Make Your Own Stencil For Fabric Painting - Condor Shirt

How are you all dealing with the heat and humidity?  Today I distracted myself with a new creative project.

I am really drawn to condors and I decided to try making a stencil that I could use for putting a condor silhouette onto a Tshirt.  I know that some people use freezer paper for this.  I didn't have any and I also wanted the stencil to last through many uses so I decided to use poster board.  You could also use bristol board or thick card stock.  This is the first time I've used Tulip fabric spray paint and it was much thinner than I expected.  I don't know if the poster board will last through the first use without warping so I plan to put a coat of acrylic paint on both sides first.

I found a condor silhouette that I liked using Google Image search.  Then I edited it in Paint to remove most of the black (saves printer ink).

Here are photos and notes of the process.  If you can't read the text, please click on the image to make it larger - the blurriness goes away.

I'm really happy with the results!  :-)

 

Photo collages and effects created using the free program http://fotoflexer.com

Red Star Mandala

When I want to create but have little energy, I often turn to the free graphics editing program Sumopaint and make mandalas from images I already have on hand.

This mandala was created from a photo of a painting in progress (shown below).
I really love how the texture of the canvas itself shows up in this mandala and makes beautiful, feathery lines.

The painting in progress is small and simple so far. I'm enjoying the colours.

Golden Light
5"x7"
acrylic on canvasboard

Pink Morning Glory Mandala

created using sumopaint.com

Source Image:

Flower Within Mandala

I love this mandala - both the regular and the inverted versions make me smile :-)

created using sumopaint.com
source image (an envelope I decorated by hand):

Inspiration Cloud Mandala

Hmm... this blog seems to be mostly mandalas lately.
I have been doing a huge amount of art journalling/playing and painting.
These mandalas get shared most because they are so easy to post since I don't have to upload and edit images from my camera! And they're sooo much fun to make :-)





The source image for this mandala is a pen and marker drawing I did that I called an 'inspiration cloud' - doodles surrounding an empty place to write inspiring text:

Sunny Mandala

Rain has returned to southern Ontario and I am yearning for the sunshine that has made only brief appearances so far this spring!
This sunny mandala was created out of that yearning:


created using Sumopaint.com

Source image (St. John's Wort):

Sparkly Mandala

click on image if you'd like to see a larger version

created in Sumopaint.com from source image:

Three More Mandalas

source images:

Serpent Mandalas

These mandalas are made using Sumopaint.com






The source image is of a beautiful garter snake I met a few summers ago:

Super Simply Sewn Satiny Scarf forThree Dollars

I adore all things shimmery, satiny, sparkly and metallic. I also love flowing clothing that moves when I do. At the same time, I'm a bit of a tomboy - the type who likes climbing trees, can't wear white without getting it dirty, washes all colours together in the laundry, and has zero tolerance for clothing that is uncomfortable. Fragile clothing, worn by me, invariably gets damaged. I choose jewelry based on how unlikely it is to get caught on things or banged up in the garden :-) When I see women with rings that stick up, I instantly think, "How do they handle that? It would bang into everything!"

I've been eying the many styles of scarves in stores lately and most of them are either made from material that feels scratchy or are so fragile they would fall apart in the wash (I also have low tolerance for clothing that can't just be tossed in the washer with everything else :).
The scarves out now are also pricey! It feels wrong to me to spend $15-20 on a tiny piece of fabric that would cost about $1 to buy.

So I decided to buy fabric and try making my own! My sewing skills are basic and I don't have patience with patterns and pinning so my creations sometimes work... and sometimes don't.

Thankfully this experiment went pretty well.

This lovely fabric shimmers in the sun and has a beautiful, satiny feel to it... yet it's made from polyester and can be tossed in the washer and dryer - yay!

widthwise seam, inside

I didn't take a photo of the first step which was to cut half a meter of fabric in half, lengthwise and sew two ends together widthwise. You can see those ends sewn together vertically in the photo above.

lengthwise seam inside

Then I had one long, narrow piece of fabric about 10 inches wide. I folded it in half with the right sides together and sewed the 2 'wrong' sides together. I didn't bother pinning, just matched up the sides as I went along with a simple straight stitch. The fabric was not cut evenly at the store so it's not even but it doesn't show when it's being worn.

widthwise seam, rightside out

That photo above is how the outside seam looks where the 2 long pieces were joined widthwise.

lengthwise seam rightside out, unironed

When I was done sewing lengthwise, I had a long tube with both ends open. At that point, if you wanted closed ends, you would sew one end closed all the way and the other end closed except for a few inches (then pull the tube rightside out through the small opening and handsew it closed). I wanted my ends left open so at this point I simply turned the long tube rightside out... and I was done! I could have ironed it so that it will lay flat but I really like the body and fullness it has and I don't want to flatten it one bit :-)

big, long tube scarf, outside

The ends didn't match up perfectly and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that yet. I'm pretty laid back so I may just leave it :)

Total cost for this project:
only
$3
(for the fabric)
☺
☼

*I've never tried to describe a sewing project in text before so if you have any questions or would like me to clarify something, please do not hesitate to let me know in the comments :)

Rainbow Crochet Cell Phone Cover - in progress

The sun has been shining brilliantly, gloriously, scintillatingly... all day!
I am so amazed at how much this can effect my mood, physical energy and mental state.
Just yesterday I was sharing how I haven't been motivated to take photos of works in progress, let alone upload and edit them.
Well... the radiant, dazzling sun and clear blue sky have worked their healing magic on me and I've gotten motivated to write this post :-)

I've only had a cell phone since Christmas and I've already dropped it in the snow!
Thankfully it was fine but it made me realise that I really want a case for it.
I don't like any of the ones in my price range so I decided to try and crochet one.

Almost done!

It's very simple and it has an almost rainbow progression(it's missing purple) so it is soothing to the part of me that has been craving colour amidst all the white and grey of an Ontario winter.


When I get to the top, I'm going to crochet back and forth on only one half of this tube to make a little flap that will fold down over the top of the phone. I'll post pics when it's done.

My cell phone is also an MP3 player and since that's what I use it most for, I think I may add loops that I can attach a long single crocheted chain to so I can wear it either around my neck or shoulder-bag style. That way I won't have to unzip my coat if I want to switch songs! Brrrrrr.
:)

Update
After posting this I was thinking about how much I like how snugly the cover fits on... and I suddenly realised there was no way to have the headphones plugged in if the phone was in it's cover! OOPS! So if you decide to try something like this, be sure to leave a hole in the side that matches up with where your headphone jack is. Luckily I only had to pull out a few rows to go back and correct this (I'm glad I didn't realise after it was all done!).
☺


~

Thanks mom for teaching me to crochet all those years ago. I am still at a very low skill level... but it suffices for me and I love doing it :-)

Handmade Christmas Cards

In a bit of a flurry, I realised this week that I had delayed too long, as usual, in sending cards out. I have store-bought cards I can use, which would have saved time, but my memory dances all over the place and I can't recall which ones I sent to which people last year! I don't really want to send anyone the same card 2 years in a row so I decided to make some by hand. After a few tries, I came up with a design I liked that didn't take too long to complete:

The background is done using the markers & plastic wrap technique I posted about a while back. It's an easy way to get slightly textured looking backgrounds in a snap without using paint. It doesn't warp paper like wet techniques do.

The balls were made by colour copying my red and green paper weaving, using a circle punch and attaching with glue(stick). The 'strings' are sparkly red gel pen.

I decided to brighten up the back of the envelopes using hand-carved eraser stamps. This snowflake is my most recent carved stamp and I am totally in love with it! It was a project that I was daunted by and doubted I could do... and so put off doing for a long time rather than try and fail. When I finally tried it, it worked out wonderfully! I never know when something may turn out to be much easier than I thought it would. :-)

A Fun and Frugal Holiday Garland

When I first began working on Christmasy projects a few weeks ago, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post them on my blog.  I'm not Christian but I love so many things about this holiday.  Since I have a hard time with words, I'd like to borrow from Christie of Grace is Overrated, who perfectly expressed what I had been feeling on this topic.  In a recent post she said, "I didn't want to offend those who might celebrate differently than I do or not at all, for I know that Christmas is not a universal celebration.  Most of all, I want this to be a place where we all feel welcome and appreciated and included."
Thank you Christie, for saying that so well!
I hope that those of you who don't celebrate Christmas will not feel hurt or excluded.  If you'd ever like to adapt one of my projects to a holiday or event you celebrate and want ideas how, please contact me - I'd love to brainstorm.  :-) If you adapt a project and share it online somewhere, please let me know in the comments so I can link to it!  I would love that. ♥
This project in particular lends itself well to any occasion one wants to decorate for.  I love it so much that I plan to make one in rainbows to have up at all times.  Not to celebrate anything (well, I suppose to celebrate my love of rainbows :)

I originally planned to make this garland by punching circles from cool paper and gluing to a string.  I quickly discovered that I didn't have the patience to get the gluestick on the circles and line them up on either side of the string before the glue dried... at least not for the time it would take to make 12 feet of it!  I had the circles all punched out and was very disappointed until I had a sudden brainwave...
Stickers. 
No glue.  No punches.  EASY!  And best of all, FUN because I love stickers.

This holiday garland has some parts that could easily be done by children and some best for adults.

Supplies:

• tape (I use painters tape because it is easy to unstick from walls, string, fingers etc)
• 1 package of coloured circle stickers (any colours you like)
• thread or string (any colour you like - I used silver because I like sparkly things)
• Optional:  1 package of coloured metallic star stickers (or any sticker you like that is smaller than the circles)

I already had thread and tape on hand so this garland cost about $2 in stickers bought at a dollar store.  If you use only circles, it would be around $1


Step 1. (kid-friendly)

Stick the star stickers onto the circle stickers.  You can use contrasting colours.  I decided I liked how it looked best when the star was the same colour as the circle.  This photo doesn't show it well but when the light hits the stars, they reflect.
They don't need to be even - this step could easily be done by any age of child that could be trusted with stickers.
Idea: children could also draw on a few of the circles instead of putting stars on them.  They may enjoy later picking out their drawings as they look at the garland.  Another option is to spell out words - 1 letter per circle.

Step 2.

Tape a length of string between 2 walls in a corner.  You could also tape one end to a table and the other to a wall. If you leave the string attached to the spool, then you don't have to calculate how many stickers will fit on what length, just keep on sticking until they are used up!
If you look closely on the left, you can see that I experimented with having circles and stars alternate on the string - it was much too finicky to get the stars to match up evenly so I abandoned that idea.  You can also see that I didn't immediately think of putting the stars on the circles before attaching them to the string!  Trust me, it's way easier to do Step 1 first :-]


Step 3. (not so kid-friendly)

a) Stick the stickers to one side of the string.    I stuck one on the string, pressed the string firmly onto the adhesive and was able to let go while I got the other sticker from the sheet.  This may not work as well if you were using a heavier weight of string. It doesn't have to be in the exact centre.
b) Stick a matching colour of sticker to the other side of the string, lining it up as close as possible to the first sticker.  Don't stress out if they don't match up perfectly.  Once I hung mine, I couldn't even see the mistakes.
c) Decide how far apart you want to space the stickers and repeat steps 3 a) and b) until your garland is as long as you want!

I made a big long garland but this would also look very nice in many shorter strands hanging down vertically from a ceiling.  I used my experimental alternating star/circle piece to hang down from the centre of the garland.

To prevent tangling:

As you fill up the length of string you have taped between the 2 walls, you can loop the finished pieces and tape to the wall like this:

To store:  I will wrap it around a piece of cardboard that I've made notches in each end of, then put in a file folder or envelope.  You could also wrap it around an empty paper towel roll as shown in the photo on this blog: Polka Dot Garland


Hanging: 
When made with thin thread, this garland is very light and airy.  It is held up to the ceiling with Scotch tape and has not threatened to fall down.  I doubt the entire 12 feet would hold with just 2 pieces of tape but I hung it in scalloped sections and it's holding well.

If you try this project, or a variation on it, and post online, I'd love if you'd comment with a link!

Happy decorating!

Hand Stamped Wrapping Paper

I had so much fun decorating the wrapping paper for this gift and wanted to share a picture with you of the final result.
I'm normally too much of a perfectionist and it gets in the way of me enjoying some artsy/craftsy things.  This time I somehow turned off the inner critic and just had fun!  Nothing is really even, the wrapping job is a bit lumpy... and I don't care LOL!

The stamps: the star stamp was hand-carved from an eraser.  The rest were store bought from Michaels.
The ink: inexpensive dye-based stamp pads - also from Michaels.  The silver dots on the trees were added by hand with a new gel pen I am loving.
The paper: I have supplements shipped to me by mail and I always save the packing paper to re-use.  It is not very strong so I doubled it up to make sure it wouldn't rip when the gift was handled.

Birthday Collage for a friend

Much more personal than a store bought birthday card :-)

(name at top removed for privacy :) Text reads: "Dear ____, My birthday wish for you is that your year ahead has many calm days, peaceful, rest-filled nights and the energy to play your butt off!"

Text reads: "SEEK YOUR TRUTH... It's likely to be at the heart of something you DeLIGHT in."