paint to make your design for your canvas,—no Silhouettes, or Stencils or the ‘using sicker letters and peeling them off’,—Here’s a brief explanation of what I did:

I created this canvas as a gift for my mom.  My son calls her “Mamaie” (Ma-mai-eh) which is Grandma in Romanian and their favorite song to sing together is “You Are My Sunshine” and so this little canvas was born.

I prepped my canvas and painted it with Acrylic paint.  I was going for it to look like the sun was rising and chasing away the darkness; my mom thought that it looks like the deep ocean and then coming into the shore and the sandy beach.  Either way I just painted it by plopping a ‘blop’ of acrylic paint in the section I wanted it, one each of blue, turquoise, and yellow, and then blended them across the canvas horizontally and then down into each other.

I put the canvas aside to let it dry.  In Photoshop I created a little subway art with the words of “You Are My Sunshine” that I wanted on the canvas.  I printed it out on plain paper.

Grab a FREEBIE on my Facebook Page under my “Exclusive Content” tab.  Get your own “You Are My Sunshine” Subway art.


Then I grabbed my dimensional Fabric Paint

and a piece of wax paper.  I lay my subway art down on the table and laid my wax paper over top and taped it down a bit so it wouldn’t move on me.  Then I got to work tracing the words in Fabric Paint onto the wax paper.  (When doing this you want to make sure that you’re not going too thin with the fabric paint so it’s easy to peel off the wax paper when it dries.  If the paint is too thin then your letters/art may rip or stretch out.)

I also printed out a little abstract doily that I traced too.  I let them dry for a couple hours.  Once dry, I began to peel the letters off and arrange onto my Canvas the way I wanted.  When I was completely happy with it (I had to make sure cause after the next step there was no going back) I grabbed my Mod Podge (I LOVE this stuff) and went over the letters and doily to glue it all down.  You may need to hold onto the letters with your finger or the end of a paintbrush so wen you brush the Mod Podge over top you don’t pick up any letters—they’re a pain to straighten down again.  After the letters and my doily were dry I covered my entire canvas with Mod Podge to seal it. 

Voilà!  My beautiful canvas! 
Now depending on your canvas and what type of finished sides it has you may be satisfied and move on to another project.  Well I wasn’t satisfied. So…

…I grabbed some pretty cardstock and cut strips to match the width of the sides of my canvas and Mod Podg-ed it on;  then sealed the sides with another coat on top.  Gave my canvas a pretty ribbon effect all around…also hid a couple ugly staples (I hate it when they staple canvases on the side!)
There now you have your own beautiful piece of art and I’m sure many more will be on the way…at least for me they will be!

Mother’s Day Brunch

So you might be looking at this picture and thinking that I’m slightly behind the times seeing as how it was Father’s Day yesterday and Mother’s Day was about a month ago; or you might be thinking that I like to plan really far ahead!  Either way read on because, although this is what I did to celebrate Mother’s Day this year, my Ideas, Tutorials, and Recipes can be used for any party, and any time of the year. 


So I knew I wanted a theme that was really bright and happy.  Something a little bit modern and definitely fun.  Off to Pinterest I went in search of inspiration.  I came across the picture above.  It’s from Amanda's Parties To Go.  She has a great site and freebies to print.  Her freebies also inspired me to make my own from scratch.  I made them using Photoshop.   

I made these signs to stick in with my flowers in vases and to pin to crepe streamers which I tied around the chairs. 




I also made little circle tags to attach to my napkin rings and narrow tags to wrap around the stems of glasses.
















I really like how my napkin rings turned out.  They were so very easy to do.  Here’s How I made them… (click 'read more' to keep reading)

Cards Galore!

So there have been a few events in my life in the past couple of months that all warranted a hand-made greeting card.  I thought you might like to see what I’ve been up too…


This was a birthday card for my brother-in-law.  I have a hard time with making male cards but I love how this turned out.  I printed out the ship and frame separately from Photoshop so I could have the 3D effect.  The tag I also designed in Photoshop but was inspired from Stamping Up.  You can see more of my “male” cards here.


This was a super easy Thank You card for a family friend.  I love purple and orange together.  Check out some other Thank You Cards.


I made this card for a baby shower.  I really enjoy hand coloring images, especially ones with kids or Precious Moments characters.  Download some free Precious Moments Boy images here.


Another Precious Moments card.  This one I had made for a special anniversary.  I love layering papers, it helps give a card more depth.

 
This card is one of my new favorites.  I had a different version of this card that I had made last year for a friends wedding but my new 2-1 border punch from EK Success really makes this version pop!  The image is a royalty free stock photo that I found and the tag is made by me through Photoshop.  You can’t tell in the photo but both are raised up to be 3D.


More Precious Moments…I think I have a slight obsession!  I made this card using a template from Wendy Bird Designs.  It was great fun to cut up the different papers and arrange them on the different sections of card. 


This was my card to my mother for Mother’s Day this year.  The card is stamped with Stampin’ Up’s “Very Vintage Jumbo Wheel Stamp”.  Love that stamp.  It provides such a great, aged look.  I cut the chick out and made her 3D with pop dot stickers;  embossed the “Oh My God” with my Versarmark Marker and Bronze embossing powder.  If you don’t own a Versamark Marker then get one—it has become my favorite embossing tool!  The half flower on the right side of the card is made like my Accordion Flowers post. 


And my last card for this post.  This was the card from my little guy to his Mamaie (that’s Grandma in Romanian).  Isn’t he sooo talented at just 2 & 1/2?!  LOL.  The image of the little fellow I printed out in Photoshop along with the surrounding frame.  The pretty punch is a 2-1 border and chain punch from eksuccess.  Watch for my next post to see how I used that punch for party décor…

So glad you stopped by to see what I’ve been up too…
Hope we can visit again soon and if you have any questions about how I made any of my cards leave me a comment and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

Happy Cardmaking!

A Birthday Party

Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of being a event planner.  I’ve always wanted to have big, glamorous dinner parties that would we be written about in flashy magazines.  Now that I’ve reached adult maturity (at least somewhat…), I realized that life’s dreams are not always attainable and that sometimes we need to scale them back a bit, but, our new dreams are still fabulous in their own way.  For example I’m not a ever-so-popular event planner but I am a crafter, blogger and learning DIY-er who still gets to share her creations with others.  And the big, glamorous dinner party turns into something I can make, even with a tiny budget, if I just use my creative skills and some imagination. 

Which is exactly what I did for my hubby’s party this year.  I used Photoshop, the dollar store and my own ideas to make his party this year.  Now would be when I show you my fabulous party with pictures that make you drool, except that being that I had some 25+ people over and I was trying to finish setting up before hubby came home (it was a surprise party) that I forgot to take pictures of everything finished…yes I did cry a little when I realized that…but I will share with you the photos I do have and some free printables at the end of this post…

I have a lack of tables in my home.  I would love to have a buffet table that I could set up and decorate but until that day comes I grab what ever little tables I can find and hide and decorate them.  For this party I covered that tables with a white with green polk-a-dot fabric that I had from my own baby shower from 3 years ago.


I cut the fabric up and gave it a swag which I held in place with pinned tissue paper flowers.  I made them like my Napkin Flowers which you can find here. 




I made a birthday subway art and put it into a $3.00 frame that I found at Wal-Mart and set it on the table with my bright green plates and cutlery.

I wrapped my cutlery in a napkin and put the napkin in a napkin ring.  I made the napkin rings by wrapping paper towel holder cardboard tubes in white contact paper.  I then splotched them with green sparkly acrylic paint and glued on a tag that I made in Photoshop and finally added a little jeweled flower.

 As some accents on the tables I had yellow flowers in stemless wine goblets, which also had a tissue paper flower attached to a toothpick all floating in green water.  For another accent I had little flowers inside a small glass jar.  It doesn't seem like much, but it added a bit of color and dimension to my tables.

One my juice table I had put my mini champagne glasses which had more little labels that I had made in Photoshop.  As you can tell I really like to use Photoshop!  I didn’t get a finished picture with my punch bowl and the glasses filled up but hopefully you can imagine what it looked like from this picture…


A combination of the tags on the right were on the stems of the glasses on the left.  Sorry it’s so hard to see.




Above the juice table I had my Happy Birthday Banner which I had also done up in Photoshop.  I added a paper flower I made too.  It’s a 12”x12” sheet of cardstock cut into 1” wide strips with the ends folded into the center and pinned together with a brad.


Above the other tables I had more decorations that I had made from cardstock.





This was such a fun and easy party to create. It was a great basis for more parties. Check out my Facebook Page for some FREE Printables!  Look under my Exclusive Content tab!

Happy Partying!

DIY Gripper Socks

So I’m sad to say that I did not come up with this fabulous idea, I had originally found it on Pinterest a while back, but nonetheless it is still totally awesome! 

So as you may know, if you’ve been following my blog, I have an adorable 2-1/2 year old boy.  He loves to run and run and run around the house.  Because of this I have tried to make sure I only buy him grip socks, to help do my part in preventing slips and falls.  However as he gets bigger, grip socks are less common for his size; and he’s received socks from others that are soft and comfy but he can’t wear because he’ll fall all over the place; and the gripper socks from the store are often thicker and more plush which makes for a tight fit in shoes, so when we go over to someone else’s home I’ve actually had him wear non-grip socks inside his shoes and then switch into grip socks when we arrive.  So now you can understand my dilemma and see how truly important grip socks are to our family! (I bet you didn’t think this post would be so serious did you?! lol)

Anyways, after I saw the pic on Pinterest, I immediately went out and bought a bottle of Tulip Slick Dimensional Fabric Paint.  You can use any brand you like, the idea is just that the paint is dimensional, so it dries raised and rubbery-hence providing the grip.

Then I grabbed my little ones socks and went to town.  *Note:  Make sure the socks have been washed to avoid any shrinking/stretching and other fabric deformations before you make your designs.  Also, thick designs can tend to stretch and crack when worn, so keep that in mind when drawing.

Okay, I know you’re tired of looking at socks but one last pic ‘cause these are my favorite!

I think I’ll go and make some of these for myself…perhaps they’ll say “Best Mom Ever”…hmm…
Hope You Enjoyed,
Happy Crafting,