The Fickle Hobbyist

Archive for the ‘craft’ Category

This is a project that I wanted to do LAST year when everyone was on the whole “homemade coasters made with a tile” kick, but getting the girls to sit down and draw four pictures proved to be difficult.  Luckily this year their attention spans were a little more prepared to handle the task.  I used the same method of transfer as I did in the previous post with the waterslide transfer paper.  I fall more and more in love with this product every time I use it.

These coasters were made specifically for each girl’s teacher.  I have made baskets full of homemade goodies including Christmas coffee (a delicious blend that my family makes every year), sugar/cinnamon almonds, and homemade blackberry jelly.  I think the coasters will look great nestled in with all of that.

So first, I scanned each girl’s photo into the computer, and added a border on Photoshop.  Then, I printed on the waterslide paper and sprayed acrylic over it and let it dry.  Then, following the instructions from the last post, I transferred each drawing onto a plain old, white floor tile.  These were about 4.25″ square.

Once the transfers had dried, I coated each coaster with a generous coat of acrylic to seal it all in.  Then, to finish the backs, I used a roll of cork liner.  (I found mine in the shelf liner section of Home Depot).

Not being one to waste, I used a ribbon that was around the new sheets I just bought to hold the coasters together.  I fashioned the bow out of the excess.  I’m all about using what you have on hand!

I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.  I think they’re adorable.  Of course, I could be bias since my kids made them.  I hope the teachers like them!

-Autumn

Have you ever heard of water slide decal paper?  If you haven’t, let me introduce you to one of my favorite crafting products.  I picked mine up at Papilio.com last year when I first discovered this product.

It’s a tradition that I make ornaments for each of my cousins every year, so last year I was looking for something a little more “professional” looking than, say dough ornaments or something.  (which I actually still love)  My research led me to this product.

It’s essentially gelatin on top of paper.  You print an image onto the paper using your glossy setting, coat it a few times with a lacquer, and then you’re ready to add it to whatever surface you’d like.  This year I was making ornaments for the Brownie troop I am now a co-leader of.  I made sure to take a photo of each girl at our investiture ceremony so I would have something to work with.  I took these photos, put them into Photoshop where I used a feathering on the sides so that the color wouldn’t have an abrupt edge to it.  I also made a little thing that said “Oh My Honor…” with the troop number below.

After taking this photo, I took it to the garage and did about 3 or 4 coats of a clear, glossy lacquer.  Once it was dry, I was ready to transfer the photos to the ornaments.

Last year I used ornaments that looked like this:

These were great because they provided a smooth, flat surface to which I could apply the transfer easily.  The problem was that I ordered these online and this year I waited too long to get them, so I had to see what they had at Hobby Lobby.  This is what I found:

These were great, but they posed 2 problems.  The first one is that they were slightly convex.  I know this would probably cause a little bit of an issue with the transfer, but because the curve wasn’t TOO bad, I figured I could make it work.  The second thing is that they are clear.  When you print on the gelatin, it doesn’t actually print the white out, so anywhere there would be white in your photo, would actually be clear.  I thought to get around this problem, I could just fill the ornaments with something white and it would be fine.  Well, that didn’t actually work, but I’ll show you how I got around it.

When you’re ready to slide your transfer onto your craft surface, you’ll need some warm water.  Cut around your photo and dip it in the water.  You’ll want to give it a minute or two until the decal begins to slide around on the paper.

Then, put your decal up against the surface of your craft and gently slide it off, and directly onto your surface.  You’ll want to avoid getting bubbles underneath it, but if you do, don’t worry.  You can use the very paper you just slipped your decal from to ease the bubbles out.  You’ll feel that it’s still a little slippery, so fold your paper, slippery sides out, and use that to wipe the surface and smooth any air out.

From here, you can use a paper towel to dab the water off and let the ornaments dry.

At this point, you could be done if you wanted to be.  However, because you can *sort of* see the decal’s edges, I wanted something to smooth it out, so I went over the surface again with the lacquer.  I didn’t do this last year, though, so it’s up to you.

Now, if you look at the ornaments above, you’ll see what I mean about the color issue.  Without white behind it, the image is pretty difficult to see.  I noticed while the ornaments were sitting on top of something white, that the image was able to pop, plus I really liked the 3D effect of having the words above the picture.  So, instead of filling the ornament with something white and having two sides, I decided to grab some enamel paint and paint what would now become the back of the ornament.  (don’t mind the mess, this table has become craft headquarters)

So when they dried I was left with this:

I was really happy with how they turned out and I think the girls really liked them.

Now, if you are a visual learner and have to see how things are done, here is the video I taped LAST year before I even had a blog.  I just shot this for some of my friends to show them how it was done, so it’s not the best quality.  However, it walks you through the whole process.  Enjoy!

And here is the ornament that was seen in that video:

-Autumn

I have to admit, I’m kind of surprised it’s taken me this long to get to the girls’ costumes this year.  Usually I’ve had their outfits planned and made or bought by now.  I’m not sure why I’m just now getting them assembled and when we have only 7 days, but that’s where we’re at today.

The girls decided that they wanted to be Word Girl and Captain Huggyface this year.

I thought this was incredibly creative of them.  The deal was sealed, however, when Abby proclaimed “Oh yeah, I’ll be Huggy and I can do this dance!” and proceeded to throw her hands up and do some sort of monkey dance.  It was hilarious. (see 25 seconds into this video to see what I mean)

Not being one to usually just buy a costume off the rack, we set to work yesterday collecting pieces for their outfits.  We tried Goodwill to see if there were any long sleeved shirts and/or matching leggings.  However, we had no luck so we headed to Walmart.  Again, no matching red or blue shirts and pants sets.  Instead I decided to get a set of long johns in white for each girl and dye them.

We grabbed a pack each of Royal Blue and Scarlet Rit Dye.  You’ll also need some salt.

I really wanted the colors to be nice and deep, so I opted for the stove-top method.  Start by soaking your clothes in a warm bath of water.  This assures that all fibers are saturated and the color will be distributed evenly.

On the burner, mix your packet of dye, one cup of salt, water and a tablespoon of laundry detergent.  It says to mix 3 gallons per packet, but I just filled the pot without measuring.  You don’t need a full on rolling boil, but rather a simmer.  When it gets nice and hot, slowly lower the clothes into the dye.

Be sure to continue stirring it to make sure the dye gets into each and every nook and cranny.

It says to keep the clothes in the dye for at least a half hour, more if you want a deeper color.  I thought I’d have to leave them in for a long time, but surprisingly they had great saturation at just a half hour, so I began to rinse them then.

Start rinsing with hot water, and slowly decrease the temp to cool.  Continue to rinse until the water runs clear.  When you’re at that point, throw those puppies in the laundry and wash as normal.

Just look at the color!  Isn’t it great?  I’ll post a “finished” pic when I add the star and lighting bolt.  (stay tuned for part 2)

The other part of the costume I tackled today was Huggy’s helmet.  You may have seen these cool knight helmets at the Dollar Tree…

I randomly picked up a couple of these along with the swords and shields for the girls to play with.  Luckily it came in really handy today!  I took a little hack saw to the face plate and popped out the little thing on the top and got it ready to spray paint.  I didn’t take a photo of it, but at this stage I lightly sanded down the surface with a sanding sponge just so the spray paint had something to adhere to.

I took it outside and gave it a nice coating of a red spray paint specifically made for plastic.

Isn’t it pretty?

For the little …transmitter? on top I took a wooden dowel, made a foil ball, hot glued it to the top of the dowel, and then covered the whole thing with foil.  Thankfully the little hole in the top of the helmet came in really handy.  I dropped a bunch of hot glue around the hole and stuck the dowel in and held it in place until it cooled.  Then, on the inside I applied a VERY liberal dowsing of more hot glue and, just to make it smooth and give it something to stick to,  stuck a big peso on it.  I know it’s random, but it worked great.

I’m really happy with the outcome!  Abby rather liked it too.

Tomorrow I hope to finish up the costumes with the belts, the appliques, the cape, tail, and the “boots”.  We were fortunate enough to find some red elbow length gloves at Walmart, so that made that part easy.  I can’t wait to see how it all pulls together.  They’re going to look so cute!

-Autumn