LSU embellishments

Things have been a little hectic here; however, I have managed to get a few things done. Not quite where as much as I would have liked to get done, but some progress was made!!

These embellishments were completed in very little time; if only all embellishments took that little of time to complete!!

Materials:

• Small chipboard letters & Various (small) size Stars
• Paint: Apple Barrel Purple Pansy & Dandelion Yellow (you can switch out colors)
• Metallic Extra Fine Point Sharpie & Metallic Fine Point Sharpie (Don't have to use both, I choose to because I had both)
• Paint Markers for the sides of these tiny letters (if you want them that way)
• Glue pen
• E600 glue or Glue gun
• Small team emblems or any other items you wish to embellish with

I didn't use any sparkly trinkets because these are for a baby boy and I don't believe his father would have cared for his to have sparkles everywhere!! LOL!!

First, paint your small chip board letters in the color you choose as your base. I painted the sides of L, S, & U in yellow being they wouldn't get tiger stripes and then painted the front of them purple. Once they were dried I did another coat of yellow on the side in order to touch up any purple that may have gotten on the yellow. You can see in the picture above.

Using purple pansy as my base, I then painted all the other letters and some stars purple. Yellow wasn't added to the sides because those were about to receive tiger stripes. Once the purple was dried, I then took the metallic extra fine point sharpie to draw and shade in my tiger stripes on the letters.
For the star I used the same method; however, for the larger stripes I used the larger-tip sharpie. You don't have to use sharpie-brand, but if you do decide to use two different sized tip markers, be sure to use the same brand due to the variance in color.

Once your letters and stars are dried, you can now glue your stars together.  I choose to glue my smaller tiger-striped star on top of my larger purple star using E600 industrial glue.
It's not a big deal if the center stripes aren't perfect; you will cover that up.

To the left are the materials I used to make the star excluding the purple pansy paint along with the finished product of the two stars combined.


Once your star is complete, you can now secure your small emblem in the center of your star as shown below.

Using a glue pen apply your glue behind  your emblem and place it in the center of your star. Even though they these were already sticky, I recommend using glue to ensure security. The adhesives usually tend to ware off as time goes by; however, if you don't have a glue pen or craft glue, using the original adhesive can work. 

To the right is the completed piece.




Once my star was completely dried, I then glued it on the the letter "I" of the wall letters using the E-600 industrial glue.

 Completed!! Still have more of the wall letters to complete though.
I'll post a picture once they are all completed and of course more tutorials explaining the embellishments!!









Here is a better picture of the tiger-striped letters once completed. I orginonally was going to place them on his "T", but being he has two "T's" in his name, I'm not sure if it will look right to have to have one with the tiger letters and one without, especially since they are right next to each other.

 

By the way, all these photos where taken with my phone, so please excuse the imperfections.

Hope you enjoyed this and if you have any tips , please inform me!!

 

Have a wonderful day!!!



 

Collegiate Bow "LSU"

Just finished putting this bow together for a friend's two daughters. When I do come across "team" bows, they usually tend to consist of plain ribbon in the team colors with a small resin consisting of the team emblem or letters.

To give these a little more character, I Incorporated ribbons that had the team name while making the bow and in the in center piece; however, I also tried my best not to "over-do" it.

 Figured I'd post all the bows I made from this ribbon combination for you!! Hope you like, and it's not too overwhelming.

Some of the resins may be off-centered, but I hadn't yet secured them when I took the shots.

Any suggestions while I'm working on these would be deeply appreciated!!! Always open to new ideas and thoughts!! I hope to inspire you, as I would love to receive inspiration for you!!

Have a wonderful day and stay tuned!! ... you never know what will be next at this rate of un-organization!!! hehe!! I'll catch back up one day, hopefully sooner rather than later; thanks for being patient!!!

Stars, Stars, & More Stars

I know the number of post are beginning to decrease and I'm deeply sorry for that. There has been a small crisis along with other things going on; however, I was able to somehow get a few things accomplished during this period.
Although my son's room has a little ways to go before its completed, I figured I would share a couple ideas with you.

This first project is a simple and perfect way to include your child in the process of redesigning their room, even for children as young as 4 or 5 years of age.

Simple as baking cookies!!! ... and what little boy doesn't love space stars??

Clay Stars:   We used polymer clay and star-shaped cookie cutters.                                                                    

1. Using a roller, roll your clay on wax paper to your desired thickness.
2. Cut out your stars with the cookie cutter just as you would cookies.
3. Once you have all your stars cut out, bake in oven (on low)  or hot-plate (on low-medium). I prefer to use a hot plate; it allows you to bake them with more precision being you don't have to look at them through an oven door. If you choose to use an oven, you may want to keep them on low and check every 10-15 minutes, and adjust heat as needed.
4. After you have taken your stars out the oven, allow them to cool. Once cooled, you can then paint them. I use white acrylic gesso on this particular star before painting and the color came out much better than the other stars.
5. Now you can place these stars any where you wish!!

 Here's a photo of the stars my five year old cut out and painted!!

 These stars were embellished with additional stars and made into hooks for the wall.

 

Boy's Room Decore' and Organization

With hopes of your forgiveness for the lengthy time period of not posting, this is one of many post from my experience of reorganizing my son's room. Being we live in a rental-home that has few closets, it can get a little frustrating when there is no place to store toys, especially for a child who seems to have every toy ever created!!
If you have ever noticed in any of my pictures that expose the walls, you're probably wondering why they aren't cute and colorful... well, this is due to the reason is the same. My walls won't lack style once we are in a new house!!! he-he!!!

For those of you who have little boys, I'm sure you know how destructive they can get as well as how big of a mess they can make... So you can only imagine living without closet space!!



Paper Patterns that will be used in this room

I'm hoping to finish his room before he starts school. He should be able to have all his school clothes organized neatly in his room and in his reach in order to decrease the morning hassle and also increase his independence.



This is only two small ideas out of the many to come.



As of now this is his headboard; however, once I start placing everything on the wall, it may serve a different purpose.
Can you tell that I used coffee to stain this? Didn't have stain or varnish and didn't want to make a trip to the store; however, this was much cheaper and I rather the way it came out. It doesn't have that shine on it, which I rather for boy decore'.

A small shelf that will have hooks for hanging items. Have a little more to add on including the hooks, but there is a dark spot in the center that needs to be covered.

He is only age five. With that in mind, I plan on placing a rod to his level for hanging his clothes and intend to keep all his other school clothes and accessories at his level as well. Be sure to check back for those posts in the near future!!

Enjoy and have a wonderful day!!!

Black & White Hair Bow

B&W Hair Bow w/ BottleCap

Well here are two bows I have been wanting to make. It's not too often I come across black and white girly bows; in fact, I don't believe I've ever come across any. Being they are worn by young girls, they should be fun and colorful, but sometimes there are those special occasions that may call for something a bit less bright and colorful !! 

Hope you like!!!
Sorry about the over

I know I have yet to place a picture of the new ribbons, but I'm trying to decide whether I to create a new blog just for my hair ribbons or keep everything here.

B & W Hair Bow w/ pinwheel Flower (center)

P.S. Excuse the over-sharpened photos for now.

Frosted Vases: Etch appeal

I made more frosted vases, but these were for my mom. I had taken pictures of the entire process for you; however, I hadn't shut the power off on my camera which resulted in it not resetting it self to default settings. So I wasn't able to download my those photos on my computer. It wouldn't even let me copy the photos as JPEG versions either, which never happened to me before. Another absent-minded move of mine! Never fails.

The steps are fairly simple, so hopefully you will be able to understand the tutorial without the photos.

Materials needed for this project:

• Vase or glass piece you wish to frost
• Can of Frosting spray paint (I used Valspar, but you can use which ever brand you prefer)
• News paper or any type of paper (will be stuffed in the vase to avoid paint getting inside)
• Splat mat/ drop clothe (to place objects on while spraying)
• Vinyl letters or contact paper (you can cut your own letter out of the contact paper)
• Glass cleaner

1. First off, clean your piece with a glass cleaner.
2. Weather you choose to trace your own letter on contact paper and cut it out yourself, or use a pre-designed vinyl letter is completely up to you, but once you have cleaned your piece real well, place your letter in the center of your piece unless you're doing a different design or something. These two pieces are just simple and plain.
3. Take your news paper or whatever you have decided to use here and stuff it into the vase, this is to avoid getting frost inside the vases and also doubles as a protector if they were to get knocked over in the process for some strange reason. But hopefully not!!
4. If you haven't put down a splat mat or drop clothe, I would recommend you doing this now
5. Once you have your letter or design in place and the inside is stuffed with paper or whatever works for you, I would recommend wiping it down one more time with the glass cleanser to rub off any particles it may have picked up during this process.
6. Place your piece(s) on your splat mat and double check to be sure everything is in the place you want it to be in.
7. Frost your vase!!  Hold your spray can at a reasonable distance away from your piece and try to spray the entire piece from the same distance in order to create even coverage throughout the piece. (Don't want to get to close to the piece, it will be noticeable)
8. Once your piece has dried (shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes, but will most probably be dry in about 15 minutes), examine it BEFORE taking off the vinyl design. If you feel it needs another coat or find a smudge, repeat step 7; however, I recommend a lighter coat of spray and keep repeating until you get your desired results. You don't want to over do it!

I did only one coat on each of these and it literally took me no more than 10 minutes to get both of these pieces completed. You may want to experiment a little before spraying your good glassware if you haven't had much experience with spray paints prior to this.   

For those of your who are interested in the actual etching process of glassware, here are two great tutorials that I recently stumbled across and fell in love with when attempting to purchase etching cream. The first one is a beautiful DIY etched monogram on a square glass vase http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/monogram-vase-using-faux-glass-etching-technique-tutorial

and this beautiful idea is a DIY etching of words on glassware  with a great explanation of step by step instructions http://www.theyummylife.com/etched_glass_tutorial. I highly recommend you view these two tutorials, both are extremely beautiful and awesome ideas!!!

Hope you enjoy this post; I'll be back tomorrow with more ideas!!

Okay; deeply sorry I had to do that to you, but i'm finally done with school work!!! (YAY!!!) In other words, I'll be posting again!! CAN'T WAIT!!
Unfortunately I'm not posting any new ideas at the moment, but I promise to get something together for tomorrow!!
So stay tuned!!
P.S.: My new ribbon came in... So i'll try to finish up that last hair bow I had posted a picture of being I received some new bow accessories as well!! I just couldn't finish it without the right finishing touches!!
Well good night and can't wait to get back into action tomorrow!!!