If at first you don't succeed . . .

Hello again dearies! I am back with another fun project. This project was a whole bunch of everything: the good, bad, & the frustrating.

I was feeling rather crafty (& had a Hobby Lobby giftcard from Christmas), so I headed off to the wonderful store. I found a wood canvas  & some great colored string. I don't know about you, but I scower Pinterest for ideas & I kept seeing all of the creative string art projects. Of course, being me, I see those and think "Oh, I could totally do that".

Well, I am here to tell you that I have a great respect for those people! I quickly realized that this project was more involved than I ever thought. While I like my end project, I had many moments where I just wanted to quit & throw it away. BUT, I refused to give up. . .. I just changed it a little. ha.

I decided to do a picture of the Tennessee outline & the words "Home sweet home". I looked everywhere for a fun font others had used successfully in string art. This is my planning for it.

I was pretty pumped about it & started right away. I think my hand still hurts from hammering all of those little nails in.

I started with the string I picked out for TN. Then, I started with the word sweet. I quickly realized that you could not really see the letters like I wanted it. I was DEVASTED! I am big planner & I like having an idea in my mind of how each piece will look before I started. I realized that my plan wasn't going to work out, and I lost faith in the whole thing.

In fact, I left it like this for weeks. I thought about just throwing it away or tearing it all apart, but I just couldn't do it. I was so excited about his piece & was heart broken at the thought of giving up on it completely. So, there it sat for weeks.

Eventually, I decided it was better to regroup & make it great. I decided that I  would take out the nails for the words at paint them. ( I LOVE painting words, so this change just felt right.) 

Here is the finished project. Pretty great, right? haha. I am still debating  adding some little doodles or designs in white, but I kind of like it how it is now.

So, here you go, the piece that I almost gave up on. Thank goodness I didn't give up.

Good luck crafty friends. I would love to hear about your projects, too. So send them on or leave any tips you have for string art. :)

                                                                                              

Finding the rainbow on a rainy day. . . . .

Hello again! I love rainy days some times. There is something wonderful about a rainy day stuck inside with craft supplies & Netflix. My last project was spur of the moment idea sparked on just such a day.

I love lions and have always wanted to paint one, so I went looking for a picture of one I liked. (BTW: isn't it wonderful how easy it is to find anything you want on Google these days?) Anyways, I found a few different ones & started sketching. Each picture has parts I liked better, so I took what I liked from each one.

Since I have not practiced drawing lions, I wanted to make sure it would look right when I did it. I focused on the proportions of the face, mostly. Once I felt pretty confident, I sketched the idea I had on my canvases. ( I used two small canvases because that is what I had lying around, but also because I like the effect.)

  

Now it is time to paint! I started out with a basic color coat. I used acrylic paints & mixed the colors to get the different shades I wanted.

 I decided to start with the face being red & moving in the rainbow colors as I worked my way to mane. I made sure to very the shades each color a little to show the different strands of hair in his mane.

Next was adding depth and shading/ highlighting to the picture.

I again began on his face and moved outward, varying how they are shaded.

I then outlined each strand with a black pen. This helped define each strand.

This was the most fun part for me. I loved thinking of new designs to make the strands. Some strands were left alone to show the color and some had line designs in them.

My next obstacle was his chin. I wanted it to look real/ soft, but also to be outlined to match the rest of the painting.

Here is what it looked like with all of the designs. So, the only thing left is. . . .

To paint the background!

I wanted it to be black for 2 reasons: To make the lion really pop off the canvas & because I used every other color at this point! haha!

Well, there it is friends. A fun painting (a great use of time when stuck inside on a rainy day!) I plan on painting different animals in the same manner to make a set.

Now it is your turn to get crafty!

How To Make a T-SHIRT quilt!

HELLO! Ok, so if you are anything like me, you have TONS of t-shirts. CAMP shirts, sports shirts, club shirts, school shirts, SORORITY shirts, etc. Do you really wear all of them still? I bet not. A T-shirt quilt is a great way to still use those shirts (instead of sitting in a drawer forever) & it can definitely be a DIY project! I know many people who have paid to have them made (& they all look AMAZING!) but, of course I saw it as a fun project!

I started by finding all of the shirts I might want to use & picked out what size quilt I wanted to make. In this case, I am using the majority of my sorority shirts & making it King sized. I used rouhly 30 shirts (although I had at least 50 or so. . ha!) Then, I measured all of the usable space (including the design, as wide and as long as I could get without having a collar, sleeve, or hem in it) on the shirts. I made a list of the shirts and the maximum and minimum lengths and widths of usable space for each shirt.

This is the list of usable space options for each shirt. I highlighted the measurements that I decided to use in the quilt.

Next, I went in Paint on my computer to make a "sketch" design of the quilt. This is when I found a place for each piece in the design of the quilt. To make things easier, since I had so many varying styles and sizes of designs on the shirts, I made the pieces fit into columns and did not use and sashing in the middle design of the quilt.

This is the digital "sketch" design I made. Each t-shirt was numbered. some shirts got two numbers for front and back, but to cut out some confusion, I used an asterick to mark the second design from the same shirt. For example: 1(front) & 1*(back).

TIME TO CUT! Now, I cut out the maximum usable space on each shirt. Basically, I cut off the the collar, sleeves, bottom hem, and seperated the sides. 

I then numbered each piece and stacked them until I had cut each piece. To make the future sewing process easier & to prevent future streching of the quilt, I attached some fusible woven interfacing to back of each piece. This helped the t-shirt material to not stretch really at all.

After ironing on all of the interfacing, I cut the pieces into the right size. (Keep in mind to cut pieces with a little extra material on each side for sewing. For math purposes and convience, I added an extra 1" of material to each side, which proved to be much more than needed, but better safe than sorry. ha)

I laid all of the pieces out on the floor to see how well the fit together according to the "sketch" design.

This is where I saw if I cut the pieces a little wrong. luckily for me, when I miscut them, it made them bigger than they should be, so I was able to cut them to the right size.

I laid the finished strips on the bed to see how they looked. Sometimes just laying them out on the floor doesn't give good perspective for what it will really look like.

After finishing all of the strips, I laid them all out on the floor to see what order I wanted them. I switched some rows around so that it was more aesthetically appealing.

After attaching a couple rows together, I laid them on the bed again to see how well I did.

I continued this process until all of the front of the quilt was attached together. Next I laid the bottom fabric (a king size flat sheet with all of the edges cut off) down, laid the quilt batting down and cut it to fit, then laid down the front of the quilt. Then I used hand embroidery thread to make ties at the corners of each piece.

Then, I pinned the edging on & began to sew!

This is the finished project!

It is done! & It is BBEAUTIFUL! ha. There are definitely a few spots where I cut part of the design out or had to re-sew, but those little quirks are fine with me. Overall, this was a fun project that was not all that hard. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial & maybe I even inspired you to try to make one of your own.

                                                         Well, That's all folks!

I'm SEW excited!

Hello my friends!

Well, I guess by the title, you have an idea what this post is about. ha,  BUT. . . . I GOT A SEWING MACHINE! It is a Brother 25- stitch sewing machine. So, you are probably wondering: WHY DID YOU BUY A SEWING MACHINE? Well, I can't blame you. I don't even know how to use a sewing machine. As I think I have mentioned, I am working on a t-shirt quilt with my Phi Mu t-shirts from college, and I decided that if I was going to learn how to use a sewing machine, it should be on MY sewing machine.

SOO, obviously, as soon as I got home with the box, I got everything out, read the manual (yep. . I actually read the whole manual first. ha), and started tinkering around. I LOVE it! I can't wait to get even better and hopefully be proficient one day.

Isn't it beautiful?! Well, does anyone have tips for me? Or questions/comments? Let me know! I could use all of the help I can get!

Talk to you soon. . .

Painted letters!

HELLO!! Ok, so for any sorority girl, this is as easy as breathing. BUT, for those of you who have not tried this before or are just looking for some new inspiration, here you go!

Ok, at this point, I am assuming that you have bought the wooden letters to spell out whatever it is you wish to spell. Now, paint them. This will probably take two coats or so of paint, since the wood soaks it up. After the base coat dries, you can continue to paint whatever design you want. In this case, I am just painting the base coat on the top and sides and then modge-podging a design to the top.

While the letters are drying, get your paper/design ready. I picked the Lilly Pulitzer Phi Mu pattern for the top of these letters. I found the print and printed enough copies of it to cover the tops of all of my letters.

Now, it is time to trace the letters onto the paper. I chose to draw on the back of the paper, as to not ruin the pattern on the front. TIP: I held my letter up to the paper in the light, so that I could align the design how I wanted it to show on the paper. then, laid it down and traced them.

This is how the letters and the design/paper should look before attaching them.

Using Modge Podge, attach the paper to the painted letters. Brush the modge podge on the top of the wooden letter, then put the paper down. Then, apply modge podge on to the top of the paper. The modge podge will work as a glue and a sealer.

This is the finished project :)

Flower pot repurposed :)

Hello dearies! I am sorry I have not uploaded anything lately, but it is only because I have been busy crafting! yay! This project includes one small flower pot, some acrylic paint, and a fun pattern to paint! This was soo much fun and easy & turned out great for a pencil holder. :)

Pick a pattern & Paint!

HELLO my crafty friends!

I am back with 2 new crafts!

My first craft was for my nephew's 2nd birthday. He had an Elmo party, so why not make Elmo cupcakes?! I saw some pictures on Pinterest & figured it wouldn't be too hard. . . . Well I don't think they are the best ever, but they definitely worked for us. :) {Tip: We used pink icing & added red food coloring. It took pretty much a whole bottle to get the red we wanted. . . }

For my second craft, I was once again inspired by something seen on Pinterest. Obviously, I chose to make one with a 'J' because of my name, but I am curious to try out many other letters and fonts. I think the hardest part was placement. I had all of the buttons beautifully arranged & I realized I had not payed attention to my spacing according to the top/bottom & the sides. (I got buttons for a gift, but I reccomend looking at your nearest Hobby Lobby. I hot glued the pink fabric to the glass & secured them in the frame. Then, I positioned & hot glued the buttons onto the fabric.)

Yay! I had soo much fun with these projects & can't wait to start my next!

Until then, keep crafting & feel free to contact me with any questions or comments (hint hint)!