Large Stenciled Cameo

One thing you would learn quickly by walking through my house and having a conversation with me is that almost everything in my home is either handmade, thrifted or upcycled. Two reasons - a) we've learned how to stretch a buck in our household and b) because it's just so much more satifsying. It doesn't take much for someone to make their home beautiful on a Restoration Hardware budget, but a Salvation Army one pushes the creativity in a lot of ways.

Last week I swung in to Salvation Army to see if I could find anything interesting and came across this beauty:

Because most of the frames I find are rectangular, it is nice when I come across something with some curves. And usually, pieces this large, even in thrift stores, are hard to score for $3 without a sale, so I picked her up and she came home with me. Immediately, I knew what I wanted to do with it. I have been working on putting together a big girl room for Lucy; the color scheme I decided on is mint and blush with gold and black accents, so I knew this big gold frame would be a great focal point for a wall gallery.

In the past, I've created dog silhouettes for our old house and also made a cameo for Lucy's first birthday party invitations. I loved how the invites turned out, and with the oval mirror, I thought making a cameo would give her new room a bit of fun, personalized, vintage charm.  I started off by taking a profile shot of her. It was the end of the day, and girlfriend plays hard, but the beauty of creating a silhouette is that I knew I could smooth out her hair and nobody would know the difference.

Next, I uploaded the picture into Photoshop and went to work creating my silhouette using this tutorial.

If I've already lost you because you don't have Photoshop, don't worry! I managed to find another option for you using free online editing software. Just follow this tutorial.  I tried this method out, and while it's a little harder to get precise points, with some patience, it is definitely possible.

Once I had my silhouette saved in the size I wanted it, I saved it as a jpeg and pulled it up in Microsoft Publisher and printed it off.  The reason for this step is that I knew with the size of my frame, my silhouette wouldn't print nicely onto an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper - Publisher allows me to tile print to create larger stencils.

I then taped together the tiles for my stencil and taped it down to the paper I wanted for my cameo on top of my cutting mat.

I got to work cutting things out with my X-acto (did I mention how much I value that thing?). Because things would have gotten really messy around the ponytail, I made the decision to cut it out with fewer points.

After I had my silhouette all cut out, I needed to create a new background for it in my frame. So I took off the back (which was screwed on) and used that as a pattern to trace onto a piece of poster board before cutting it out. I also punched some holes to allow for the screws to be put back in.

Once I had my background, I just covered the back of my silhouette with a layer of spray adhesive, laid it down on the poster board, and smoothed it out. I put it in the frame (I think the longest part of this process was getting it in the frame without any stray dog hairs getting between the cameo and glass), stepped back and...

...was a little disappointed. I didn't love how it was lining up in the frame, and I especially didn't love the lack of contrast. So I decided to try again. This time, I had some floral paper I wanted to try that was 12x12", so I reprinted the silhouette slightly smaller and repeated the process, using my dotted wrapping paper for the background instead.

This time, I LOVED the result. Perfectly feminine with a lot more contrast.

I've already hung it in Lucy's new room as part of a gallery wall, which I can't wait to highlight in my next post. I was fortunate this one was a fast, easy fix - not at all like the rice "ouchie" bear I tried for a whole evening to create and failed miserably at. I should probably take a picture and post it sometime just so everyone can get a good ugly laugh.

Hello Kitty Pillowcase

Have you ever bribed your child to do something?  Please say yes.

My moms group started again for the school year and I was on the way to drop my daughter off at child care and she wasn't too crazy about the idea--especially since we'd had the whole summer off.  She was really being whiny and I was trying to avoid a meltdown so I bribed her.  I told her if she acted like a big girl and there was no crying then I would make her a Hello Kitty pillowcase.  Well.  That solved that.

Of course, I told a friend that I bribed my daughter and she said good for you.  Then I told her with what and she thought I was a little crazy and should have started with a sucker.  She's right.  Why didn't I think of that?!

While this pillowcase isn't as simple as giving your kid a sucker, it is quite easy to make.  You only have to sew three times!

You'll need two coordinating fabrics:

Main fabric--3/4 yard

Border fabric--1/4 yard

To start, iron a double hem on one long side of the border fabric.  Then pin the unironed side to the main fabric with right sides together.

Sew along the top edge and then unfold the material, lay it flat and iron.

Then, making sure to line up the seams of the two materials, fold the large square in half to form a rectangle.  Pin two out of three of the open sides and sew shut.  (Do not pin and sew the double hemmed opening.)

Finally, fold the border fabric down matching the double hem to the seam where the two materials are sewn together.  Make sure the seams are lined up and then sew along the bottom of the border all the way around the pillowcase.

And you are done!  Your child will be thrilled, I promise.  And to be totally real, when I showed it to my daughter she absolutely loved it (even if she refused to smile for the picture).  She thought it was a blanket but she loved it.  She has also been playing around and wearing it as a skirt.  But she loves it!

I think what I need to take away from this experience is that I could put Hello Kitty on a paper sack and my daughter would be happy.  So does anyone know where I can purchase some Hello Kitty suckers?

Leaf Garland

I love when the seasons change.  It really doesn't matter what season we are heading into, I just love all the changes it brings.

I never used to be a big fan of fall because it meant there are no more warm sunny days at the pool, however this year I went through my first summer in the South, and wow.  I have never experienced such stifling humidity.  It was more than this girl could handle, and I am glad to be back home.

Anyway, back to my project for the week.  A few years ago I spotted a cute leaf garland from Pottery Barn.  Of course, I looked at it and thought, 'I can make that!'  I did, and we love it but it isn't very long, so this year I am making another one.

The supplies for this are:

Felt in fall colors (I used this project as a scrap buster)

Pins for placing template on felt (optional)

Sharp scissors

Hot Glue Gun or Craft Glue

Embroidery thread

Bedazzling items (optional)  like small beads or glitter glue

Ribbon or twine to attach the leaves

Step 1:  I hand drew my template.  I wanted a variety of leaves, but you could easily just do one.  Some of my leaves look more realistic than others.  It's the essence that counts, not the preciseness of your leaves.

Step 2:  Cut out the leaves.  Since I was using up my stash of felt I started with the biggest leaves, and placed them on the felt, then placed smaller leaves.  I also ended up making an additional, simpler garland I will show you in a minute.  

Step 3:  The leaves look cute enough as is, but I like to add some sparkle and make them fun.  This step is to bedazzle.  I added embroidery thread as the veins of the leaves or as trim, and some have small beads attached.  After I was done, I realized glitter glue might be a fun addition too.  Ahh, next time I suppose.

Step 4:  Unroll the ribbon and arrange the leaves.  Pin the leaves in place on the ribbon.  The leaves can be hand sewn or machine sewn.  I used 8 leaves on 5 feet of ribbon.  

Step 5:  Find a place to hand the garland.  Since I don't have a mantle or other obvious place to hang the garland I had to get creative.  I clothes pinned them to a white frame with chicken wire.

I had quite a bit of felt left, so I made a simple leaf and made another garland.  This one was much faster, since there was no bedazzling and the leaves were quick to cut out.  I used a simple running stitch to connect all the leaves.  Easy Peasy.  So easy in fact, that I went a little crazy and made about 10 feet of it in less that 20 minutes.

Again, I had to improvise because I have no mantle.  I cut down a perfectly good branch that just happened to be on the wrong spot on a tree, and plucked off the real leaves to put my own felt leaves on it.

Now, when I get home I can have a little bit of fall in my kitchen.  Even if it is only early September, and the real leaves haven't changed yet.

Initial Grapevine Wreath

One of my favorite things is to reuse and recycle materials while working on a project. This project is no exception. Take an ordinary piece of material and turn it into something personal and unique!

What you will need:

Grapevine Wreath

Twine

Ribbon

Cardboard

Paper 

Pencil

Scissors

Hot Glue Gun

Start by selecting a bold font in Word around 550 or so. If you can freehand your initial, go ahead and skip this step!

If you'd like to skip using a printer, an easy way to copy your letter is to hold your paper over your screen and LIGHTLY trace with a pencil. No harm done. You can trace it over a little darker once you're done.

Next, cut out your letter.

Using your cut out, trace onto cardboard. Cut your cardboard letter. This is what you will use for your wreath! 

(You must explain to your husband just how helpful he is, taking photos of you while you craft. It's essential.)

Since I work with a hot glue gun for many projects, I've discovered an old magazine makes an AWESOME surface to work with. When it's full of dried glue and such, just rip off the page and start with a fresh surface! Easy peasy. 

Add a thin strip of glue on the front and back of wherever you will be starting to wrap your twine. This is simply to hold it in place so it won't unravel. Do the same at every edge you come to.

Continue wrapping around, with as little space in between each wrap as possible.

Working with a W, I had a few places where I needed to cut, glue and start in a new location to continue with just one layer of twine. Each letter will be unique in that way. 

Here's how it's looking:

Now, decide where you would like to position the letter on your wreath. What's awesome about grapevine wreaths, is the way they were wrapped. They are so customizable and can easily be hung. Here's how you can hang yours:

Start by pulling your twine through one of the vines. 

Wrap twice in the center of your letter and continue to meet with the other end of twine.

Pull tight and tie in a knot, cutting any excess twine off. Add a dab of hot glue to help secure in place. (Skip that step if you'd like to be able to remove your letter later.)

Presto!

To hang, choose your ribbon of choice, or just simply use more twine. Pull up and through one side and down to the other side. 

Decide how much ribbon you'd like to show and cut off the excess, leaving about 2 inches to use.

Tie each end around a vine.

You are done! A personalized and recycled wreath to adorn your space.

(If you're like me, you stare at something long enough.. you want to change it. Like the ribbon! Change it out seasonally, or simply to get a different look. Get creative!)