Decorative Wall Initials | Craft Tutorial

August 8, 2011 By Laura 10 Comments

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Every time I’ve gone to Michael’s Arts and Crafts, I’ve looked at these large white initials / letters you can purchase individually. I knew I wanted to create something using these letters as personalization, for {O}’s room. But I was undecided if I wanted to do her whole name, or just her initial.

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The letters have a nice flat white surface to work on. But what to do on that surface, was another matter I was undecided on. Those were the questions that kept me from purchasing any for while. Finally, I decided just her initial would be cute, as we actually do call her “O” half the time.

To decorate the letter (or letters), I initially (no pun intended ; ), thought I’d probably paint a pattern. But then I took to the idea of picking out some cute scrap booking paper, and Modge Podging the surface. Not a new concept by any means, but I wasn’t looking for a new invention.

I love working with Modge Podge. There are so many varieties, but I knew the Matte finish, which I had on hand, was all I needed, as a glue and also a top finish.

We had had a family trip to Michael’s one evening, so {A} could spend her Gift Card she got from her Grandmother for her birthday. In case you are wondering, {A} knew exactly what she wanted, as she had been wanting it for a long time: a wood burning kit. She’s been having fun with that, practicing, and getting ready to do a project. So while we were there at our favorite local craft store, I thought it would be nice to let {O} pick out the scrap booking paper to use, to finish to the initial for her room.

We chose 2, because I had the idea that we could finish both sides of the “O”, and make it reversible! Naturally, you can’t do that with every letter of the alphabet, but it works for “O”.

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The back side of the letter does have a hanger hole, and stickers, which were way too difficult to get off. So I left them. The scrap paper is thick enough that I knew they wouldn’t show through. So my plan was to just paper and Modge Podge right over the hole and stickers.

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I started by putting a good layer of Modge Podge on the front surface of the letter.

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Then, I took my letter, and the apple green sheet of scrap booking paper, over to a window. Placing the paper onto the window, with the backside facing me, I strategically placed the Modge Podged side of the letter, onto the paper. The reason I did this at the window, was to be able to see the pattern on the other side of the paper, and get as many little blue birds onto the letter as I could, and not cut many or any in half, if possible. The blue birds were the charm of the pattern to me, so I wanted them to be as much a part of the piece as possible.

decorative-wall-art-initial-modge-podge-6 I took the letter now stuck to the paper, back to the table, and on a self-healing mat, trimmed off the excess paper with an x-acto knife. Please excuse my mother’s hands. ; )

decorative-wall-art-initial-modge-podge-7 Once the apple green paper was all trimmed to size, and rubbed down good, I repeated the whole process for the opposite side:

1) Modge Podge the white surface of the letter 2) Bring the scrapping paper and the Modge Podged letter over to the window, and place the paper onto the window with the back side facing you 3) *Strategically place the letter onto the paper, considering the placement of the paper. 4) Trim off excess paper with an x-acto.

*Using striped paper, is even trickier! It’s a tad more difficult, with a rounded letter such as this, to place the letter in such a way to be sure that the stripes will be straight. Of course the striped pattern could go horizontally, or even diagonally. With a letter with a straight edge, it is easier to line up with the stripes and get it straight. If this is more than you’d want to bother with, be sure you choose paper that is a more random sort of pattern. Or, to be super safe, you could use solid paper, if that’s not too boring for you.

decorative-wall-art-initial-modge-podge-8 Once all of the paper is trimmed, Modge Podge the surfaces as a protective coating and finish. Allow one side to dry completely, before doing the other. Then I sanded the edges, just to rough it up just a little.

I was undecided, it it really looked finished. I’m still not sure! I’d love your opinion, once you see it hanging.

Now, since I made this a reversible/2 sided letter, covering the hanger hole on the back side, I hung the letter with a coordinating satin ribbon. It took a little patience, to double tie the bows, and have them come out nice, so that the weight of the letter did not untie the bows! With a few deep breathes, I managed.

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Here it is, hung on {O}’s bedroom door. The plan was actually to hang it inside her bedroom, but there was not adequate light in there (later in the afternoon) when I wanted to photograph it. So I hung it on her door. It may or may not stay there.

As a side note, Michael made this latch door, as he is (still in the process of) making all of the doors in the whole house. I-love-these-doors! They will actually be a little distressed and made to look older, later on when they are all done, for a more old farmhouse look.

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{O} loves that she can flip her letter over any time she wants, and change the look of it, “depending on what mood I’m in that day”, as she put it.

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Here’s a closer look. I like it, but I am still wondering: Does it need some sort of trim? Or should I paint the inside edge of the letter, a color that coordinated both sides? Or is it cute as is?

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Give me your opinion. This craft may or may not be officially complete. Either way, I think it’s a quick & easy craft, and adds a little cute personalization to a room. Imagine the creative ways you could make a decorative letter. Maybe using 3d elements, painting, or hanging with different materials like thin rope, twine, lace…the possibilities are endless. I’m already thinking of the boys room.

See, we’ve been working on finishing and decorating our home for years. I have SO much to show you, in the near and distant future, as various parts of the kid’s rooms are finished and decorated. The girl’s each have their own room, and the boys have a BIG room to share. Very cool features. The kids have very different personalities, and we are creating their rooms in ways to reflect that, and their style. Such a fun process! We are so blessed with Michael’s carpentry skills too, and we ladies know how much fun interior decorating is! (As money allows, which is why it’s taken us this long as it is.) So I hope you’ll follow us along through our home finishing journey.

But back to the “O”. Done or not? And have you resubscribed, as you need to, and put yourself in the running for our current GiveAway?

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Spring Fancy Strands|Door or Window Craft Decor|Giveaway (Closed)

April 11, 2011 By Laura 11 Comments

I find spring-time to be such a craft-inspiring season. Although winter & spring has been taking turns around here in the past few weeks, I still like to think of it as just spring, as it should be. Time for garden planning, enjoying the new warmer, sunnier days, and looking for those very exciting signs of spring. They are popping up all around us, despite the occasional surprise snowfall! With spring comes all kinds of cheery colors and symbols always associated with this season of new life. It just makes me feel like crafting!

This is a craft you can do with ANY kind of doors or windows in your house!

The French doors between our sun room, which is always bursting with sunshine or a soft natural light, and our living room, has been the focus of my craft quite a few times! All of the rectangular panes of glass strike me as mini picture frames, calling for some little artwork. This past Winter, I made beautiful sparkly snowflakes on blue ribbon, which is a craft I am saving to share later this year. There was a functional twist of an idea I used with them, and I think some of you will rather enjoy using the idea for yourselves next year, when I’ll have the opportunity to share it with you in time to use the idea.

My craft idea for Spring is very similar, although strictly and adorably decorative, using very simple Spring shapes, ribbon and colorful card stock.

I designed a small collection of Spring Shapes in Photoshop, to use as stencils again and again. I will share these with you by the end of this post. But here is a peek at what I came up with.

The supplies needed were few and simple:

Spring Shapes, printed on card-stock to cut out
6 full rolls of thin ribbon
Card-stock in cheery bright Spring colors
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
*Any little embellishments you like.

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I found this block-pad of linen card-stock in beautiful colors, at the craft store. I knew it would be perfect, to use for my Spring shapes, that I wanted all relatively the same size. It was a pleasant surprise to realize they were sticker paper too! That was going to work out nicely, for adding the centers on flowers, etc. And if there was no need for sticky paper, I just left the backside on.But you can use any colored card-stock, that comes in sheets, as well.

Alright, so I didn’t take photos of every step. That’s needless really. But the simple directions are, that I cut my Spring Shapes out of the white card-stock I printed them on, and used them as stencils on the little square card-stock pieces. There was a whole lot of tracing stencils, and cutting out, going on. Then it was sticking or gluing pieces together, to make little happy die-cuts of art.

I have to tell you, as crafty as I am, I HATE CUTTING STUFF OUT!! With scissors. Thankfully, my kids love it! It’s great practice for scissors-skills for them. I did do a lot of the cutting for this project, but they enjoyed helping when ever and wherever they could. I was thankful for every bit.

window-door-craft-decor-5 Using almost an entire roll of ribbon for each row of windows top to bottom, attach one end on top of the door, and center of the row. Run it all the way down, to attach to the bottom of the door, again keeping it center. Cut off any excess before attaching. We use a tack at the top, and glue on the bottom.

Then just dab a little hot glue onto the center of each die-cut one at a time, and apply it to the ribbon in the center of each window.

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Here are my doors, all done!! CUTE, or WHAT??

Such a simple project, but just a lot of cutting. This was a craft for the kids and I to do together, from the get-go, so I knew which part I’d be letting them do some of! Hopefully you have a few of those happy-cutters, too.

You know, you don’t have to have French doors, to do this project!! You can do the same thing, in grid picture windows, or make horizontal strands as a Spring-themed decorative garland!

window-door-craft-decor-7 I can tell you, by the time we had made 24 die-cut pieces, trying to make them each a little different, we got to the last 6 and wondered if the doors would look cute enough still, with nothing across the bottom row of window panes. And then I had the quick and easy idea, to wrap up this craft, in 6 simple letters:

S P R I N G

Seeing my Spring-ish doors makes me smile anyway. But what really warms my heart, is the words spoken by my little boy the other day: “Mama, every time I see my butterflies that I made, that you put up on the door, I get a really happy feeling inside.”

Dang if that doesn’t make me really happy inside, too. I love doing projects with my kids. It’s so rewarding, for all of us, in so many ways.

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Just so you know….our French doors are rarely closed like that. Our 4 season sunroom, is open to the rest of the house most all of the time. It’s surely a cheery passage-way now.

window-door-craft-decor-9 When spring turns to summer, I’ll be taking these strands down, but keeping them to use again next year, just as I did the winter ones! They are easily re-usable, for at least a few years if not more, if they are stored nicely.

window-door-craft-decor-10 On a side note….I do struggle with displaying fake flowers in my house. I prefer fresh of course. But it’s just not budget smart, year round. Unless I can cut fresh flowers from outdoors now and then, and I do when I can. But in between….fake it is. I just like to have some especially, in my old milk jug.

So just for fun, I decided to design a little collage, to show you some of the pieces a little closer up. Naturally, when posting photos on a blog, some detail is lost. But it’s still a closer look.

And then I thought the collage came out so cute, that maybe it would be a fun idea, to have a Give-Away! It will printed as a 12 x 12 photo (such as it is), and mounted on a sturdy backing. It will be sprayed with a protective coating, so it can be popped right into a 12×12 glassless frame. (I never use glass in my frames. No need when they are mounted and sprayed, and they look so much nicer without the glare.)

The collage of these mini-photos, is of course, of little paper art. But how cute would it look on display, near your Easter tree, in your kitchen, or in a little girl’s room! It would look cute anywhere!

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If you’d like to try and win this Give-Away, all you need to do is the following:

1.) Follow our blog, via Subscribing or our Facebook Page, in the sidebar. (If you are not already.)

2.) Leave a comment below, saying anything you wish, or letting us know you are now following our blog!

3.) Link up a crafty idea of your own, right now, if you can!! (Not required, but we hope you share something if yours if you’ve gotten creative, and blogged it, lately!)

I’ll do a drawing from the comments by the close of the week!

Want to do this craft yourself? Here are the pdf links to my Spring Shape Sheets:

Spring Shape Page 1

Spring Shape Page 2

I hope those links work for you anyway If not just email me, and I will send them to you. I did free-hand draw a few on my own, that are not on the sheets, but most are here. You can add idea of your own too. Just keep the shapes simple.

ENJOY!

******

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Homemade Bookmarks – Craft Tutorial

January 26, 2009 By Laura 5 Comments

Hi People!

This is the first of a handful of installments, that finally show you what we were making as we crafted during the pre-Christmas season. Now that all of the gifts have been given, we can share, and not be concerned with ruining any surprises. But we hope that some of you may gather an idea or 2, by us posting these projects, to put on your idea list for crafting and/or gift giving of your own, next Christmas or anytime.

We tried to think of gifts we could craft, that most anyone could use. Universal, sort of gifts. We think we did pretty well in the end. These gifts are simple; Simple to make (as the kids did a lot of it, with instruction and/or assistance), and simple in concept. We did not invent any of these things, but simply put ‘our touch’ to them. Should any of these projects appeal to you, we’re sure they’ll come out as your own as well. So many of you are SO creative, that you will likely make them even better, or put a new twist of your own on them, that makes them unique for you. Whatever you do, have fun!! Remember, even if everything doesn’t come out perfect, the fact is that they were made with love! If your recipients can’t appreciate that, then….well,… I won’t say. But they should. lol. Otherwise, you might consider ‘indian-giving’. Ha haha!

So let’s get to it! :

You may or may not recall, that one of the headers to a crafting post was this:

Showing any more than that would have given the project away. But we were making…………

BOOKMARKS!

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We know we love books, and we love to read. Many people are the same. Even if they are not big cover-to-cover kind of readers, one may find a bookmark handy to keep their place in a recipe book, a how-to book, a magazine, a journal, their Bible…and who knows what. So we hoped these would come in handy, in some way, for our recipients. We did know that many do love to read, in our case.

I did not think to take step-by-step photos, since photos would have given it away. But we think you’ll get the gist by looking at the photos of the finished bookmarks, and reading the following information.

Here’s how we made them:

Directions

First, we needed some card stock. We found these handy pads of beautiful designed card stock in, in the scrapbooking aisle of Michael’s Arts & Crafts. They are actually meant for making greeting cards, but they worked out to be just what we were looking for, and a good size too. They looked like this:

One thing we REALLY loved about these card stock pads, was that each ‘card’ was 2-sided!! It had a different, but coordinating, design on the backside! So that means we had 2-sided bookmarks!! Very cool. We were excited about that.

So we cut these cards into bookmark size, and marked the centers of exactly where we wanted a hole for the ribbon.

Some supplies we already had on hand that we used are: thin satin ribbon, a Fiskar cutter (used by many scrapbookers, that make cutting straight as easy as gliding the blade). Also, eyelets that look like this:

And an eyelet tool setter kit, which I already had on hand too, from scrapbooking with eyelets. That looks like this:

It might look scary, but every piece is pretty self-explanatory as to what it does. Included are 3 size whole punchers tips (which 2 you can see right over the l and k of tool kit, and the other is already screwed onto the handle piece, 3rd in from the right). All you do is choose the correct size tip for the size eyelets you are using, stand it up on the card stock right where you want a hole, and tap with the hammer. Next, put eyelet through the hole, hold it in while turning over the card, and get the ‘splaying’ tool. (I may have made that word up. Not sure. But it spreads the backside of the eyelet out to hold into the card. So roll with it.) So you put the ‘splayer’ into the eyelet back, and hammer! This takes some real hammering, so be sure you are careful and use cardboard or something. I used a self-healing cutting board.

Now take a piece of cut ribbon, doubled over, and put the 2 ends together through the eyelet, and then through the loop of your ribbon. To finish the bookmarks off, we used a corner rounder, which is also found in the scrapbooking section.

That’s it!

No doubt, you’ll want to keep a few for yourselves too. We did! So Happy Reading!

All of the supplies used can be found at any Michael’s Arts and Crafts, or most any other good craft store.

If you have any questions, just let us know!! I am always happy to clarify!

I am also used to needing to. lol : )

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Cocoa and Crafting

December 6, 2008 By Laura 1 Comment

We’ve been doing more crafting than usual around here lately, as Christmas gifts. I’m way behind in blogging about them, but in thinking about that I realized in a different light….they are Christmas gifts!! Surprise gifts, of course. Granted, the recipients,,,our extended family….rarely visit our blog. If ever. But, you know, they MIGHT. And we really don’t want to ruin their Christmas surprises. So…..I guess I just won’t post the finished products, until maybe after Christmas, and if anyone concerned visits and guesses what we made, oh well!!

So for one of our first projects a few crafting Sunday’s ago, we were discussing what and how we were going to do what we were going to do. The plan was to hand sew them, until my husband said,

“Well, why don’t we just bring up the sewing machine and figure out how to use it?”

(me) “WHAT? What sewing machine? We don’t have a sewing machine! ”

(him) “Yes we do. It’s downstairs in the basement.”

(me) “We DO?! Where did we get it?”

(him) “It was your mother’s”

After a moment of stunned silence and a confused stare, I think I ended up on the floor, laughing hysterically. Outright bafflement hysterics. WHY you ask?? Because TRUST ME, my mother never sewed a day in her life! In fact, she had one of those trigger gun things that shot plastic things to put a button back on. And anyone reading this, who knew my mother, is probably laughing at just imagining my mother sitting at a sewing machine. I loved my mother, God rest her soul. But she was NEVER the sewing type! She was just not the real domestic kind. In fact, neither am I, by genetic-nature, that is – believe it or not. My early years as a wife, was on the comical side. I loved this man, but really….did I really have to do all those things they do? I wanted to want to. But…where WAS the WANT to?? Only for him. You know? Love is a crazy thing. I had to grow THAT bone, and I DID! In time. Granted, it’s still growing. But I have found deep and abiding joy in things I never knew I could embrace. In fact, I feel myself really…going back in time, if you will. My husband has really noticed how I have evolved over the years. In fact, he actually called me “my little pioneer woman’” the other day. And I think I gushed, “Real-lly?” Truth be told, I was beaming with pride. Because I am admiring their ways more and more every year. Thus…hand making some gifts, I suppose.

So he goes downstairs, and low and behold, he comes up with a SINGER, and dusts it off. Well I’ll be darned. There it is. I tried to remember seeing it before. In a closet maybe? In my childhood basement? Hmmm. Just not sure. Anyway….he got to figuring the thing out, because he’s mechanical like that. And he was suddenly seeming to be MORE than enjoying it. Can I just say?…..

Men and their toys!!

He showed {A} and I how it worked, …..and showed us. And showed us some more. He just didn’t want to give it up. Finally, he let {A} in there to give it a whirl, and I did a few as well.

Then {A} happly sat down to do more too. But Daddy was itching to get in there! Seeing his hand?? Next thing we know, he tells her “OK, time’s up!! It’s my turn. Let me in there.”. Maybe a little uncomfortable to announce this, but not as eager as he was to have another turn, apparently!! Oh ,,,,just look at the show-off sewing with one hand. Cute though, isn’t he??

The little ones were helping too, on another part of the project. They LOVE projects of any kind. Family crafting is the most fun. Usually. : )

Our little dolly, always willing to roll up her sleeves and get to work.

Maybe you can guess what we made on this day? Probably. The great thing is, besides getting one project done, is that we know how to sew with a machine now! Granted, we’re not pros, but {A} may be before long. She’s pretty ambitious at that machine on just about a daily basis. You should see the the little things she’s made already!

Gosh….my girls, AND BOYS, just may get that genetic-domestic bone thing.

You know, you don’t have to have French doors, to do this project!! You can do the same thing, in grid picture windows, or make horizontal strands as a Spring-themed decorative garland!

BOOKMARKS!

Directions

Men and their toys!!

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