Wood mountains

For a baby shower last year we built these wood mountain frames that Ashley saw on Pinterest.  I think they came out pretty awesome!

Various crafts

 These are some of the things I've been working on lately.  The above glass is for my friend's daughter's quinceñera.  They loved the idea of flower petals on a glass.  So she purchased the wine glasses, and I did the creating.  I took apart a silk flower.  This particular one was put together with hot glue.  So I just used my heat gun to heat the glue so it would be easier to pull the flower petals off.  And then I glued them onto the glass.  Turned out better than I expected.  I then put vinyl on the glass for the writing.  Easy peasy!

 I also made these shirts for our auction at work.  State themed items are very popular here in Nevada.  And I made one of these shirts for myself with freezer paper and fabric ink.  Since I made a few of these, I decided to silkscreen them using cut vinyl as a template and a speedball silk screen.  OMG, it was so much easier than the freezer paper method.  I'm still experimenting with the technique so I can figure out how much ink to use.  And hopefully Phil will make me a holder for the silkscreen soon.

 And at work we had a tie dye class.  You purchase the shirt, and we supplied the rest.  By the time I got to do it, the purple dye was gone, but there were a ton of green and blues left, so we came up with the above shirt.  I used the scrunching method instead of tying it with rubberbands.  It came out not too bad.

And this is for a birthday party Sunday.  It is Moana themed, and we have to come up with a craft for it. So I have been spending the past few days cutting out flowers (about 520 of them!) and cutting up straws for the spacers. It came out really cute!  I want to make some more!

Glitter Wine Glass DIY

Today I worked on a project for my friend Liz, she is making decorations for her daughter's quinceñera this year.  We are working on decorating a few wine glasses.  I decided that I'd start off with glittering the glasses and then we can work on putting the embellishments on them after they are done.  They take a few coats of mod podge and glitter, and an hour or two drying time in between. 

I hadn't done this before, so I practiced on glass wine glasses.  She is using plastic wine glasses that she found at Michaels.  The supplies you will need to do this are:

Wine glass (I used a plastic wine glass from Michaels)
Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge
Glitter (I used Recollections gold glitter from Michaels)
Painter's Tape
Mod Podge Spouncers
Bowl

I started with this wine glass.  You can use plastic or glass, she decided on the plastic ones because she has to transport them to the location and doesn't want them to break during transport.

 Since she wanted only the bottom part of the glass glittered, I taped off the mid-section of the glass and the bottom part where the stem meets the glass bottom. To help me to maintain a level line, I learned this trick.  Pour water to the level that you want the glitter to go to.  Then using the painter's tape, tape at that level. The glass necks down to the bottom, So doing this in one piece is a little difficult. You may have to do this with pieces of tape.  To keep the level of the glitter consistent, just use that same water in each of the glasses.  If you are doing a lot of glasses, you may have to check to see if you need to add more water.

 Next you will put an even layer of Mod Podge onto the glass.  I tried using a brush and painting the Mod Podge onto the glass, but got brush stroke lines.  I found the pouncers at Michaels, so I decided to use those, and it helped to cover the glass evenly.  Depending on how warm it is, the Mod Podge may dry quick, so you can do this part in sections or work quickly.

 I then placed my glass in a bowl, and poured the glitter onto the Mod Podge.  Make sure you cover the glass completely so you will have an even coverage of glitter.  The bowl helps to contain the glitter in one place.  I had found the Martha Stewart Glitter Shaker set a few years ago when they were clearancing them out.  It's nice because it has little spikes on the bottom of the bowl to hold up your object. It comes with a lid, so if you have a small item, you can put the item in the bowl, put the glitter in the bowl, close the top, and shake it.

 Let the glasses dry for 1-2 hours.  Then put on a second coat.  On these glasses I actually did 3 coats, letting it dry 1-2 hours in between.  After the third layer dried, I put a sealer layer of Mod Podge onto the glass.

 After the last layer has dried, carefully pull off the tape.

And this is what the glass looks like.  We will be gluing other embellishments on the glass at a later date. And I'll post a photo once we're done.

Make sure you let the glass cure for 28 days before washing it.  So if you're doing this for an event, make sure you give yourself a lot of time to do these.

Enjoy!!

Wood sign class

This month I was able to teach a wood sign class. The signs were already made, we just painted our initial on them and the leaves.  It was a really easy class and it was fun!

Ornament making class

 In December, I had the girls over for a craft night, and we made Christmas ornaments.  I had 3 different projects for us to do.  One was a santa made from chip brushes.  Another was a wine cork angel, and the third a snowman wood block.

 It was a lot of fun, it gave  the girls their first shot at painting objects.  And it seemed like they all had a good time.

 Kris was working hard on her chip brush Santa.

So was Kathy.

 Sheri was putting the finishing touches on her snowman.

Another frame...

My sister-in-law had this saying in vinyl on her wall.  When she moved she had to take the saying down and wanted a new one.  I just realized the other day that I could make a frame for her so she can take it anywhere with her.  

And I made this one for our friend Dave.  He does so much for everyone in our park, that I wanted to do something really nice for him.  He loves motor cycles and cars, so I thought this would be cool for him.  And he really liked it a lot!

And this one was for our friends Leticia and Javier.  They gave me all of these wood frames to play with, so I've been making things for everyone.  I really loved how this one turned out.

Joy Frame

Friday the girls and I went to the local craft fair at the local high school.  It's one of the biggest craft shows in the area, and there is always a lot of great stuff at this show.  I always get new ideas to make things, find new ornaments or decorations for Christmas. 

My sister-in-law found a frame that she loved that was hung up by a ribbon, and just had the glass in it with the word "JOY" with no backing.  And she was about to purchase it when I remembered that one of my friends gave me a bunch of 8x10 frames. So I figured I could make these myself, and save her a little bit of money.

So today was the day I decided to try this out for myself.

 First I took the backing and the glass out from the frame.  Then Phil helped me to drill two holes in the top portion of the frame so we could tie a ribbon in it later. I then hand sanded the frame so the varnish would come off and so that the paint would adhere to it better.

 I put about 3 coats of paint on the frame, letting it dry for about a half an hour to an hour in between coats.  Then once dried, I took a sanding sponge and sanded the frame in spots so that it would have a worn look to it.  And then sealed it with varnish.

 I cut out the letters, "JOY" with my Cameo, and adhered it to the glass.  I used the wet method to apply the vinyl to the glass.  This is where you take some water with a tiny bit of liquid soap and spray it on the glass.  The guys at the company I used to work with taught me how to do this.  It helps to eliminate bubbles that you get in the vinyl.

I let the water solution dry and then lifted up the transfer tape, and it was done!  I like how this looks!  I have a few more frames that I think I will make into other crafty projects.  I am not so great at the ribbon part, and my SIL offered to do that part.  So hopefully I can get a picture of that when it is all done.

These will make great gifts!  I can see doing a family name on it, the possibilities are endless!

Crafting class samples

So I've created a little group of crafters in our park.  The Hillside Crafters.  And we're going to make a couple of projects next week.

 One is a Santa made from a 2" chip brush.  We saw this at a crafting fair in Minden last weekend.  There were a ton of cool things that people made, and I thought this would be easy enough for us to make.

Next is going to be a wood block snowman.  The instructions say to use a glove for a hat, but I like this hat I made from leftover fleece.  It just looks better.  I could have made the face a little  bigger, but I like it so far.  :)  Hope that it will be easy for the girls to make. 

Embroidered Towels

It is gifting season, so I've started embroidering towels for gifts.  They are one of my favorite gifts to give because many times people cannot find their names on anything personalized unless they have it specially made for them. 

I use the font Eleanor from Designs by Juju.  It is my favorite fonts to use for blankets and towels because of its classic look and the lines aren't too thin for bulky items.

I like to use poly thread instead of rayon because it seems to last longer for color.  I found this especially for items that will be worn in the sun a lot.