Easy Kid’s Name Sign

August 7, 2010

I promised myself I would post more often and try to catch up with all the stuff I’ve been doing…but I don’t have to explain to all of you guys how hard that is with a toddler around! This past week has been extra busy because we hosted our friends’ son for what we ended up calling “Camp Atlanta.” He stayed with us for a week, and Evan and I took him to all our favorite places and at least one new one…Atlanta peeps check out the Tellus Museum. Both Evan (19 months) and Landon (7 years) had a complete blast playing with all the hands-on exhibits and it was clearly the favorite favorite of all the things we did. We will definitely head back there on a regular basis.

Here’s a fun and really easy craft project to personalize your kid’s room.  This is a great idea for a homemade birthday or Christmas present and depending on what materials you already have, can be quite inexpensive.  I wish I had more pictures because I’ve done quite a few of these now, but here is the latest one.  I made this one for Maya, Evan’s special baby friend.  She is two months older than him and it has been so fun watching Evan and Maya grow up together.  Her parents are planning a hot air balloon theme for her room.  So I made this for her.  It was supposed to be a first birthday present but became a celebrating becoming a big sister present….congratulations Maya on your new baby sister!  Here is a picture of her name sign….see below if you want to make one yourself.

Materials Needed (all available at just about any craft store or online)

  • unfinished wooden plaque with metal hangers on the back (buy these separately if needed)
  • unfinished wooden letters
  • tacky glue used for gluing wood (that’s what I used…hot glue would be good too)
  • acrylic paint in various colors and brushes
  • unfinished wooden accents (optional, I didn’t add any to this particular one, but you can get all sorts of cute shapes…I’m making a train sign for Evan)

Steps for putting it all together:

  1. Decide placement for all your parts by putting them together before you glue anything.  For all my signs, I put the letters for the name to one side and left a blank area for the picture or accents.  Depending on the length of your name, and spacing of the letters you will have more or less room for your pictures/accents.
  2. Roughly sketch out your design on paper the same size as your sign for reference purposes.  Keep it simple!  For this theme, I needed pictures of hot air balloons to help me draw.  I just googled “hot air balloon” on google images and got plenty of help.  I’ve also found that googling your theme with the words “cartoon” or “art” will help you find simplified images or ideas if you find it too intimidating to turn a photograph of the real thing into a simple image for your sign.
  3. Before gluing, paint the base of your sign, your letters and any accents separately.  If you try to glue first and then paint, it will be much more difficult and you could end up with brush-stroke lines around the letters.  If you are mixing up your own colors, make sure you have enough to cover the areas you want before you start painting.  It is very hard to recreate the exact same color if you don’t have enough.  Let paint dry.
  4. Place the letters and accents on the sign where you want them and then picking them up one at a time, add glue and stick them on.  Let glue dry.  (Note:  for this step, make sure everything is placed correctly so that the hangers on the back of the sign are on the top edge of the sign…I learned this the hard way, accidentally making this sign “upside down” so that it was necessary to remove the hangers on the back and replace them in the correct spot.
  5. Very lightly sketch your theme image (if you are painting it) in pencil on your sign if you need a reference for painting.  In my experience, it is hard to erase pencil lines on acrylic so it is useful to have a bit of extra base color to cover mistakes, if you make any, or you can just paint over them with a little bit of an accent color.
  6. Paint your image, let dry and you are done!

Here’s a close-up of the theme image for this sign…I’m horrible at painting people, so I chose bunny rabbits as my balloon riders!  How do you like it?

By Jess | Posted in Arts and Crafts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Craft Project: Reversible Christmas Stocking

January 1, 2010

Happy New Year 2010!

I decided to start the year off right by celebrating with some of my own personal traditions for New Year’s Day, one of which, is writing!  For many years, I have taken some time to reflect on the past year and jot down my hopes for the future.  I am so happy (and relieved) that I finally achieved my goal of getting some of my creations up for sale with a storefront on the internet and starting this business blog to go with it.  It took me six years of resolving to get this started to finally have it happen! For this coming year, I’m simply hoping to move forward…  Wish me luck!

I hope you were able to celebrate this day with your own traditions!  May 2010 be a great year and decade for all of you!

Now here’s the craft project I’m FINALLY catching up on… better late than never, but here it is:

A reversible Christmas stocking.  This is the first thing I’ve made with my own pattern.  I searched and searched for a good one, but couldn’t find one as simple as the one my own mom made for me.  So what did I do?  I took construction paper and traced around my own stocking, added some room for seams and voila!  I tried to improve on my stocking, remembering how I never had enough room for stuff in the foot, but ended up with pretty much the same sized one, maybe even a little narrower.  Oh well.  Evan will complain about Santa not being able to cram as much stuff into his stocking too.  The project took me a lot longer than I expected also, but was worth it in the end.  I need a LOT more practice in applique (putting on letters or decorations) so I won’t be making personalized stockings for sale next year unless I do.  I could definitely make some plain ones though.  Next time, I will make a pattern with a slightly bigger foot.

So if you want to make your own, here’s the jist of the steps I took (keeping in mind that this project requires a basic knowledge of machine sewing):

1.  Find a stocking you like and create a pattern by taping pieces of construction paper together to make a piece big enough to trace a wide margin around the edges of the stocking.  No margin around the top.

2.  Using your pattern, cut out four pieces of fabric, two each of coordinating prints or colors.

3.  If you want to personalize it like I did, cut out letters for your name, one in each of the selected prints.

4. Iron all four stocking pieces and zigzag the edges to prevent unraveling.

5.  Applique the letters to the front side of your stocking (if you want a reversible one, you will have two front sides).  I appliqued my letters by first ironing in Stitch Witchery tape to hold them in place, and then zigzag-ing the edges with a very short, tight stitch.  This was very difficult and time consuming, but I learned a lot.  Hoping to master this skill in the future with more practice, and perhaps lessons!

5.  After ironing again, and with right sides together in the first print, stitch the sides.  Do the same for the other print/color so you essentially have two stockings, one in each color/print.  I used as small a seam allowance as possible.

6.  Turn right sides out and place your “two” stockings together, one inside the other.  If you have two personalized stockings, you have to do this so that the finished stocking is truly reversible and the name shows on the outside both ways.  My brain was addled during this process and I almost ruined my stocking, so be careful with this step!

7.  Zigzag around the top of the stockings so they are stitched together.

8.  Finish the edge with bias tape in a coordinating color.

9.  Use bias tape to make a loop to hang your stocking and you’re finished!!

By Jess | Posted in Arts and Crafts, Seasonal Decorating | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments off

A Thanksgiving or Christmas Craft Project

November 7, 2009

One of the things you can expect to see here on a regular basis are all sorts of arts and crafts projects.  I most certainly have what can only be described as “Art ADD,” and, as a consequence, usually have several different projects planned or in progress at once.  I do tend to pick out certain media for chunks of time though, so I guess that makes it a little easier to deal with.  Anyway, I’m sure a lot of you are with me on this one.  Raise your hand if you have a corner of your house crammed with scraps of material, overflowing with different sorts of mark-making implements, more than an annoying amount of unfinished projects and a mind full of fantastic ideas?  Hopefully, we can motivate each other to take some of those ideas to the finish.

In the future, as Evan gets older, I’d like to add crafts to do with kids.  But for now, perhaps I’ll stick to fun hobby-type stuff… or stuff you can expect to see in my store for sale. :)   For some things, I will include directions and materials for completing the project with my post, but for others I will just show you what I did and refer you to a pattern or another site for more detailed directions.

Right now, I’m on a sewing kick, so a lot of my projects will involve sewing on a machine.  “”But what if I don’t know how to sew?” you ask. Well, you can do what I did after I asked for a cheap, used machine for Christmas (in case I never learned), and got a brand new, super deluxe model instead (which meant I had to learn).  I went straight to the internet and found an inexpensive class at my local community center.  I was too terrified to even open my sewing machine box before the class, only to find out on the first day that it is incredibly and astoundingly easy!    As a result, I’m hooked on it and can’t wait to make so many things!  Here’s what I have planned to show you:  an apron, a belt, a Christmas stocking, a tooth-fairy pillow, and refrigerator magnets. We’ll see if I can stay focused! :P

Here is a project for your Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner Table. The first thing I put up for sale in my new store is a bun or biscuit warmer.  I decided to make them only if someone buys one since it is a little time consuming, especially if you are fairly new and cautious like me.  Who knows if I will ever sell one, but I thought I’d put it out there anyway.  If you are a seamstress-y type you can make one yourself!  There are lots of patterns out there.  The one I have is by Julie Johnson and you can find it for free here.  It is pretty easy to make if you know how to sew on a machine.  I did do a few things differently though.  For one, I did not use a serger, I just used a regular sewing machine and finished the edges with double fold bias tape.  I also added some low loft poly batting in between the layers to make it cushier and hold in heat better.  I had a lot of fun poring over fabric at the hobby store to find the perfect combo for my warmer.  I was worried the one I picked would look a little too “camo,” but I think it turned out great!  I hope you like it!  I can’t wait to try it out for Thanksgiving ;)

BTW, in case you are wondering, “what the heck is a bun warmer anyway?” Basically, it is a gloriously sneaky way of presenting your frozen dinner rolls at the family potluck Thanksgiving.  Everyone will be so impressed with your warmer, and steaming rolls within, that they’ll forget all about the fact that you were going to make Granny’s famous sweet potato souffle (but because you have a toddler destroying your kitchen everyday you opted out).  Hee hee.

By Jess | Posted in Arts and Crafts, Seasonal Decorating | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments off