craft Archives - Page 10 of 11

Monogram Plate

March 24, 2011 By Taylor 42 Comments

Last night, after sulking all day about my crafting slump, I crawled in bed with my copy of Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts (best book ever). I think I am healed, I knew Martha would help! I remembered something I have been thinking about – of a Chevron Striped Plate. Let me explain, I have a plate collection on the walls of my dining room, they all mean something and they all have a story. I even have two plates from two of my great-grandmothers, one of which is handmade. I thought a modern looking Monogrammed Chevron Plate would really give the wall a fresh “springy” look.

Plate Wall

Supplies:

-plate

-paper for the monogram

-vinyl

-Mod Podge

-Silhouette (Cricut or an exacto knife)

I wanted to do a Chevron Stripe on the background of my plate but any graphic pattern would work. I, of course used my trusty Silhouette! First of all you need to clean your plate so the vinyl will stick. Measure the center of your plate making sure to measue the curves of the plate too. Mine was a little over 10″ so I made my chevrons 10.5″ long. In my Silhouette software I used the chevron shape (which was the free shape of the week a few days ago) and loaded my premium vinyl into the machine.

About the Monogram… did you know that you can search “free fonts” in google and there are millions of fonts that are way better than the stadard loaded on your compuer. All you do is downloard them to your computer, then install them and they will show up in all of your programs like Power Point, Word and your Silhouette Software! So, I searched for a free Monogram Font and found the perfect one. Here is the link. Make your last name inital larger than the other two initials because that will be the one in the middle. Load your bright colored cardstock and cut!

I have no scientific instuctions on how to place your vinyl, if you are a perfectionist I’m sure you could measure but that is just too hard for me. So I eye-balled it. Just make sure to get out all of the air bubbles.

Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge down on the plate. I didn’t Mod Podge the outer ring of the plate. I used the Matte finish because it’s my favorite.

Carefully place your letters down, make sure they are all pressed down well by using a pin or tweezers and get out the air bubbles.

Apply a top coat of Mode Podge to the inner curcle of the plate. Make sure to get in between all of spaces in the letters and again, pop the air bubbles with a pin because they will dry funky if you don’t.

Now just wait for your plate to dry, and hang that baby up, it looks so profesh!

Husband Valet

February 27, 2011 By Taylor 19 Comments

Ok I know I am a little late posting my husband’s Vday present but I have been busy. I did actually give it to him on Valentine’s Day, just now posting it however. Better late than never and not only that but you could make this for any occasion. I had more exciting plans but as I have mentioned, little Clyde had plans of his own :) So we decided to just make each other something. I got a really sweet acrostic sign with my name, so cute! So here is what Bryan got; the Husband Valet. I wanted to give him a place to put all of his “stuff” (seriously guys should have to carry purses too!).

You need a 1/2 of felt, a piece of cross stitch plastic, some regular thread and embroidery thread

Start with the cross stitch plastic. Cut it into 5 pieces, the bottom of the valet, and the 4 sides. Here are my dimensions:

Next, you need to cut a piece of felt out for the top and bottom of each piece. Cut each with extra felt because you will be sewing around the plastic inside so you will need the extra fabric. I started with the bottom – for the sides I folded the felt over so it was less cutting for me. Also on the bottom piece, I personalized the inside with a little embroidered heart. That is optional but definitely do it before sewing because it will be too thick with the plastic inside.

Layer all of the pieces together (felt-plastic-felt) and pin them together to get ready to be sewn. Pin them as close to the piece of plastic as you can. You will sew right along the edge of the plastic.

It doesn’t matter if the edges aren’t straight on the fabric for this step because they will be trimmed later. Now sew the plastic sandwich together. Remember as close to the plastic as you can get your needle!

All of your pieces are done, now you have to hand sew them together with embroidery thread. Trim each piece so that there is only about 1/4″ of fabric on the edge. Use that 1/4″ to sew the valet together. I started with the long sides to the bottom then the short sides to the bottom. Then I sewed the sides together last.

There you have the husband valet, which my husband actually uses by the way!

Love Sign with a Fence Frame

January 21, 2011 By Taylor 7 Comments

I know, I know, this should be in pink and red… but its going in my bedroom and staying up all year so yellow and blue it is. You could actually write anything, I thought about our last name but I like the way “LOVE” looks. My favorite part of this project is actually the frame which my husband whipped up. I got the supplies and told him what to do (naturally, hehe) but he made the actual cuts so I will give him some credit. I think this project is so simple that I really didn’t even take any pics of the steps for a tutorial, just the final product.

My mom had some fence posts she was going to throw away so I kept a few because I liked that they were weathered looking. So Bryan cut them in half “lengthwise” and I gave him the dimensions and he made a very basic frame. (43 X 23)

I got a foam board from Hobby Lobby and cut it about a 1 in. smaller than the dimensions of the frame (42 X 22). Then, I painted the background yellow. When the yellow was dry, I stapled the foam board to the back of the Fence Frame.

I also picked up some chipboard letters from HobLob and some blue paper. You could paint the letters too but the paper is much cheaper than buying 4 different colors of paint. I just traced the letters onto the paper, cut them out and applied 1 coat of Mod Podge between the letter and the paper. Then I used 2 coats on top of the letters (drying 20 mins between). Glue the letters on to the foam board. (My husband walked in at this point and wanted me to measure the distance between the letters to make sure they were evenly spaced… poor Bryan forgot who he married)

Lastly, I got a picture hanging kit from Home Depot and screwed it in to hang my “work of art”.

This reminds me that I need to get to work on the Valentine’s Day banner that I have been dreaming up for my mantle. Lets see if it happens :) Have a great weekend!

Foodie Napkin Rings

January 6, 2011 By Taylor 4 Comments

First tutorial of 2011! These napkin rings have been on my to-do list for over 6 months but I was a little busy with Christmas so I am finally getting around to them. Poor Finn is loosing a craft room toy. They have been cut and on my shelf forever and he loves to play with them. Maybe I will make him some more?

Supplies:
– one 2′ x 1 1/2″ section of PVC pipe (cut into 2″ sections)
– an old magazine
– Mod Podge and brush

Directions:

1. Cut your PVC pipe into 2″ sections. My PVC pipe was 1 1/2″ in diameter. My husband controls the power tools over here so mine magically showed up in my craft room, cut perfectly! I asked him to cut 10 for me.

2. I wanted my napkin rings to look “foodish” so I used a Martha Stewart Whole Living magazine, they have really clean, pretty pictures. You can use whatever magazine or paper you like; newspaper, a book, fashion mag, an old map, scrapbook paper… get creative.

3. Go through and rip about 10-12 pages that are interesting to you. I looked for bright colors, cool bold words, and recipes.

4. Cut them into 2″ x 7″ strips. Cut them from the middle of the paper so you get interesting parts of the pictures. Pick out your favorite strips and set them aside.

5. Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge (I’m using matte finish) to a napkin ring. Carefully place the strip of magazine into the ring. Gently smooth out the paper as you go. There will be a little excess paper just add a little Mod Podge underneath so it sticks. Do this to all the rings.

6. Once all 10 strips and rings have become one, we are going to apply the 1st topcoat of Mod Podge. There will be some air bubbles so just smooth them out with your fingers first. This layer should also be thin. Wait about 15-30 minutes for this coat to dry.

7. Apply your second coat of Mod Podge, a little thicker this time but not too thick. Let this coat dry for several hours. If you live in Houston like me, you should probably just wait overnight because it is January and a muggy 80 degrees :(

8. This step is optional: I am going to add a little pop to my napkin rings with a sequin ribbon. You can embellish with any ribbon or buttons or whatever you have. I cut my ribbon into 7″ sections. Glue them on with Elmer’s Glue and wait a few more hours to dry.