crafting Archives - Page 9 of 10

Etched Juice Glasses

April 11, 2011 By Taylor 5 Comments

I think I am having a love affair with Monograms (as seen in my recent post here). I know I’m not alone, right? You know who else loves monograms; couples getting married that’s who. I know when I was engaged I loved receiving gifts with my new name on it. It seemed so magical.

Our friends are getting married next month and we got them a juicer off their registry but I of course like to add something personal too. So I found these cute juice glasses and I monogrammed them. (I also maybe wanted an excuse to use my new Etching Cream that I just got.)

I created a stencil with vinyl using my Silhouette but you could easily just cut out the letters with an Exacto. Then I followed the directions on the back of my Etching Cream, kind of. My directions said to apply a thick, even layer, wait for 5 minutes then completely wash off. I looked after 5 minutes and it wasn’t a very strong etch, so I left mine on for about 12 minutes. I picture the newly weds having fresh squeezed orange juice out of these on Sunday mornings.

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!

It’s Rodeo Y’all – Texas Onesie

March 14, 2011 By Taylor 11 Comments

It’s spring break here in Houston and you know what that means…. Rodeo Time! Although Clyde has no idea what that means, I think it means I should break out the ole’ Silhouette for her first project! So I did!

I have seen shirts like this before with the capital as a heart in the state but Houston isn’t the capital of Texas so that wasn’t going to work. I also found a picture of Texas in the Silhouette Online Store, but again it had a star over Austin, not what I was looking for. So I had to get clever…

I googled “Texas Outline” under images and when I found one that look clear, I saved it to my computer. Then in the Silhouette Studio, I opened up the Texas picture. I played around and I found this awesome feature; The Tracing Tool. It allows you to trace around a picture that you already have on your computer. So I added the little heart and selected “Trace around Outer Edge”.

Here is what my picture looked like:

Next, I cut a piece of Freezer Paper and loaded it onto my carrier page.

Then I hit cut! It was so exciting… Now if you don’t have a Silhouette, you can just cut this shape out with scissors or an Exacto knife. Next, you need to iron down the shape’s outline to the onesie. Don’t hold the iron down too long, I have made that mistake and the freezer paper gets rumply. Make sure to iron around all of the detailed edges to form a nice seal. Don’t forget to iron down you little heart on the inside of your state.

Now its time for the fabric paint. I meant to buy “matte” red paint but as you can see I must have grabbed the “metallic” so it had kind of a shimmery look to it. Clyde it too little to be mad at me for that :)

(oops)

I did two coats and waited about 20 mins between. Don’t forget to put some newspaper or a paper bag inside the onesie so it wont bleed.

The next step is my favorite part, for some reason there is something SOOO satisfying about pulling the freezer paper off to me! Of course wait until it is completely dry.

Lastly, you have to heat set the fabric paint. There might be some instructions on your fabric paint about how to do this. I looked online and found some. You have to use something between the paint and the iron like a hand towel or something. I ironed mine for about a minute total moving the iron around the whole time. Some people said to do it for 4-5 minutes but that seemed really long to me.

I love my Silhouette! Now on another note, don’t try to stage a photo shoot with a hungry baby…. (I promise he likes his Texas Onesie, the boy just loves to eat!)

Fabric Labels

February 4, 2011 By Taylor 8 Comments

Fabric labels oh Fabric Labels…. I have been online researching these babies for months! Finally I found a good (cheap) solution, a tutorial to make my own. This idea is genius!

Laurraine from Patchwork Pottery has the whole tutorial on her blog here. She has a ton of other great stuff too, so you have to check it out. They were really simple to make and I love the way they look on the twill tape. Also, I didn’t spend a fortune which is always a plus! I made 1/2″ and 1″ labels. I have already made a few bibs and added labels to the back, I feel so professional now hehe :)

In other exciting news, I think I am going to buy a serger soon! I think I am going to get this one… any thoughts, opinions, reviews??