Subway Art Challenge

Subway Art...so popular right now. If you look on Etsy to buy one they range from $50-$150 each. AHHH. So why not make your own? I'm not talking about vinyl on wood, I am talking hand panted beautiful subway art. Sounds too good to be true or too hard? Don't worry, it is simple with a little practice.

Here is what you need:
-piece of wood. You can go to Home Depot and buy a piece or reuse and recycle like I did using some old book shelf pieces.
-a die cut machine and vinyl or you can do it by hand using freezer paper or vinyl and an exact o knife.
-craft paint

I started by painting my piece of wood. I didn't even sand the piece because I like the brown highlights under the black paint. Make sure the paint is completely dry.
Next cut out all your letters. You are going to use the vinyl on the outside of the letter, not actually the letters so save those for another project. This was really the toughest part. Make sure you get clean lines and I would suggest the smaller the letter cut outs the better it will look.

Place your letter cut outs on your board in whatever form you like. The vinyl is easy to shift and move if you don't like the placement. Make sure you have all the words on your board before you move onto the next step.
Once your words are placed, paint your letters using nice even strokes. I did too coats because the white paint didn't show up well on the black.Let dry overnight. Then peel off your vinyl and admire your work. You might have to do a few touch ups on any messy sections.
Honestly, this was my second try. The first time I used too big of letters and it looked sloppy. You might want to practice a little before you do the final project.

On another note, this was the last project using my Cricut, Yep, I sold it to buy a Silhouette. Get ready for some great die cut projects in the future!

Feather Wreaths

Have you seen the pretty feather wreaths starting to make their appearances in all the craft stores for fall? 

Have you seen their pricetags?  They are incredible easy and inexpensive to make! 

Supplies:

-wood craft rings

-feather boa

-scissors

-hot glue gun

I put hot glue directly onto the wood ring and then applied the feather boa.  You might need to use additional glue and reposition some feathers if you have spots where the wood is visible.

The feathers were a little wild so I trimmed the edges. 

You can hang the wreath directly on your wall or for some extra fun, frame it!

I'm linking this post here.

Shoe Chart

Birthdays are not just for the birthday girl/boy. In my opinion birthday celebrations should be for the mother too. I mean seriously they are the ones that carried you for 9 long months and went through all the pain in the delivery. With this thought in mind I decided to give myself a gift in honor of my son's 3rd birthday this weekend.

Okay not really. But I did want to make something for me that would remind me of my little one and how much he has grown over the last 3 years.

I present to you the SHOE CHART.




On another note do you use tacky spray for anything? If you don't you should. It is amazing. Just spray it on your materials (wood, fabric, paper, whatever), let it sit for 30 sec or so, and glue whatever you want together. I used it to glue fabric to the back of my photo box board. Then I took 3 pairs of shoes my son wore at each age of his life and tacky sprayed those to the fabric board. Ideally you want some shoes that aren't too beat up or totally dirty but come on HE IS A BOY, so I did the best I could. Next I cut numbers out of felt, sewed them onto pieces of felt I cut into shapes and then tacky sprayed that to the board.

The last part was mod podge letters and hot glued buttons. My son even helped me with the letters. He tore the paper and I glued it on the letter. He really thought that was fun tearing the paper to pieces. Then I hot glued the letters to the front of the photo box. Last I took some ribbon that he picked out and made a bow. Then I stapled the ends of the bow to the back of the box. And now I have an adorable keepsake to put in his room and remind me of how much my son has grown... too fast I might add.

Baseball themed nursery art

Obviously I never got around to posting pictures of my project Sunday. My plans changed when I woke up to a sick little girl. We've pretty much been home watching plenty of Nemo and eating soup to feel better.

I had planned on showing you the baseball themed nursery art I had created. A friend contacted me over a month ago and asked if I could make a scoreboard for her new nursery. She is expecting a son later this year. I usually don't have the opportunity to make something fun for boys. She sent me a picture of a scoreboard she would like replicated (sorry I don't know the actual source).

I started with a blank canvas big enough to hang over a crib.

I used painters tape to completely mark off the edges around the canvas.

I also used the tape to mark off lines for the sections on the scoreboard.

Next I took my canvas to the empty lot next door to spray paint. Being that we just moved into our new home a little while ago, I don't have a good set up for spray paint yet. I'm terrified of getting paint all over our new house, garage, yard, patio, pavers, etc., etc., etc.!

The canvas needed several coats of spray paint...this picture was taken after the first coat.

I let it dry for most of the day in our garage. Then I brought it inside to add some details. I used sticky backed paper to cut out the black rectangles, white letters/numbers, and red digital numbers. I initially planned to paint them but changed my mind when I realized how difficult it would be to paint white over blue. I could have used stencils before the spray paint but that didn't seem too appealing at the time either.


I used my cricut to cut the white letters and numbers. I didn't have a cartridge with the perfect font so I just used the cut out letters as guides and then trimmed each letter until I was happy with how they looked. This picture shows several letters in different trimming stages.

I had a hard time coming up with a way to make the digital numbers. I ended up cutting slanted rectangles to start with.

Then I used a picture of digital numbers (on my iPhone because my husband was using the computer in my office) to cut each of them and draw dashes where there were breaks in the numbers.

I was really satisfied with how the numbers turned out.

I covered the canvas with two coats of modge podge (with several hours of drying in between each coat).

It turned out perfect!!

I delivered the canvas to my friend today and she loved it! It is the perfect addition to her baseball themed nursery!

While I was there I also added a vinyl wall quote above the window. The room is still serving as their home office so above the window was the safest place to put the vinyl with out yet knowing how she would arrange baby furniture.

I am excited to see her finished nursery!

I have all the dimensions for the sections and spacing. If you're interested in making a scoreboard similar to mine, please email me and I would be happy to share the dimensions so you won't have to spend time figuring it out.

 

Fun Find Friday - Photography Letter Art

Today's Fun Find Friday came from my own home!

Can you believe I didn't have this incredibly awesome photography wall art hanging on my wall before today?

We are really big Disney fans and visit Disneyland every chance we get. I grew up in Arizona and loved summer vacations to Disneyland with my family. My husband grew up mostly in Florida and spent a lot of time in Disney World. Together we have really enjoyed making Disneyland a part of our family memories. Our two year old daughter is one lucky little girl...she has already been to Disneyland 15 times! We have friends that also spend a lot of time in Disneyland. We've lived in separate states for almost two years so we planned to meet them for a Disneyland vacation last January. Their oldest son is just a little older than my daughter. He brought her a present to celebrate our time spent together because we rarely see them (kudos to his mommy for putting this AWESOME gift together). The little boy's grandfather took pictures of letters in Disneyland and saved them to make gifts. Lucky us...we were given framed art with my daughter's name. The back of the frame has the Disneyland location of each letter. It took me forever to get it hung because I was looking for the perfect place to hang it in our home. We just moved into this house last November and I had a lot of things waiting for a perfect place on the wall. Sadly this art was added to the "find a place to hang these things" pile in the guest bedroom closet. I finally hung most of our Disney stuff in our hall. The corner is directly outside my office...it's the perfect place for things that make me smile!

We have a lot of great Disney related art but today I decided this area is reserved for special gifts and fun stuff we've taken home from our many Disneyland visits.

My mother-in-law used her glass kiln to make a cute Mickey and Minnie picture. She gave it to us for Christmas quite a few years ago.

My grandmother's neighbor carves wood sculptures. She asked him to make us something Disney related for a recent anniversary gift. Cute and very thoughtful. The silhouette to the right is my husband and I...we had it made during one of our very first Disneyland trips together.

My in laws gave me Disney stock for my college graduation gift. For obvious reasons I blacked out my name and address.

Lastly, I hung a picture of my husband and I on Space Mountain. Do you know how many times you have to ride Space Mountain to get the perfect kiss picture? A lot!!!

Just for fun I'd thought I share a picture of a 2009 Christmas gift I gave my husband. I framed all our caricatures together - his from 1978, mine from 1984, and our daughter's from 2009. I love that our parents were able to find these!! Sorry for the bad picture...this was taken when I gave it to my husband. It is now in his office.

I really did plan on making something fun today but grocery shopping, organizing, hanging pictures, and cleaning is where I spent my day instead. Earlier this week I saw a GREAT idea at Lolly Jane Boutique. She made an interchangeable felt necklace. I had big plans to have this made before today's post.

To see the complete tutorial, go here. I never make anything for myself because I have a very difficult time picking one thing to make. I don't want to spend the time to limit myself to a necklace that will only match one color scheme. This interchangeable necklace is the perfect solution! I really really hope I set aside to make myself one of these before Creative Estates next week! Is that really less than one week away?? I still need to find myself some super duper awesome outfits, make business cards, color my hair, and give myself a really big pep talk to bolster up my confidence to be able to stand next to incredibly talented woman I follow everyday! Oh wait, did I just share my personal "to do" list with you? Oops. Seriously though, I'm really really excited about Creative Estates!

 

Personalized canvas wall art

I really enjoy making personalized gifts. Lately I've been making a lot of new baby nursery gifts. Although I haven't made of one these in the past couple of months, I thought this post would be a good start to a "wall art" section in our labels. I love painting on canvas because it is easy to embellish with buttons and other fun things. You can sew right through the canvas! I've seen these done on wood but that requires much more work (you have to drill through the wood in each spot you plan to stitch). Keep in mind that I do not consider myself an artist by any means. If you are nervous about painting on canvas, this might be a good starter project for you. You won't know how incredibly easy and great these are until you try one!

I made this for my nephew's birthday. He loves dinosaurs! I used metallic spray paint for the background instead of painting several coats with a brush. Then I drew on the dinosaurs and painted them in bright colors. The swirls on the background were drawn with a paper stencil. I used a pencil to trace the swirls on and then outlined them with a permanent marker. Yes, a marker. That's the beauty in these...you can use any materials you want...for me, it's usually what I already have at home. I actually used vinyl to cut out the letters instead of painting them because I was running short on time. One good coat of modge podge sealed everything. Then I used felt to add grass, the sun, and the blue stegosaurus spikes. Each dinosaur has a googly eye glued on too. I think it turned out perfect for a dinosaur loving five year old!

I made this fun owl art for a friend with a new baby.
I sewed on felt leaves and buttons to embellish the painting.

The "Jack" painting is one of my favorites. I used my cricut to cut out the monkey and then found some cute jungle rub on stickers to make it even cuter.