Lacing Cards

If you have a baby shower to go to, or a toddler's birthday party coming up, this is a great gift. These ones were made for my youngest daughter, who will be 2 in less than 2 weeks! It's super inexpensive to make them. Most of the supplies you will have on hand if you tend to do a lot of crafts. And have a color printer.

Lacing cards are a great tool for toddlers to gain dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and fine tune fine motor skills. They are good for as young as 18 months with help, but really more for 2 and 3 year olds. And making them yourself means you can personalize them. The ways to personalize are pretty much endless!! Have a sports fan? Done! Have a princess lover? No problem! Want to teach them to spell their name? Can do! Use pictures of family members, immediate and ones that live too far to see every week, or even month. See? And I'm sure you can think up way more ideas!!

To start you need cardboard, acrylic paint, and paint brushes. The cardboard needs to be thick enough to be sturdy but thin enough to cut through. Cereal boxes would probably be too flimsy. But moving/storage boxes would be great.

I let my girls paint the cardboard. I really didn't do much except supply the paint in small, controlled amounts. Other than that I let them go to town with it!

...of course that resulted in a painted belly... But it's a cute belly so it's all good!

Once the one side was fully painted and dry I had them paint the other side. They were having fun, and this gave me more options.

Sometimes it's necessary to paint your hand too.

Once the second side is done being painted let it dry while you attempt to get paint off of bellies and out of hair. Because somehow it always gets in the hair. Even when you are watching like a hawk!

I went into word and looked for clipart that I thought was cute and that my daughter would like. Then I made the pictures super large. You want them to be a good size for little hands to hold onto and control, but not too big or too small. Roughly 3.5" - 4" square give or take is a good size. Print the images out and make sure you like the size. If you don't then adjust up or down as you see fit.

Cut the images out leaving a little bit of space around the outside. At least 1/4" but not more than 1/2". This blank space is where you will punch holes later. Lay out the pictures on your painted cardboard to check for spacing and to see how they need to be laid out to best use the space.

Now you will also need Mod Podge and a paint brush to brush it on. Remove a few of the pictures and spread some Mod Podge down. Put the pictures back in place on top of the Mod Podge and smooth out as best you can. Continue with all the rest of the pictures.

Once all the pictures have been placed spread a layer of Mod Podge over top to seal them all down. Once that is dry you can either add another layer of Mod Podge or move on.

After everything is *completely* dry, cut out around the images. If you have enough room, leave some of the pretty painted cardboard showing. I didn't have enough room. :-( But at least you will see how pretty the painting is on the other side!

Once they are cut out use a single hole punch to punch out all the holes.

Make sure to stay far enough away from the edge. And I highly suggest using a hole punch that has cushioned handles. Your hands WILL hurt by the time you're done!

Once they have all been punched you can add another layer of Mod Podge to the picture side, and a layer to the painted side if you would like to seal them more. Then gather them up and put them together with some shoe laces. If you don't have any to spare you can easily find them at the dollar store. :-)

Wonderland Painting

Looking for the giveaway winners announcement? Go here!

So...after a friend saw my other paintings, she made a request. She wanted a Tim Burton style Alice in Wonderland painting. My response in my head was ".....................You want what?!.............You think I can do this!?............I don't know about this one......" What I said to her was "UM...I can try. I don't know how it will turn out. I've never done one like this before. This will only be my 5th painting EVER. Are you sure you want me to do this?!" Her response was along the lines of "Absolutely! I believe in your ability."
I used four 12x12 canvases and arranged them so they were off kilter.

View from the side. Yes, I DO like to paint the sides of the canvas too.

The whole thing all together. See what I mean about putting them off kilter?

This is my favorite guy - The hooka smoking caterpillar. I LOVE the way he turned out. He looks way better in person. See the crown? A nod to the Queen of Hearts.

Both my most, and least favorite mushrooms are here.

Close up of the Cheshire Cat. I know I could have done better....But he was literally the first thing I painted on the canvas after the base of light blue/white, so I forgive myself.

A close-up of the White Rabbit. He also looks better in person. His fur looks soft and real in person. I'm very pleased with how he turned out - he's my 2nd favorite in the painting.

So... That was my first attempt at a complicated request that included animals. Overall I'm very pleased. There are some things that I would change if I were to do it again. And this took a LONG time to make. But, like I said...5th painting ever. Now on to the next project!

Jewelry and Paintings

*~*Are you looking for the post about the giveaway? Click here and you can find it!*~*
I adore creating things. If I didn't have my heart set on being a nurse practitioner I'd make creativity my full-time job....well, if I could *actually* make a living at it. Sewing clothing for myself and my children, and other people's children, making baby stuff like carriers, bibs, burp cloths, painting, making necklaces, earrings, bracelets, anklets, crocheting blankets, and clothing, cross stitching, and I'm sure there's more but I can't think of it at the moment. Just making something myself feels so much better than buying something that everyone else can buy too.

I love being creative as a means of relaxation. And to give things to others that I've made makes me feel better than giving something bought. I'm not positive the other people always like what I make/give... but I enjoy making things with them in mind.

A (terrible) close-up of a bracelet I made for my 10 year old.

Everything I do is basically self-taught. I've looked at what other people have done, and then I do my best to figure out how it came about. I would absolutely love to take classes of all kinds. Classes on jewelry making, all different kinds of painting/drawing techniques and forms. Sculpting! That would be a blast!! I've only made a few paintings so far, but I'm definitely enjoying it. As of now I've done 2 tree paintings, and I'm currently working on a third. I've also done one for my middle daughter that's berries and birds,  and another for my youngest that's snails and mushrooms and flowers....in a kinda crazy kaledoscope of color.

This is a picture that I painted for my middle girl of our family. Obviously it isn't exactly our family - it's a family of birds. But we are all in there, plus one (for a future child we'll either have biologically or adopt). Below is our family for my youngest girl ... but it's snails. Again with a plus one for the future. The potential and possibility. :)

I just realized how HUGE my chest looks in this picture. YIKES!

I also painted a t-shirt last night/today. That turned out pretty fun!
 The completed painting(s) I  was working on earlier of a cherry blossom tree. :) I made it for my best friend/sister. And I'm so glad she loves it! :-D I really enjoy the fact that it's broken up. I think it makes it more interesting that way.

The painting in total with all of it's parts together.

The painting as a close-up of the bottom.

What is your medium or choice? Or do you dabble like me? I'd love to see what you create. Feel free to leave me links!

Hardboard Nursery Art Updated

Remember this tutorial post on how I made my grand-nephew a piece of art? Well here's an update! My niece and her husband loved it! YAY! Also, I've made a couple more since making that one for some friends that are having babies. They have loved theirs as well!!

Here is the first girl version:

For this one I used canvas stretched over a thin frame.

I used two different shades of blue for the background - a lighter one for the sky and darker one for the sea. I just made the "line" separating the two colors wavy as if it were waves in the ocean. Then I covered it in Mod Podge. The pictures (treasure chest, map and mermaid) are all clip art that I printed from my computer. Before I printed the mermaid up I altered the clip art so that she would have a crown on her head. I did this using a clip art crown that I sized correctly then copied. I did a right click over the mermaid to edit, and pasted the crown onto her and made sure it went to the right place on her head.

The pictures were glued on with more Mod Podge. The map was glued down over the top of the canvas frame as well. Once that was dry I added silver around the map and the mermaids crown using a paint pen. Then there was another 2 or three coats of Mod Podge put on top of the whole thing. While that was drying I painted the wooden letters. After the canvas was dry I added the words written by hand. My handwriting isn't the best in the world.... I would have printed it up with a fun font but I wanted to see the pictures through the words.

Next I added all of the stuff in the treasure chest by gluing it all on with E6000. That is seriously my favorite glue ever. The part that says "I LOVE YOU" is actually scrapbooking staples that I poked through the links in the chain and then through the canvas.

I also put E6000 glue on the chain in a few places to make sure it would stay in certain areas, but some of it is loose too. The "pearls" are glued on individually as are the beads, "earing", and the real mother of pearl shell piece (again with the E6000).

For the mermaid I added a flower charm for an earring and two more for the bra. I broke off the loops on the flowers for the bra using a needle nose plier and attatched them using E6000. (I did mention I love this stuff, right?!)

Finally I glued on the painted wooden letters for the name, a painted wooden star, and signed it!

Here is another one I made:
For this one I used canvas glued onto cardboard. This is also known as "hardboard" or "chipboard".

I painted the entire background a dark shade of pink. While that was drying I took some super fun tissue paper from a gift I had recieved at my baby shower and cut it into somewhat sloppy strips. I LOVE to upcycle whenever I can, and I thought it was fitting that the gift came from my baby shower for my youngest girl and this was a gift for a friend for her first child, which is a girl.

Once the pink paint was dry (which didn't take long since it's acrylic paint!) I put a layer of Mod Podge down and VERY carefully layed the tissue paper strips down leaving approximately the same width of space between strips as the strips are wide. (I don't remember how wide the strips were...but I think they were close to 3/4".)

I added another layer of Mod Podge once the strips were secure. Next came the ballerina girl from clip art that I printed in color. Before I printed her up I altered the clip art so that she would have a crown on her head the same way I did with the mermaid. I cut her out and glued her on using more Mod Podge (I love this stuff just as much as E6000!!). Once she was dry I used my silver paint pen to outline her dress and color in the dots above the crown.

I then added all of the words. Again, excuse my not so fantastic handwriting. Next came a couple of coats of the Mod Podge covering the whole thing. While this dried I painted the wooden letters for the name and the wooden heart.

Once the Mod Podge coats were dry I added the pearls for the necklace and the yellow bow onto the hip of the ballerina using E6000.

Finally, I glued on the heart and letters for the name (also using E6000)! Once that was dry I added the ribbon, gluing it on to the back of the hardboard so that it could be hung up if my friend wanted it to be (more E6000). By the way, the bow and the hanging ribbon were made using the last little scrap of yellow ribbon I had left from a different project. This is a great reason to keep scraps!

Aren't they Fun? Go ahead and give it a try! I don't think you'll be disappointed. They really are cute and super easy to make!

October Tutorial Roundup

Here is a roundup of the tutorials from October in case you missed any!

The $1 Painted Horse tutorial that takes about 15 minutes to complete.

Snuggly Owl Pillow made from new and upcycled materials.

Hardboard Nursery Art for the newest little one in your life.

Bleached Out and Painted Shirt for a little something different and unique.

Bleached Out and Painted Shirt

I saw this site, and thought it would be really fun to try out. Although, I knew it could be a disaster. I mean... Me? I'm clumsy. Creative, yes. Graceful, yes. But also clumsy. Using a shirt and making something that actually looks cool using bleach might be a little too much for my butterfingers to handle. But it just looks so fun. So I had to try it!!

Add to that the freezer paper stenciling I keep seeing. On more blogs than I'm willing to link to, so I'll just link to the place I saw it originally. Then there's the reverse freezer paper stenciling.

Oh the options and ideas!!

So I wanted to combine all of these in my own unique way.

I started out with a brand new shirt. I figured this would give me the best color differences, and since the shirt would not have been worn already, if  I messed up I wouldn't do too bad of a job with the bleach/water mixture and weaken the fabric to the point of holes. Hopefully. Although after I've done this once I think it would be fine to do with a gently used shirt.

I sketched out what I wanted to put on the shirt. In this case I drew directly on the freezer paper on the paper side. I used this picture and this picture I found online as inspiration. (I used google image search and the keywords bird in a tree, then clicked the "cartoon birds in a tree" option.)

Sloppy sketch.

Then I very carefully cut out the image. I just used a pair of kids scissors. You could use regular scissors or an exacto knife or razor blade, or whatever you think would be best for your project. Since I decided to use the tree itself for a reverse stencil type thing, it didn't matter that I cut out out like that. But for a regular stencil I would probably use an exacto knife. (Or cut into the center and cut away what is not needed.)

Then I had to iron it on the shirt.

 Once the stencil is ironed on the shirt (or whatever you're putting it on), it can be set aside.

I added two branch "perches" for later additions.

The next step is to mix up the bleach and water and put it in a squirt bottle. I used 1:1 bleach to water. In retrospect, I think I would use a 70% 30% solution next time - 70% water to 30% bleach. You'll see why in a minute. So, mix up the bleach and water and put it into a squirt bottle. I bought a super cheap (97 cents at Walmart) squirt bottle to use. Great price, but I should have figured out exactly how well it works BEFORE filling it with bleach and aiming it at the shirt.

 Then I put some butchers paper inside the t-shirt, placed it in the tub, and aimed my squirt bottle at it. In retrospect I should have ironed on some wax paper to the inside of the shirt as well. I didn't think about the bleach water potentially leaching through the butcher paper and getting into the back of the shirt. I was planning on taking a picture of this, but..well...things happened very fast from here! (Back to the I should have figured out how well the squirt bottle works before doing this experiment.)

I apparently opened the squirt nozzle too much and had it doing a strong precise streaming aim, instead of a misting aim. OOPS! I wanted, and needed, a mist. So while I was figuring out how to fix this problem  I had bleach water soaking into parts of the shirt, and, unfortunately, soaking the freezer paper as well. I had to work quickly to figure out what went wrong. Lesson learned for next time! So, I finished squirting the area I wanted bleached, and the paper was soaked in the process, and was left to soak for too long (thanks to not knowing what I was doing). Like I said earlier, I would do a 70/30 solution next time instead. I think I would have better control over the bleaching process that way.

So, yeah. VERY fast is how this all happened. Before I knew it I had to rinse the shirt or risk not having a shirt left. NO time for pictures here. I'll hopefully get one next time I try this.

Unfortunately the bleach being so strong, and me not knowing what I was doing, meant that the shirt did not turn out how I had planned. However, I think it still looks pretty neat. After thoroughly rinsing the shirt in the tub I threw it in the washer (with some other stuff that needed to get washed anyway...I don't have time to do one shirt at a time in the wash!) and only used laundry detergent - no fabric softener. Since I'm not done with the shirt yet, I don't want to put anything into the fabric that might thwart paint adhering.
No picture for the washing and drying steps since looking at my washer and dryer is the last thing I want to do, so I'm sure you don't care to see it.

While the laundry was going I sketched up two birds ("love birds") to use as freezer paper stencils. This time not caring about the birds that gets cut out, only the part that they get cut out of.

See the light lines around/under the birds? That's where I lightly sketched where the tree branches are to know exactly where to place the birds.

Here's what the shirt looks like all clean and dry.

See the speckles on the sleeves? Yes, that WAS on purpose. Same with the inside of the neck/back (which you can see from the other side too of course.)

A close up of the heart tree.

Then time to iron again! (Let's all shout for joy.."yaaaaay") The new stencil of the birds had to be ironed onto the shirt in the right place. This meant a lot of laying it down, and slight adjustments to make sure it was correctly lined up.

I did not cut out where the beaks are on purpose. I'm going to do something else for those.

Put wax paper (wax side facing UP) inside the shirt so that the paint doesn't bleed through. I used glittery "puffy" fabric paints instead of fabric paint pens. Why? Because I want the birds to kind of... standing out. Not be flush to the shirt. I painted one with a mixture of plain magenta puffy paint and purple sparkles, and the other with a mixture of blue puffy paint and green sparkles.

Let dry a bit before peeling away the ironed on freezer paper.

I decided to outline the entire heart tree with a permanent marker. The wax paper inside the shirt comes in handy here as well to make sure the permanent marker doesn't bleed through the paper. Instead of permanent marker you could also use a fabric paint pen. I used a brown permanent marker, but it looks more like black (in the picture, and in person). Since I no longer had the stencil (it fell apart when I rinsed the shirt in the tub) I had to rely on my memory of what I drew, and the faint lines I could see. I also had to change it a little here and there from the original to make up for the changes that happened in the bleaching process.

For the feet I used a permanent fine point black marker.

For the beak I did some hand stitching. I don't really know how to explain what I did since it was basically free-form/free-hand with no real plan.

Stitching the beak with variegated yellow/orange thread.

Beak on the left slightly open (the "girl" is talking), while the one on the right is closed (the "boy" is listening...hahahaha)

For the eyes I used a super fine tipped permanent marker for each one. I know, not exciting. I might add a bead or rhinestone later. We'll see.

Here's a couple pictures of the completed shirt.

Please don't mind my bra straps. I was too excited about the shirt being done and wanting to post this to care at the moment!
Also excuse my unkempt look and the pictures being in the bathroom. It was night so pictures outside weren't an option, and there weren't many other places in the house to go at the time!

A close-up of the finished product.

I really love how the shirt ended up!

See how the sleeves hit the top of my hand? Yeah...I'd JUST pulled them down. They aren't really long enough. Neither is the body. I have this problem constantly with shirts because of my height (5'11"). I'll likely add some kind of fabric to the bottom of the sleeves and the bottom of the body to make them longer. But that will wait for some other day. And be a separate tutorial of it's own.
I'm sorry this one was so long! There were several steps involved, though. And, to my defense, the shirt was NOT hard to do at ALL. The longest parts: deciding what I was going to do, waiting for the shirt to go through the washer and dryer, and waiting for the paint to dry. If I had already had a clear idea of what to do, or could/did print up my design on the paper instead of having to sketch it by hand, and if I take out washing/drying and paint drying time it probably took an entire 1.5 hours to do. The next one I do will be WAY faster, and probably (hopefully) look better. But I like it a lot! I'll be wearing it every chance I get, I'm sure! :-D