Coming off the awesome insanity that was SNAP! = Mother’s Day totally sneaking up on me

Fortunately, I had all this Martha (yes, THAT Martha) goodness to inspire me:

Available at Michael’s and now also at JoAnn’s

If you haven’t already, you MUST check out the Martha Stewart Crafts by Plaid paints.  You can use them on virtually any surface (glass, metal, wood, terracotta, etc) and the colors/finishes are FAB.  And don’t even get me started on the tools!  The tops that screw directly onto the paint bottles make me WAY happier than they should.

So, what’d I make?  A sophisticated beachy sign/piece of art with my favorite mom saying:

I started out with a board from the hardware store (cheap…$7 or so) that I had BC cut down a bit and 3 colors of paint.

The one on the left is called Sea Lavender (I don’t know).  The one in the middle is Beach Glass.  And, the one on the right is Sterling.

I did a very thin coat (watered it down…is that called a wash?) of the Sea Lavender over the whole board.

Then I picked out one of the stencils, a damask-y pattern from the Flourish set

and used some stencil adhesive spray and the foam pouncer tops

and I did some stenciling.

I applied the Sterling first

and then layered on the Sea Glass.

Once it was dry, I gave it a light sanding.  I wanted it to look old and faded.

The last step was to add the lettering.  I cut the phrase out of vinyl and removed where I wanted the paint to be and then applied it to my board.

I used the Sea Glass with the foam pouncer top to fill in the vinyl stencil as well.

Are you making a Mother’s Day gift for someone that has mothered you?

Will you tell me what it is?  (This isn’t actually for my mom…she reads my blog!)

Find my post disclosure here.

· Twitter: http://twitter.com/plaidcrafts (@plaidcrafts)

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OK OK OK!  This one doesn’t really fit, but I’m totally handing it out to my friends who share my affinity for Danny, Donnie, Joey, Jonathan and Jordan.

Unfortunately there’s no printable…don’t want to get in trouble for that.

Which New Kid was your favorite?  Are you too young for that?  More of an N*SYNC fan?  Backstreet Boys?

Here’s where I confess that I dated a Joey look alike in high school. 

And, because someone asked and I have no shame:

Hope your Thursday is fabulous!

Click on the image below to access the printable:

Click on the image below to access the printable:

Click on the image below to access the printable:

Click on the image below to access the printable:

Click on the image below to access the printable:

Basically, you pour some floor cleaner in an ornament, swirl it around, dump out the excess, add glitter, and shake.

I love how they look like frosty snowballs and aren’t super in your face glittery.  If you want SUPER glittery, you can for sure achieve that with a different color of glitter.  Check out these over on Things That Sparkle!

You can watch Kristine’s segment here.

Have you made any ornaments this year?

You’ve seen the fabulous pillows made from feed sacks all over the internet, right?  Pottery Barn had some made from coffee bags, even.  I love them, but I don’t happen to have an abundance of feed sacks sitting around.  OK, I don’t have any feed sacks sitting around and I don’t know where to get them either.  So, I came up with this project to satisfy my love of the feed sack.  Desperation is the mother of invention, right?  And, this tutorial *might* even be better than the real deal because you can totally personalize a faux sack.  What are the odds that you’d find an actual feed bag with your last name (or Santa or whatever) on it?  (Hint: none.)

(I went the Santa route, since I originally developed this project for the A Swell Noel series over at Positively Splendid, but this technique would work for any image/lettering.)

SUPPLIES:

Canvas drop cloth, from the paint section.  You can get a 6’ X 9’ one for around $10.  That’d make A LOT of pillows.
Contact paper, vinyl, or freezer paper.  I used contact paper because it’s cheap and can easily be fed through my Silhouette.
Silkscreen ink.  I like Simply Screen by Plaid.
Sandpaper

HOW TO:

Cut your design or lettering out of your contact paper (or vinyl or freezer paper).  I used a Santa silhouette from the Silhouette download store and then cut it with my Silhouette (on vinyl settings but slowed down to a speed of 5 and a depth of 7).  You could easily do this with a craft knife as well.

Apply the contact paper to your drop cloth.  I cut an 18” X 18” square because my pillow form was 18”.

I used that green scraper thing to get a good tight seal around the edges.

I like to stick the vinyl backing under my fabric to keep the ink from bleeding through and getting on my table.

Apply silkscreen ink with a sponge brush.

I like to use a scrap of contact paper to squirt the ink out onto.

Once the ink is dry, you can peel off the contact paper.

Then, take some sandpaper to your design.

Keep sanding until it looks old and worn and like it’s been part of the canvas forever.

Assemble your pillow (I made a simple envelope back).

And you’re done.

Candelabras: Dollar Tree

Framed prints: Lifestyle Crafts die cuts and letterpress.  How to here.

Subway art: The girls at eighteen25.

Crows: Dollar Tree

Spider web plate: Tutorial here.

Bat banner and bats on frame: Lifestyle Crafts Be Spooked, bats die.  I used the large size for the banner and the small size for the frame.

And, not mantel related, but festive nonetheless:

Have you pulled out the Halloween décor yet?

“Um, can’t you just wear something green from your closet?”

“No. I need you to make me one like for Valentine’s Day…with leaves on it.”

And since I’m a sucker…

I think I’m single handedly keeping the Tulip Soft Fabric Paint division in business.

Don’t even get me started on the part where I had to go to 2 stores this morning to find corned beef since it’s suddenly everyone’s favorite meal of the whole year.

We had impetigo.

And puking.

Fun, right?

I took an insanely awesome photography class from the amazing Emilie of Photo by Emilie. We got to practice on real people. Scary!

More on that later.

I also hit up a fun little consignment store called Abode. More on that later, too.

We made some Valentine boxes. Keller went the safe route with this bucket he decorated with stickers.

(His shirt is some heat transfer and a robot design from Silhouette.)

Macy went the insane route with this little beauty:

And then she started puking, so *I* got to take it to school and present it to her teacher this morning.

My 2 big kids made these sucker moustache Valentines from Family Fun.

Campbell decorated his box at school, but he NEEDED a shirt. So, we busted out the freezer paper and the Silhouette and some of my new favorite product, Tulip Soft Fabric Paint.

Got any big plans? I mean, bigger than taking care of sick kids and doing laundry…