Butterfly, Flowers Mosaic

I made this piece when I first starting making mosaic pieces. I had a canvas laying around and since I can't draw I printed out a picture of this butterfly and flowers and traced it onto the canvas.

Just using a glass cutter I made the glass for the butterflies, flowers and leaves pretty small. Then the sky and the sun I cut larger pieces.

I mixed really bright yellow paint into the grout to look like the sun and make the rest of the piece stand out more.

:)

Mosaic Star of David

Mosaic Star

I made this using 3 or 4 different shades of blue and some shimmery white/clear glass. The best part is that I mixed some blue paint in with the grout. The grout turned out this very pretty baby blue color that matched the glass very nicely.

Circle, crayon art

Circle Crayon Art

I made this project the same way as the heart crayon art. For directions, look at that post. This was another fun project I made for my friend and almost couldn't give away! 

Such a great use for crayons besides coloring

:)

heart crayon art

Heart Crayon Art

Materials:

Canvas

Crayons

Hot glue

Blow dryer

1. Choose your canvas and lightly draw a heart on it with pencil. 

2. Peel off the paper from a bunch of crayons and break them so you have small piece. 

3. Glue crayons with hot glue. Yes, it must be hot glue just on one side of the heart. 

4. Go outside because it will get messy and start blowdrying the crayon side of the heart. Make sure you angle the canvas and the blow dryer so the drips are outside of the heart. 

5. Repeat the same process with the other side of the heart.

I made this project for a friend but I loved it so much I almost couldn't give it away!! It was fun to make and on the wall makes everything so bright!

Crayon Art

Rainbow Crayon Art

Materials:

canvas

crayons

hot glue gun

blow dryer

This is a very fun project! And it's great because there's no wrong way to make it. 

1. Line up however many crayons you need to fit across the canvas in whatever order you want.

2. Hot glue them to a piece of paper with part of the crayon hanging off the paper. Make sure to only glue the paper part of the crayon and you MUST use hot glue. Hot glue is the only glue that won't melt with the blow dryer.

3. Go outside!! Making this will get very messy! Find an area where you can lean the canvas against something. Then take the piece of paper with the crayons and tape it above the canvas so just the tip of the crayons are touching the canvas. 

4. Get you blowdryer and start blow drying the crayons. It will start off slow but once the crayons start melting they will drip fast. Depending on the angle of how you hold the dryer depends on how the crayons will look melted. I tried to hold the blow dryer straight so they would drip straight. 

5. You are done whenever the canvas looks like how you want it! I told you, there's no wrong way to this! 

Every project will come out pretty and unique! 

:)

Hair Ties

Perfect Hair Ties

Have you seen those hair ties around at the stores that look like pieces of elastic people just knotted? Well they have been very popular and all over the place lately. Oh, and they are selling for way more than they should be!

They are actually the best hair ties around because they don't leave a line in your hair or pull hairs out or hold the hair too tight. I have a few of them but I was lucky to get mine very cheap. 

I realized though these hair ties are just elastic and I knew I could just make them myself. The elastic you want to buy is called fold over elastic. The picture of the package on the left is some I bought from Michaels. I would say Michaels is the best place to buy it but they do only have a few colors. And you have to find it in the beading section, not the sewing section. If you are looking for certain colors etsy is the next best place to buy this. Most stores sell the elastic by the yard and it's pretty inexpensive, just shop around before you buy. 

Since I already had some hair ties I measured the length I from the old ones to make the new ones. I like to have my hair ties handy around my wrist so you can measure your own wrist too and cut to that length. Really there's no wrong way to do this. Just remember to leave a little extra to make the knot. 

Once your elastic is cut just make a regular knot in it and you are done! Some people may choose to burn the ends but I didn't and they haven't frayed or anything. 

You can also make headbands the same way, just measure your head! 

:)

Toilet Paper Art

Toilet Paper Flowers

Materials:

Shadow Box

Scrapbook Paper

Toilet Paper/Paper Towel Rolls 

Spray Paint 

Recycle your toilet paper rolls and turn them into something beautiful. 

First, cut the rolls up. However thick or thin you want them is your choice. Then slightly bend them to look like a flower petal. depending on the size of your shadow box will determine how many you want to make. 

I put a piece of silver sparkly scrapbook paper in the frame to look nicer as a background. I also put some swirls inbetween in the flowers. Since the rolls are just paper they can be glued together with Elmers. 

Some people leave their projects brown but if you do that it really just looks like TP rolls still. I decided to spray paint mine black and they looked way better and classier. I also just put a couple dots of glue on the back to attach to the background paper. Then sealed up the frame and that's it. You can't even tell this is a recycled project. It looks really pretty on the wall. 

Happy Holidays

Reindeer Cookies 

This was a fun delicious treat to make and eat! Basically just make chocolate chip cookies and press on some MnMs for the eyes and nose when they come out of the oven. You do have to be careful when putting in the pretzels because if you put them in too early the hot cookie will melt the chocolate on them and they will start to fall over. Once everything has cooled they will stick in fine. Don't these look so cute?? 

Happy Haloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Peace Sign String Art

Peace 

This is my second string art project. I did it the same way as the first one but this time I also made a boarder of nails around the edges of the wood. 

This project was fun because of the different color string. I used one color at a time and went back and forth every 4th nail. I started from the top and went to the bottom. Then I used the same process but went left to right. 

love and peace. 

Cali String Art

California

Materials: 

Wood board 

Small nails 

Hammer

Embroidery thread 

This is one of my favorite pieces. String Art was popular in the 70s but I brought it back! 

This was a pretty simple project but pretty time consuming. I bought just a rectangular wood board at Michaels and the smallest shortest nails I could find at Home Depot. 

Since I can't draw I printed out an outline of California that fit perfectly on the wood. I then made little dots 1cm apart all around the paper. Then where ever there was a dot I hammered in a nail. That's what took the longest time.

When all the nails were in the shape of Cali you can just easily rip off the template. I first wanted to do the heart where Los Angeles would be on the map but it was too close to the edge and it looked much nicer in the middle.

When I started to weave the string I only used half the thickness of the embroidery thread. I chose a spot and made a little knot then I just kept going back and forth from the heart to the Cali part. When I reached the end I just made another little knot and that was that!

When finished it really looks like a nice one of a kind project. 

My Furry Baby

Charlie 

Disclamer: I did not draw this! :(

Even though I did not draw this I wanted to add it to my blog. My best friend actually drew this picture of my baby Charlie for me as a gift. The actual picture is on the left and the drawing is on the right.

I will admit that I am creative but in no way am I an artist. I can hardly draw stick people! I am so jealous of people with talent like this! The drawing is almost exact, it's crazy.

Any of you out there if you can draw like this...I hate you!

:)

Paint Chip Art

Lots Of Love

This is a really cool piece I made with paint chips. It was a very cheap project and it looks so nice hanging on the wall. I went to Michaels and of course using a coupon bought a big shadow box. I actually wanted one even bigger than this but this was the biggest one I could find.

Then I had fun and went to Home Depot. Well actually first I printed out a heart shape that I liked so I made sure I got big enough paint chips. I knew I wanted to make my project rainbow colored so I just grabbed paint chips in the colors I wanted and if you can tell from the picture the colors are actually all different and go from dark to light. I had a row of pink too but I didn't have room for them but thats ok.

Paint chips are free and they have a billion of them at Home Depot so no one cares if you take a few.

When I got home I traced my template onto the paint chips with a silver sharpie. When I cut the hearts out the silver shows on the edges a little bit which actually looks nice because it has a little bit of a shimmer in the light.

To look like they are 3D all you have to do is fold the hearts in half and when glueing just put glue on that folded part. They will stick out when they are dry and give a neat illusion.

Then just let it dry, close up the frame, hang it up and there ya go, you just made your house even more beautiful!

<3

Pink mosaic vase

Pink Mosaic Vase

One of my favorite past times is mosaics. I just love how there is no wrong way to mosaic something. You don't have to be a good artist or know how to draw or paint or anything like that. You can put all your pieces on a surface and it will always look good!

I made this around a year ago and I love it. Actually, I should have cleaned it a little better before I took the picture but I was just so eager to share it!

I first bought a vase from the dollar store. One of the best places to buy glass vases. Nice and cheap! Then I bought a big sheet of glass that was pink, purple and blue kind of all swirled and mixed together which makes the vase look really pretty. I cut up the glass randomly with a glass cutter and just started gluing. Gluing on a round surface is actually pretty tricky because glass will slide down the vase. I had to glue a little strip and wait for it to dry, twist it and glue a little more and the same process over and over again!

Sounds pretty time consuming but Wellbond glue is the best and it doesn't take too long to dry. The top little section I used smaller pieces of glass because it was a small section.

The best part of the vase is the hot pink grout! This picture doesn't even do the vase justice because it really is hot pink! Now, when changing the color of grout there is better paint than others to use which I'm sure you can google but ehhhh. I just got some random hot pink paint from school and mixed it in. The more pink the better.

Nothing can be too pink! 

When mixing paint into grout you have to be careful because the paint takes the place of some of the water but you just mix a little of this and a little of that and it will be great.

The pink, purple, blue vase with hot pink grout is complete! Oh and putting some big bright flowers in the vase makes it look even better

:)

Spray paint shirt

Spray Paint Shirt  

Materials:
Tshirt (a lighter color works better)
Fabric Paint
Masking or painters tape
Old magazines or newspaper
A wide open space to create

This is the process of a spray paint shirt I made a while ago. I saw some shirt that someone made kind of like this and thought that was easy enough to copy and it was!

First, I bought a white T shirt. I got mine at Old Navy in their clearance section for a couple bucks. I think it's better to buy a shirt from a clothing store rather than a craft store because they always fit better. Don't spend a lot of money on the shirt though in case your creation doesn't come out like you want it. That way a lot of money isn't wasted.

Then I went to Michaels and bought some spray paint. BEFORE going to Michaels make sure you cut out one of their coupons or you access the website on your phone. They have coupons every week and if you go to Michaels all the time like I do, you will end up saving soo much money!

Now, buying the paint I made a big mistake. I bought just regular spray paint not really thinking anything about it. When you go you will buy fabric paint! After making shirts with spray paint and fabric paint I can see there is such a big difference between them (duh). But you MUST buy Tulip Brand Fabric paint. TRUST ME! This is the best brand of fabric paint you can buy (At least from what I've seen at Michaels and Hobby Lobby). I bought some other brand once and it was a disaster (I'll talk about that in a different blog).

Anyway, go ahead and buy however many colors you want. The brighter, the better!

Now, I wanted stripes on my shirt which were very easy so I flattened the shirt out on the kitchen table and I started taping. I just used regular masking tape, nothing fancy. That blue painters tape works good too. To make sure the spacing was even I put a little piece of tape after each stripe and then peeled it off when I was ready for the next line.

Then the fun part! I brought my shirt, some magazines and the paints out to the grass and set the shirt down flat agian. Since I was using spray paint I made sure not to spray this on the sidewalk where my shirt outline would be there forever. I made sure to use magazines to cover the parts of the shirt I didn't want colored as well (in this case the sleeves). Now, I didn't put any magazines inside the shirt because I was using a thin layer of spray paint but if your worried I would put some inside so the paint doesn't bleed through to the back. Then, diagonal in the opposite direction I started to paint stripes. I just did a random thickness and random color order so it's not perfect but homemade shirts aren't supposed to be!

On the bottle it will tell you how long you must leave your work out before the paint is dry but I always leave my stuff out longer just to make sure. I would hate to touch it and have a fingerprint ruin everything. Now that I think about it I usually leave my work flat overnight before peeling off any tape.

When looking at your creation you are going to think it looks like a huge messy blob but just wait until you peel off that tape and that bright white shirt shows! It is such a nice feeling peeling the tape off and seeing your beautiful work of art.

*****Why you should use fabric paint: Before washing your shirt it will feel stiff and it will be hard to wear but if you use the Tulip fabric paint after washing it it will be soft and it will move and give and feel just like how the shirt did before the paint. If you use spray paint the shirt will be stiff forever! I wish I knew this before making mine!

Mine is still wearable because I just did the paint on the front but I made another shirt with spray paint on the front and back and that was a disappointment.

Well basically that is it! Pretty easy, I know! Try it out, have fun and I hope you like your finished product!

:)

Day 1

My First Blog!

Being a teacher I don't have a lot of free time but when I do and my kitty is finished playing with me I like to spend those few minutes of free time making crafts.

I think I am going to use this blog to post things that I have made and things that I have tried to make!

I have gotten most of my craft ideas from the internet so I thought why not throw my stuff back on here for someone else to enjoy.

So I hope you do! :)

The kitty