Vintage Halloween

I've always loved the look of vintage decor ~ especially around the holidays ~ and thought I'd try my hand at a little something as Halloween is right around the corner and because a good friend of mine has a big Halloween bash every year and goes all out in her decorations. This will be for her!

A couple of months ago, my local Tall Mouse craft store was going out of business and I found a frame there for a couple of dollars; one of those brown paper ones that are just begging to be altered in some way. Originally, I was going to do something with all of the Starbucks cards I've collected but they're all still sitting in my drawer waiting for a different rainy day.

First thing I did was to go through all of the scrapbook papers I have and select some that looked somewhat vintage and would be appropriate for Halloween (colors and such). Then I cut them into squares and followed that up by painting the outside edges and inside of the frame bronze.




Once I had all of my squares cut and the paint had dried, I started decoupaging them onto my prepared frame using Mod Podge. Any finish will work but I used gloss-lustre to glue down and to cover the entire frame (twice) when I finished with the squares.





After all of my squares were in place, I went over them with some brown ink (color used was Close to Cocoa), gave that a couple minutes to dry and then put on my two coats of Mod Podge. Then I added some book binding tape from 7gypsies that I've had forEVer all around the edge (with just a bit to spare - woo hoo!)



When I finished that, I went trolling around on Google for vintage Halloween images and found an adorable one of some little trick-or-treaters. I saved the image and fussed around with it at Picnik until I had it just right. Then I printed it out, trimmed it down and adhered it to a background that I put in the center of the frame (used one of the papers I'd chosen for my little squares), Mod Podged the heck out of it and sprinkled a bit of clear glitter over the image. Et Voila!


Then I thought it needed a little something more so I added a bit of black ribbon.


Then I was happy with it and I know my friend will enjoy it!

I'm SO Making This!

So I just saw this adorable idea at Style Me Pretty while surfing around this morning. Isn't it adorable?!? I've seen these mugs at Anthropologie ~ I even have a couple of them ~ but never thought to use them for anything but a beverage.

Just love the shabby vintage look of it all and I know at least a dozen gals that would adore this as a gift - I know I would!

A little idea to make note of when you want to give something to bring out a sweet smile in a friend.

Father's Day Fun!

I don't know why but arts and crafts that feature the hands of children really speak to me. Maybe because their hands change so much through the years and we (I) always want to hold on to them as long as possible!

I found some great Father's Day craft ideas over at Roots and Wings Co and this particular one really stood out to me. You can find the tutorial here which is the one I used except that I incorporated the saying and positioning of the hands from a different project they did into my finished product.

Here's what I did!

First, I got my supplies together:

• 12x16 blank canvas (this is what I had on hand)

• acrylic paints (I used black and ivory) and Mod Podge (I used gloss lustre)

• coordinating craft papers. I used what I had on hand but since I wanted to have the option of hanging it with the pics that will eventually be hung on the wall in my hallway, I stuck with black and gray.
  

After that, I used a sponge brush to paint my canvas. I just used one coat and let some of the white show through to give it a kind of distressed look.


While I waited for that to dry, I found some cute fonts over here and played around a bit until I found something I really liked then printed out my saying.


Once I had that, I turned it over and covered the back of the written part with pencil so that I could make my transfer.


Then I positioned the paper onto my canvas (pencil covered side down) and transferred the wording to the canvas by tracing over the letters. Don't worry if some of the pencil marks (that aren't the letters) come off onto the canvas. You can erase them off later.


Take your time so that you get a good transferred image as this will make it easier to paint. I was actually surprised at how good this method works!


Once that's done, take a small brush and, using your chosen color, carefully paint over the letters. This is tedious and takes a bit of time. Don't rush!


Once that was done, I got out some dark gray ink and went over all the edges of the canvas just to give it a little something extra and I also inked the edges of the hands I'd cut out as well. After that, I figured out the placement of the hands (which you actually want to do before you transfer your saying on) and used Mod Podge to adhere them. I wrote each boys name and the year onto the corresponding hand (except for Jack's which I had to do on the outside since his paper was black) and then I put a couple of coats of Mod Podge over everything and let it dry.

And there you have it! A sweet Father's Day gift that any dad will love!

From Blank to Beautiful

I love love love when I find a blog or web site with great ideas and great tutorials. Lulu's Tiles has a great idea using a canvas and stamps to make some quick wall or table art - it's her Luck of the Irish tutorial and you should totally check it out.

Since I had some canvases that I've had for years (literally) I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to use them. However, you'll notice that mine came out quite different than her original idea but it was a good jumping off point for me and, as often happens in the world of crafts, things just sort of morphed from there. Here's what i did:

Two 8"x8" blank canvases
Assorted acrylic paints
Assorted foam stamps
Foam brushes
Valspar clear gloss (spray)



Here's my canvas. The original tutorial used 8"x10" though you could use any size ~ 8"x8" just happened to be what I had on hand.

Then I gave it some color...



Then some more color...


Then I used my foam stamps to put the letters and filigree shapes on. This is as close as I got to the original tutorial and I still didn't measure - just eyeballed it. Also, I misspelled imagine on purpose as this particular canvas was for my friend Angela ~ i'm angie ~ and there's a story that goes with it.


I finished it off with 2 coats (drying time in between) of the Valspar clear gloss spray to protect and shine it up a bit. The "joy" canvas was what came after ~ I ended up giving it to my cousin for her birthday that same night as I used all her favorite colors.

Blank canvases can be prettied up so easily. Give it a try and have some fun!