Monogram Candle Holder

I have been making some pretty amazing things lately with the help of my glass etching kit. Its a special cream that is applied to a glass service and gives it a frosted or etched look. I've played around with frosted glass spray before, but the etching cream is superior. Etching is perfect for projects with a lot of detail and washable items. I found that the spray wipes off and is not super durable. So the etching cream is perfect for making custom wine glasses and things like that.

Here is one of my latest projects, a monogramed candle holder. It came out looking pretty snazzy. I stuck in my guest bathroom because it needs a little decor. 

Here is how I made it: 

Materials & Tools:

• Etching Cream 
• Contact Paper 
• Exacto Knife 
• Glass Vase 
• Gloves 
• Foam Brush
• Candle 

Instructions:

1. Create your stencil. I went with a monogram, but you can use whatever image you like. I recommend something simple and not very complicated. Draw your design on contact paper and cut it out with your exacto knife. 
2. Clean your candle holder and then apply your stencil to it. Make sure to press out all of the air bubbles. 
3. Before applying etching cream, wear protective gloves! That stuff is serious business and can damage your skin. 
4. Apply a few coats of etching cream over the stencil. 
5. Allow cream to dry. Some of the manufacturer directions vary, but I found waiting 24 hours gets the best results. 
6. Take your candle holder and run it under warm water and take off the stencil. You will noticed your design has been etched! 
7. Fill your candle holder with whatever decorations you would like. 

Pointillism Vase

Iron Craft Challenge # 9 is 'Inspired by Art' So it got me thinking of some of my favorite art pieces. One of them is featured in Ferris Bueler's Day Off and Cameron has a serious stare down with a Surrat painting. Its one of my favorite scenes in movie history! 

This painting uses the pointillism technique so I used that as my jumping off point for this project. It involves using a series of dots of varying colors to create a pattern in which an image emerges. Since I wasn't setting out to make a grand masterpiece I applied the idea to a small scale project, a small vase. I used an ampersand design (&) because they are just so neat and visually interesting. After my little vase was done I put some rocks in it and suck a candle in there. 

Here is how you can make one yourself: 

Materials & Tools

• Glass jar or vase 
• Contact Paper Stencil 
• Q-tips 
• Paint (varying colors)

Instructions: 

1. Clean your jar/vase with some glass cleaner and dry it to remove any dust. 
2. Apply your stencil to the jar/vase and press out the air bubbles as best you can.
3. Take a q-tip and dip it in some paint and start dabbing your jar/vase over the stencil. Continue this step with different colors, until you like your color combination. 
4. Allow to dry for at least 20 minutes. 
5. Gently peel off stencil to reveal your wonderful design! 

Key Chain Wristlet

My pile of scraps have been growing. So I decided to do something about it and I've been doing a few different scrap busting projects. One of them is making a keychain wristlet. They are easy to make and they look great. They are also really durable. When the strap on my clutch wallet broke, I replace it with a wristlet, and its been working out quite nicely.

Here is how you can make your own: 

Materials & Tools: 

• Scrap fabric 
• Snap hook 
• Sewing machine & notions 
• loop puller 
• Iron

Instructions 

1. You will need two pieces of scrap fabric that measure, 2" by 11" (FYI be careful of the fabric you use, you want something nice a durable, but not took thick because you will run into problems later) 
2. Place the right sides of fabric together, pin and sew along the long edges. Leave a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Congrats, you made a tube!
3. Use your loop puller and pull your 'tube' inside out. Use your iron to press the 'tube' so it is nice a crisp
4. Top stitch along the long edges
5. Insert 'tube' through the snap hook and fold it so that the two short edges are together. Pin and sew along the short edge 
6. Flip the strap around, so that the other side is exposed. Move the sewn short edge over to the snap hook. 
7. Pin and top stitch above where the snap hook is. This way you can cover up the raw edge and give your wristlet a nice finished touch.
8. Put some keys on it and you are good to go! 

Make one yourself! I've been having a lot of fun making all different kinds of wristlets! 

Decorative Plates

I've gotten really sick of stark bare walls and I've been trying a few different things to really liven up our dinning room. I found this mirror for 20$ at Marshall's (score!). It was a little cracked and boring white. So I gave it a goat of gray to really spiff it up. I hung it opposite some windows. That is a design trick that is supposed to make the room feel bigger. I have our Parisian street art pictures hanging on another wall, along with a little flying birdie my friend Margaret got me. However that still left some blank spots in the room. What to do?

Originally I had planned to start collecting graphic plates and hanging them on the wall. That hit a snag when I did not like anything I was finding, either in the design or price. So I decided to put my own DIY spin on it and made some plates of my own! I abandoned my plan of an entire wall of plates and decided to hang them on each end of the windows. It makes it look balanced and we now have plenty of visual interest in this room!

Materials & Tools

• White glass plate 
• Spray paint (two contrasting colors) 
• Contact paper 
• Exacto Knife 
• Plate hanger 

Instructions 

• I recommend purchasing plates from the Dollar Tree because they come in different shapes and sizes and they are only a dollar so if you make a mistake its not a big deal. 

• Plan out a design, make it simple and not too intricate. Trace and cut out the design on contact paper (or if you have a silhouette machine just use that) 

• In a well ventilated area, spray paint a base coat. (this should be the color you want your actual design to be) Allow design to dry. I recommend letting it sit over night.

• Peel out your design and stick it on the plate

• Spray a top coat of a contrasting coloring and allow to dry. (don't wait too long because you run the risk of peeling off the paint from your design) 

• Allow the paint to dry for at least a day before you hang it up. (otherwise your house is going to smell like paint fumes) 

Linking up with: 

Craft-o-maniac 

Dry Erase wall calendar

At certain times of the year I'm quite the busy gal. I have a bunch of task managers to help keep me on track. In the craft room I wanted to make something helpful to keep track of projects I'm working on and blog posts to publish. I used to have a calendar where I would just put up post-it notes of all of the different things I have to get done. After a cold winter in there and the addition of a much needed space heater, post-it notes became a bit of a hazard. So I was stuck, what was I to do?

As you can see, the white chalk paint would not erase.

I used some black contact paper to make a chalk board calendar. I set up a grid and started organizing my tasks. However, I ran into a few issues. I couldn't write things in detail because of how chalk is. So I used a chalk ink pen instead. It worked great for my first month, but when I went to clear the calendar for the next month, the chalk ink was not going quietly. Again I was stuck! At the time I had recently purchased some white contact paper and I had another idea. I took some dry erase markers and did an experiment, and to my surprise it worked just like a dry erase board. So I set about making my calendar yet again. This time around It's been up for a couple of months and it has been working perfectly! When it comes time to wipe away for the next month, I just need a wet paper towel (magic erasers also work like a charm)

Since it's back to School time this project is perfect to help you get into the swing of things! Here is how you can make your own calendar

Materials & Tools

• White contact paper 
• Exacto Knife
• Ruler
• Markers (Dry erase)
• Masking tape (optional)
• Something heavy (to weight down the paper roll as your measuring & cutting) 

Instructions

• In order to determine your calendar dimensions make sure you have a good spot picked out. A big empty wall works best. Keep in mind that you will be making 7 columns (one for each day of the week) with 5 rows (for each week of the month) 
• Here are the dimensions I used: 
• Day squares 4 X 4 inches
• Days of the Week rectangles 4 x 2 inches
• Once your size has been determined, roll out some contact paper and start tracing our your day squares. You will need 35. Also measure out days of the week rectangles, you will need seven. 
• Tip: Most contact paper has a grid on the back of it, which will help white measuring and marking out all of the shapes.
• After all of the squares and rectangles have been traced start cutting them out. You can use scissors or lay down a ruler and go over the trace marks with an exacto knife. 
• Go to the wall you are putting the calendar, and give it a little clean. Use a ruler to make the measurements of where the calendar will be placed. If you want to make sure the calendar is perfect, then use masking tape to create a grid. 
• Now you are ready to create your calendar! Peel and stick all of the peices to the wall. Remember you are making 7 columns across and 5 rows down. 
• If you get any air bubbles use a piece of card board to push them out. 
• Use your dry erase markers and start setting up your calendar and plugging in important dates and tasks 
• When you are ready to erase the calendar use a damp cloth or a magic eraser. 

Mini Canvas Art - Craft Night

This past monday night was another fantastic evening of coffee and crafts at Crazy Beans. As always it was a fun night with my regular crew and craft night newbies.

This time around we made mini wall art! It was a fun craft in miniature. Some of my crafty crew liked painting on the blank canvas. Some of the best pictures of the night included a city scape (with Bat signal!) and a beach scene. One of the newbies was really creative and used a straw to blow on the paint to create some interesting texture. I was particularly proud of my friend Joe. He's not a very crafty person compares being artistic to household chores. However he stuck it out and painted a beautiful masterpiece.

Some of the folks who attended, were having some trouble with inspiration. To help those guys I had printed out some stencils for them to use. There were some wonderful results from this technique. Including some fantastic mustaches.





If you want to make your own mini wall art here is how....

Materials & Tools

• Mini canvas
• Paint 
• Brushes 
• Paper towels (incase you make a mess) 
• Tape or stencils (optional) 

Instructions 

• Gather your supplies 
• Think of a design 
• Get painting! 
• If you are using stencils
• Paint a base coat, let dry for a few minutes 
• Place stencils on the canvas 
• Paint your second coat in a contrasting color 

Tips 

• Glue a magnet to the back of it and BOOM - instant fridge magnet! 

Sand collage kids craft

 

This years Summer Reading Program theme is 'Dig into Reading!' so there has been lots of dirt and fun messes through out the summer so far. We had a bunch of colored sand in our craft closet so I came up with this idea of making some fantastic art with it. The technique is sort of similar to how you had glitter to crafts. This project was also great for our youngest patrons. There only so many music and movement programs you can do with 2 and 3 year olds, and I felt like our guys needed to get a little crafty. The kids that came really had a lot of fun with this project and a lot of older siblings joined in on the fun. There was even one father who was proud of his own sand collage masterpiece. Here is how you do this with your own group of kids!

Materials & Tools

• Colored Sand
• Salt/pepper shakers (I found mine at the Dollar Tree)
• Construction Paper
• Glue Sticks
• Clear contact paper (optional)
• Crayons (optional)

Instructions

• Fill salt/pepper shakers with different colors of sand
• Kids take the glue stick and 'draw' their shapes
• Kids take the salt/pepper shaker and sprinkle it over their picture. Shake picture over a scrap piece of paper (so the sand can be recycled)
• Kids can repeat the last step until they are satisfied with their picture
• When I did this craft, I put out crayons so that kids can add some more artistic flair to their picture
• Once they were completely done I stuck a piece of clear contact paper over the picture so it preserved the picture while also contained any loose pieces of sand

 

 

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Frosted Vase

I've been in the house for almost a year already, can you believe it?! I'm haven't been sewing has much (sewing table has been under construction) However this time has allowed me to work on some home decor projects. I've been posting pictures here and there but this time around I present to you a nice a tutorial!!!!

A while back I bought a bunch of hurricane vases from the Dollar Tree. They were nice, but after sitting around for a while they needed some pizazz! I bought some frosted glass spray and decided to do some experimenting. I made a stencil out of contact paper, slapped it on there and gave it a good coat of frosted glass. My first attempt was a semi-failure. I learned that day that not all contact paper is created equal. I had used this old ugly wood print stuff we had lying around and it was really low quality type stuff and it reacted weirdly to the spray and crinkled up.

I broke out the good stuff and used some black contact paper I had. (F.Y.I. - this stuff is so versatile! its one of my favorite craft supplies!) Using the better quality contact paper did the trick and resulted in some fabulous new vases. 

Here are the steps I took to transform these vases and how you can to! 

Materials & Tools 

• Clear vases, candle holders (even old wine bottles) 
• Frosted Glass Spray (I used Rust-oleum)
• Contact paper (make sure its good quality) 
• Exacto Knife 

Instructions 

• Think of some sort of design. This can be a trick party, but luckily is tons of inspiration out there (scour the internet, check out a home decor store etc) 
• Once you have a design your happy with, trace it on the back of your contact paper and cut out with the exacto knife. If you are the lucky proud owner of a silhouette machine, just make your stencil on that. 
• Peel off your contact paper stencil and gently stick it to your vase
• Find a nice well ventilated area and place your vase on top of box. Spray a nice even coat and allow to dry 
• Drying times can depend on the type of frosted glass spray you purchase. I'd say give it at least 30 minutes. 
• Gently peel off the stencil to reveal your beautiful design 

Foam Stamps - Tutorial!

So I had another craft night at ye olde Crazy Beans. This time around we made some stamps using our imagination and some foam.


It's a simple little craft, however the hardest part is thinking of a design! Some folks made some really great stamps! I was excited to meet some other whovians so some really awesome doctor who stamps were created.







Materials & Tools:

• Scrap paper 
• Tracing paper
• Pencil 
• Foam shape 
• Wood shape 
• Ink pad
• Paper do decorate! 

Instructions:

• Break out the scrap paper and think of a design. It could be anything! A saying, a shape or even a silly little doodle. Go nuts! I made a purdy leaf. 
• Once you have a design idea settled then lay over the tracing paper and trace! 

• Flip over the tracing paper (with your design on it) than lay it on top of your foam shape. Trace yet again! This time you trace the imprint will be on the foam to make for stamp-y greatness. 

• Glue your foam shape to the piece of wood. (If you used adhesive foam just stick it to your piece of wood)

• Take your stamp and ink it and begin decorating frenzy!