I'm Still Alive! - Also a tutorial for some pretty cute monograms

So guys, I'm finally back to having internet! So to celebrate, I'm going to post one by one my techniques for using old Lilly Pulitzer planner pages to create something totally adorable for my sisters.

Materials for a beach themed one:
Chipboard pendants- picked up at Hobby Lobby ($3.49 for 9)
Chipboard letter ($0.99)
Sand- taken from my little sisters sandbox
An old Lilly planner page- this one with a crab print
Paper flowers- from scrapbooking section
Mod podge- matte and sparkle finish
Clear acrylic spray sealant
Hot glue gun
X-acto knife

For this extremely pretty monogram, (made for my one follower, and it is by far my favorite of them all) I started by covering the chipboard pennant in matte mod podge. This only takes a thin layer, so don't use too much or it'll clump. I used a chink of kitchen sponge for all my mod podge application. I did this on top of a piece of construction paper to make the next step easier to clean up.

Next, dump your sand on top of the chipboard that is now covered in mod podge. Shake it around on there to get full coverage.

Wait a few minutes before doing this next step, ten minutes is probably sufficient. Then take your chipboard outside (the fumes are strong) and carefully coat it with the clear acrylic (matte finish) spray. Make sure you stay a good distance away and don't overuse the spray.

Now, while your chipboard is drying you can start covering the letter with the print. Pick a position that you want the letter to be in. I put my printed page face up on the table, laid my letter on top of it, and then carefully used the x-acto knife to cut around it. This is easier than cutting it after you glue.

Once your print is cut out, apply a light coat of the matte mod podge to the letter and then adhere the print to it carefully. Again, it doesn't take much glue to keep it in a good position. Let this dry for a few minutes as well.

Now comes the fun part...glitter! Use your sponge chunk to gently brush a thin layer of the sparkle mod podge over the top of the print letter. Try to eliminate "brush marks" as much as you can, but in all reality you won't notice a lot when it's dry. Let that coat dry, then apply a second one just for good measure.

Now that your pennant is dry, position your letters and accessories (in this case flowers and a quote) on it. Lay it out the way you think it'll look best and then hot glue each piece on individually.

If your pennant seemed to curl after your clear coat layer, don't worry. The letter, once hot glued on, will hold it flat and straight!

Now look at that! You have a super cute monogram to hang up! I would've totally done a whole name to hang by string for her room, but I was worried about getting everyone else's done as well. Wouldn't a whole name look cute strung up with some braided twine? Try it out yourself! More monogram styles to be posted soon. :-)

Apologies for the Lack of Posting

Hey guys, 

I'm not dead, I promise. I'm sorry for not posting; we basically have no Internet. As soon as I get back to college and free wifi, I'll post some more cool things that I've gotten around to making. Also watch out for updates and reorganizing of my old posts, for the sake of making them more reader friendly and easier to understand. I miss sharing things with all 1 of my followers, and I hope to get back to it soon!

"Foxy" Summer Dress

This is probably the biggest craft I have ever undertaken. I happen to be a terrible seamstress, which is pitiful because it runs in my family. My great great grandmother was a professional seamstress and my great grandma (who lives with me) is a fantastic seamstress as well, having been taught by her mom. After my grandma, the sewing gene seems to have decided we weren't worth it anymore. However, this happens to be my favorite and best accomplishment so far, below my nautical bid day dinner which will be posted soon.

(Finals are coming and it's terrifying how much time I won't have)

But anyway, it took me two weekends at home and a lot of patience, and I finally got to use the lovely fox material I bought off the internet last semester. (Expecting a little but I didn't get one) This purchase also led to a long stream of credit card fraud and my identity being stolen, but it was dang well worth it.

I originally followed this tutorial off pinterest, but it did not work for me very well. I don't know if I did it wrong or what, but I busted some seams and had to try again.

http://sweet-verbena.blogspot.com/2012/06/color-block-tank-dress-tutorial.html

Needs:
Main fabric, I think I used about a yard and a half? I can't even remember how much I ordered since I bought it last semester. Get two yards just to make sure.
Accent fabric for the sash (optional), 1/2 yard
Hem fusing tape and iron (optional if you don't want to sew the hem)
Tanktop
Clear elastic

Round 1:
I took a white tanktop and tried it on. With it on: I held up my fabric, still doubled, and wrapped it around me like a skirt. I then moved it up and down to determine how long I wanted the skirt to be. Then, I marked that spot where the fabric met the tanktop with a pencil line. This is where I cut it off. Do remember to leave a little bit of allowance for the hemming and sewing. It will end up a little bit shorter than you measured. Mine is pretty short, but that's the way I like them.

This is my fabric of choice. It's called "Backyard Bandits",
 and there's a whole series of them featuring different animals.

My tanktop cut off, next to my other fabrics.

Next, I sewed the clear elastic to the tanktop bottom where I cut it off, just like in Sweet Verbena's tutorial. I cut off my fabric after measuring the tanktop, 12 inches past where the tanktop stopped. You should have two panels the same. With my printed fabric, I had to make sure the print was going the right way. I then proceeded to sew the two sides of the panels together. Make sure you do this with the print on the two panels facing each other, in essence "inside out" so your seam is on the inside. The top of the skirt part was then gathered by pulling one long piece of thread through each side, and scrunching it up in a relatively uniform manner. I didn't take the time to put pockets in my dress, by the way.

After gathering the skirt, I pinned it with the seam of the skirt and tanktop lining up. (You wouldn't want it to be crooked) I put the tanktop upside down in the skirt, with the tanktop right side out and the skirt part inside out.I then sewed across the entire joining of the two several times and did so just below the elastic on the tanktop. If you sew above it the elastic will show when you put the dress on.

This method didn't work. I couldn't get into the dress because it wouldn't stretch enough. So my grandma, being the kind lady she is, took out the triple seam I'd put in at the skirt/tanktop join for me. I resewed it together, this time pinning it while stretched as far as it could go. Once I let go, it shrunk back and looked gathered again. Sew it on the machine, while stretching the fabric out as much as you possibly can, like this:

Before sewing, on the machine unstretched.

While sewing, stretched as far as the tanktop would allow.

This proved to have much better results, and I can get in and out of the dress effortlessly.

Now for the hem, I used a fusing hem tape my grandma gave me. It looks like this:

 I cut sections of this to fit the two sides of my dress, and laid it along the very bottom of the skirt on the inside.

 Next, I folded it over so that it was halved, and ironed it so that the heat melted the fusing stuff and created a permanent bond.

 After that, the dress itself was completed, and I moved on to the sash!

My sash was a quarter yard of fabric in a russet orange color, but I recommend using a half yard for anyone else. It's barely long enough, and I'm kind of tiny. I sewed it to make a long tube at the width I wanted it, and then ironed it out so it lay flat. Next, I cut a triangle out of each end to make it look like a ribbon and used the hem fusing stuff to seal the tube up. And that was that. It was the easiest part of the whole thing.

And my dress was finally finished! Two weekends of hard labor finally paid off when I got to wear it and take pictures with my sweet puppy.

Me and the adorable shepherd mix that stole my heart. 

Back of the dress, showing the bow.

Just me in a tree, turns out dogs aren't very cooperative sometimes.

Rubber Band Eggs and Melted Crayon Eggs

My final Easter crafts post! I'm excited to finally get through them...and then I realize that come Christmas season I'll be doing this deal all over again with my handmade ornaments from this last year. -_-

But anyway, I'm combining the last two because they're both really short. The first is rubber band eggs.
These are really simple. If you've got kids, this one can be done with just about any age level. If they're old enough to do Easter eggs, they're old enough to do these. The hardest part is being careful not to apply too much force when you're putting the rubber bands on or it will crack the eggs.

All you have to do is put the rubber bands on the eggs in the pattern you desire it, then dye as normal. Thicker rubber bands give you the ability to shape them into squiggles, like this:

Smaller rubber bands allow you to put more on there and create more lines, like my mom's natural silhouette egg from before. And that's it. I forgot mine in the dye, so it was really random. I just kept leaving it in different ones and forgetting about it. Oh well. I don't even have a picture of it because I let my mom mess with it. If you'd like to see the effect of the skinny rubber bands on an egg, take a look at my other post,
Natural Silhouette Eggs.

Next is crayon melty eggs. I did mine by holding my crayon (peeled to prevent fires) over a candle flame, and then dripping it on the egg. It turned out terrible.

So instead, I recommend using my mom's method. She covered hers in white crayon dots, then dyed it her first color. After that, she added more dots in the color of the first dye (in case the wax resist left a residue that was colored, she wanted it to match) and dipped it in another dye. After drying, she scratched off the dots and it looked awesome! What you get is the layering of three different colors, and it's really something amazing.

And then lastly, I'm not entirely sure what my sister did with hers, but I know she did the crayon and then dyed it. Here it is, just for posterity, even though I can't show you how to replicate it.

Natural Silhouette Eggs

For my natural leaf eggs, I used the tutorial mentioned in my very first Easter post. She does it with onion skins, I did it with regular dye. Here's the process I used!

Need:
White hardboiled eggs
Cheap pantyhose
Leaves of various shapes (Flatter ones work best)
Egg dye

If you like my mom's version (Which I'll show you), you need rubber bands too.

First off, I picked out some leaves. Ones that will lay flat along the egg work best, but I also used some baby's breath-like ones that produced a cool pattern and texture. Be creative, there's no telling how yours will turn out! I used trimmings 2-3 inches long.

Lay the leaves flat against the curve of the egg, where you'd like the relief to be positioned. I did mine right around the center. Then, carefully slip a section of the pantyhose (toes work best, but you can use leg sections and just put a knot on each end) over the egg, holding the leaf in place until you can press the pantyhose against it. Draw it as tight as you can, back towards the back of your egg. You should be able to see what I'm talking about in the picture. Once you get it nice and tight, tie it off in the back.

Christmas cactus leaf, tied off

After this step, the rest is a breeze. I let my first one soak in green, (and I used a light brown egg for this one instead of white, turned out pretty cool with the green), one soak in yellow and red, and one in blue and just a minute or so of green. I have no idea what my mom did to hers. My guess is green and yellow.

Dying the green one- Baby's breath

She secured her leaf to the egg using a billion rubber bands in every direction. It looked super silly, and I totally made fun of her for it, but it turned out great.

My mom's rubber band egg

After the dye was the color I wanted it, I pulled mine out and let them drip dry for a little bit. Then, I cut open the pantyhose under the knot on the back. This allowed me to carefully pull the pantyhose away and lift the egg up off the leaf and prevent smudging of color. Mom just let hers dry and then pulled the rubber bands off.

It's as simple as that! And they turned out gorgeous, and super earthy. For an organic look, these eggs are perfect.

Light brown egg, green dye, Baby's breath

Christmas cactus, orange & yellow dye

Back of Christmas cactus egg

Unknown plant, Blue & a little bit of green dye

Mom's rubber band egg

Easter Egg Post #2-Sprinkles and Happiness

In case you missed it, I love sprinkles. And glitter. And foxes.

But this post is about sprinkles. And using them to make a ridiculously cool Easter Egg that is safe to eat. Now, you can do the undercoat with real Easter egg dye, or you can do it "naturally" with more sprinkles for a cooler effect.

Needs:
White eggs, hardboiled
One egg white, obviously not hardboiled
A paint brush, medium sized, to brush on the egg white
Another brush, small, to brush off the sprinkles
Nonpareil sprinkles in the rainbow of colors
A little bit of patience

Optional:
Sugar crystal sprinkles, I used varying shades of pink

Now, originally, I was hoping that covering my egg in the plain sugar crystal sprinkles would achieve the effect that I wanted. I mixed hot pink, green, and light pink sugar crystals in a styrofoam plate thing. Next, I covered the egg in egg white and rolled it in the sprinkles. I let that sit for a good deal of time. The green sprinkles didn't even leave color on the egg when I brushed them off. Instead, I got a very light pink coating that looked like a watercolor. Now, this looked really nice for the background of my egg. You can try the regular egg dye instead, but I would recommend light colors regardless. Don't want to compete with too much color when you put the nonpareils on.

After my egg had dried from that failed attempt, I decided to try the nonpareil sprinkles. (My mom tried this, using vinegar to leach the color and pantyhose to hold the sprinkles around the egg. But let's be frank, it turned out terrible) I used a glob of play dough to form around the bottom of my egg to sit it in while I was working on it. This was very convenient, and provided me the ability to work lightly on the egg without touching it.

I started with a spot of egg white painted on the front of the egg. you want a medium layer. Not too thin, or the sprinkles won't stick, but not thick enough that it never dries ever. Sprinkle the nonpareils over the spot, and when full coverage on the spot is achieved, gently pat them down onto it with your finger. Now, this is important. Don't let it fully dry before the next part. The wetness is what drags the color across the egg.

Take your little paint brush, and after picking a "center" of your sprinkle spot, brush the sprinkles gently off and away from the center. Work around it in a circle. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this to the best of my ability, but you're basically forming a firework looking thing of sorts around that center spot. You can see from the picture how I brushed away from it. You're essentially using each sprinkle as a one stroke serving of paint. As if each nonpareil loaded your brush up with enough paint for one and only one line away from the center. After letting this dry a bit, rotate the egg and repeat the process until your egg is visually balanced. I ended up with four "fireworks".

Note: Don't worry about the fact that some of the nonpareils are white. It annoyed me at first, but then I realized that they kept the color from being TOO dense in each spot. If this is unclear, I apologize. I'm not sure how else to word it. Feel free to leave comments if you have questions, and hopefully I can answer them to the best of my ability.

Let the Easter Craft Posts Begin!

My family did a ton for Easter. In fact, my mom and I stayed up quite late perfecting our Easter Eggs. So, in a series of posts because they're all kind of long, I'm going to cover the various techniques I used to do my eggs this year. I spent a good deal of time looking up new things on Pinterest to try out, and selected several that I thought I would enjoy.

I did napkins painted on with egg white, following this tutorial here:
http://www.larecetadelafelicidad.com/en/2013/03/easter-eggs-napkins.html

I also used the egg white trick (which is natural and safer to eat than any glues and such that you might put on an egg) to do some fun with sprinkles, which happened to be my favorite of all my eggs. I'm dreading having to eat it soon.

I did a fun trick with pantyhose and leaves to make natural silhouette eggs, my second favorite of all the eggs. For that I followed the tutorial here:
http://scissorsandspoons.com/onion-skin-dyed-decorative-eggs-terra-cotta-colored-decorative-eggs/
without the onion skins. I used regular egg dye instead.

We used rubber bands to make designs on the eggs.

And then, of course, I had to melt crayons all over my eggs. My moms turned out the best out of these sets. (She's got a masters degree in art, so I expected nothing less)

I'm going to go through each of these one at a time, and I know it's past Easter, but at least you can try these out with less mistakes than me next year! (Or just for fun)

The first of all these was my egg yolk napkin deal.
You need:
Hard Boiled eggs
Patterned napkins
One egg, not hard boiled (the tutorial has listed a ton of egg white, but I found that I barely even used any of the one egg I cracked open. I left it intact and just dipped my brush avoiding the yolk)
A paint brush, preferably medium to large size

 It turned out pretty well, minus me not quite tearing off enough napkin. The tutorial said to cut the napkin into fourths, but since I was using a Pokemon patterned napkin, I tore off a large chunk with Pikachu as the centerpiece.

Like I said, I was using a Pokemon patterned napkin that my mommy picked up at a wholesale auction warehouse in bulk. We have have tons of them. It's super cute, and I could've picked any character to highlight, but the Pikachu was the right size and adorable. I also really liked the napkin she used in her tutorial, but I hadn't known that I was going to be doing this or I would've gone and picked some cool ones up from the store.

With a character or design, first decide what you want the focal point to be. Then, lay it out on the front of the egg, centered as you want it to show. Now, I didn't measure and just ripped, and ended up not having quite enough of the napkin to cover an egg. this happened to leave me with a very large spot on the back uncovered, and resulted in a large ugly patch of another section of napkin that didn't match. So, lesson learned, figure out exactly how much napkin you need. It's better to have extra that you can tear or cut off when you're done. There will be a seam of sorts at the back of the egg. There's really no way around this, but it doesn't look too bad in the end.

Make sure you take ONLY the printed layer of the napkin. Any other layers underneath are bulky and will prevent the napkin from completely sticking to the egg. Center your chunk where it needs to be, and then apply a bit of the egg white to wet it down to the egg. Then brush outward from that spot in a sunburst fashion. This keeps it as smooth as possible, and results in not tearing the napkin doing multiple strokes in different directions. I let mine dry in sections before continuing so that it was easier to hold on to when painting.

Allowing my egg to dry after brushing on the front of the design

When you reach the back, try to make sure your brush isn't too dry. If it's dry, there's more friction and it might end up tearing the napkin. Just brush everything as smoothly as possible towards the back of the egg into a seam, and then cover it up with a patch if you didn't have enough napkin or think that it doesn't look just right.

You can also use this method to put just cutout designs on the egg, using small chunks of napkin design. A decoupage would look nice as well, I think. Complete coverage, but no orderly fashion to the design. Here is mine:

FYI: If you have extra egg yolk left over at the end, and you have doggies, let them have whatever's left. It makes their coat shiny and is good for them overall. I gave mine to my sweet puppy, Leo.

Glitter tights!

I write this post while on the lovely Megabus to Nashville. I'm bored, so time to add a new craft. This is perhaps one of my favorites (although I say that about all of them). It made me exceedingly happy to be completely covered in glitter. I made these for a tacky Christmas party, and haven't quite gotten around to perfecting them yet.

The key point here is LET THEM DRY. Make sure you do these at least a day in advance of your event to prevent the sticking of glitter to every item of clothing you put on and every spot you sit in. I didn't remember to do mine early enough, and I legitimately left glitter footprints in my apartment.
Which brings me to another point, use cheap pantyhose. I don't know if letting them dry will allow you to use them again or not. Mine were so sticky I just threw them away. Next, I recommend putting them on before you start. Measure and mark where your shoes start and where your skirt or shorts you plan on wearing with it end. Don't glitter these spots. Hence the glitter footprints when I did.
I used regular spray adhesive, but I think spray mod podge or photo mounting spray would do the trick. I don't know if those would be better or not, I've only tried them once. The trick is to spray the tights, shake the glitter on real fast, and then once that's dry spray another coat on. The tutorial I used said to put your hand into them in between coats to keep it from sticking together, but I ha no issues with my cheap Walmart tights sticking to themselves. Do both sides, and then hang on a skirt hanger to dry. The best way is to clip the skirt hanger clips to each foot and hang it that way.
Don't let it touch anything else! It will leave glitter spots! But here are mine:

The Cutest Bid Day favors of All Time

So, every now and then I realize that I greatly regret not taking pictures of my work before I get overly excited about giving it to the recipient. I often completely forget that I'll want to share my ideas, and commence the excitement of gift giving at its finest. So since I'm lacking on photos at the moment, I'm totally going to string my bid day posts out in sections. I'm starting with the tiny favors I made to go with our bids. First of all, our rush theme was nautical everything, since I can't ever get enough of that stuff. Guess that comes from growing up with grandparents that loved to sail. Well anyway, for our bids I hand drew the design and we had them copied on cardstock. This way they were gorgeous, sturdy, and awesome enough to frame or scrapbook for the memories. I looked at wedding invitations for hours before I drew this one up:

My best advice is that if you're going to hand design, find what you want and lay it down on your computer screen to trace it. If you turn your brightness setting up, it will come through clear as daylight. It's a whole lot easier than freehanding it. Also, don't try to hand draw all of them. Just get them copied. Take it from me, you don't have the time to do all of them AND complete the rest of your bid day obligations.

To accompany these, I had balloons tied to yellow daisies (daisies are one of our symbols) and the little memory jar pictured below. These jars are sold at places like Hobby Lobby, but I was working at a vet clinic at the time so I got to wash out those and take them home for free. I also had tinier versions of the same thing, minus the rope knot, to give to executive council members in a goodie bag for helping out.

The key on these is to get a hold of a pack of small shells, like the craft shells sold at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I layered craft sand, the little shells, and beach glass in there. I did happen to find a pack that included all three of those items at Walmart in with the glass vases and stuff for flower arrangements. To get the glass the right size: slip a few chunks of it in a double layer of plastic sandwich bags, take it outside on a porch or something, and smash it with a hammer.

Again I will emphasize that hammer safety is extremely important.

Also watch out for the glass powder that results from this smashing, and make sure not to smash it up TOO tiny, otherwise you can't see it in the jar. I found that the blue or green beach glass looks best. (My mom pointed out long afterward that you could probably heat the aforementioned glass up in the oven and then dump it in cold water to break it without the powdery issues and hammer safety precautions. But heck, I couldn't have done the easy method, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to seriously injure myself. And that is just a key ingredient in the final product of my crafts.)

After you've layered all of these together, the lid can be put on. If you have a jar that comes with a cork lid, you don't have to screw with it. Mine was rubber, so I hot glued some cork I had laying around to the top of it. I then had my grandma show me how to do a nautical knot to tie on the front, which I can't really explain because I don't really understand how I do it. I do know, however, that there are a bunch of online tutorials and videos on tying knots, so it'll be easy to find one you like. Once that was on there, I threw a couple dots of superglue on top of the knot and around it to keep it together and in place.

Next came the little message. On this I put the time and place, as well as required attire, since I didn't want to put that stuff on the formal bid. It was something along the lines of:

"Should you choose to accept this bid, please meet in 

*insert room name here*

on *date* at *time*

in your business casual attire"

Then I rolled it up really tight, and tied it to the top of the bottle with my red striped ribbon. The ribbon has a wedge shape cut out of it to make it just a little bit cuter. No superglue this time, since I wanted them to be able to read it. Then I wrote "Read me" reaaaalllll tiny so they'd know it wasn't just for show. 

And that was it! They were a real hit, and some of my pledge children still have them on their shelves or bookcases. They didn't take me a whole lot of time, and they were super cute. Note: for the even tinier ones I didn't have room for beach glass or the knot. So I just put sand and shells with the red ribbon. As well, instead of the cork on the top I just put a gold star sticker, just like the ones that you got in kindergarten for tying your shoe right or something. 

More nautical bid day crafts/ food to come! Including how to have a nautical themed bid day without  serving seafood...imagine that!

Baby Pichu Costume

Well, the clock has struck midnight, so it's officially Throwback Thursday. To celebrate, I'm posting an adorable Pokemon costume that I made for my baby sister two Halloweens ago. It was super easy to do, and I think you could probably use the same concept for an adult version as well. (Note, I did make a Pikachu costume for my pledge class lipsync. However, while I was the cutest Pikachu out there, it was thrown together in a rush and not exactly the caliber I would have liked to post for you guys)

So, here it is:

Now, for this I basically just altered a yellow onesie that was getting small on her (so mom approved sacrificing it). I cut the neck fringe out of felt, but I did not completely sew it to the outfit. She wasn't too mobile, so it didn't need to be very tough. Sewing it only along the neckline saved me time and heartache since that section was done by hand. (The seam of the onesie neck was too thick for our sewing machine)

Next, I cut the shape of the ears out of yellow felt, with the black accent cut out only for one side of each ear. I ended up with four pieces of yellow felt, and two pieces of black felt. Make sure through this section, and for the tail, that you leave a little extra room for a seam allowance on these. I first sewed the black pieces to the tips of the ears. This leaves you with two yellow pieces of felt and two yellow pieces with black accents on them. After that, the side with the black is laid on top of the other yellow piece, forming two pairs. You should not see the black when you lay them this way. Then sew all but the bottom of the "ears". You need this hole for stuffing. Try to get as close to the edge with your stitch as possible. This is hard on a sewing machine, but you can do it. I believe in you. Then you simply flip it inside out, stuff it pretty full, and then stitch it to the baby headband. Make sure you stick the headband on their head first and mark exactly where the ears need to lay.

I followed the same exact method for the tail. Just use a picture off the internet as your guide for the shape, freehand it, and cut. Remember your seam allowance! For the tail, I didn't stuff it. She had to go in a car seat, so I thought it would be too poofy. I did sew the base to the pants, and once she was in the outfit I did a quick hand stitch to secure the top of the tail to the correct spot on the onesie. Make sure that it's loose so you can get it out when necessary. A safety pin might be a better option if they're going to be in it for a long time. It's always good to be able to change that smelly diaper. Since this craft was a looong time ago, I can't remember if I made any more alterations. However, she did keep the headband on and was darn adorable. Here's a closeup. :-)

Cute, right? 

Melty Crayon Art- Alternate Techniques

So, I've been slacking on the updating lately, and for my one and only follower I'm sure this is disappointing.

This tutorial is a continuation of my melty crayon pointillism. I'm going to cover two other techniques I've used to create some awesome artworks. Two for sorority purposes (big/little gift and a gift for a beautiful Zeta Tau Alpha friend of mine), and one for my own decorative purposes.

The first technique I learned, and probably the easiest to do, is to line the crayons up on canvas and use a blow dryer to melt them down.

First, pick out your colors and peel the crayons. If they're off-brand, test the color on a piece of paper first. I once had a "gold" crayon melt into a nasty chartreuse sludge that ruined a Chi Omega design I'd worked hard on. I've never had a problem with Crayola crayons doing this, but God help you if you use a cheaper brand. Still works, just check the colors. From there, I snapped each crayon in half. You're using less crayons this way, and you don't have an overflow of color.

Now the trick is to secure the crayons to the very top of the canvas. (I've never tried this on a different medium, but the wax sticks very well on the canvas and looks great) I tried a LOT of methods to getting them to stay where they belong instead of blowing away and sticking crayon to your wall. So far, the best was a line of hot glue to secure them in an orderly fashion. I tried simply melting them slowly first so they would stick to the canvas, but that was a disaster. Don't even try that method, I promise its not worth having to peel twenty more crayons. After that, I tried tying a string around them. That sorta worked but it still wasn't great. And then again I tried tape around them, which didn't work at all. The hot glue really is the best way to go.

Space the crayons out a bit. They don't need to be all together in a line. I probably left a half inch between each 'pair' of crayon point and top. This also keeps from too much wax being in one spot.

If you're adding a monogram or design:
Tape your design out with masking tape. Any non-geometric/ non-letter designs should be drawn out on the canvas, and then taped over. For the monogram and fox, I taped the letter with no underlying outline because I wanted it to be completely white underneath. Then I drew my fox out in pencil, went over my final design with a fine point marker, and covered it in small pieces of tape to conform to the design as closely as possible.

This is my finished product for the monogram. As you can see, some of the top left crayons left their posts so I just tossed them out instead of trying to stick them back on.

For a complicated design, such as my ZTA crown and words, I used tiny shreds of tape to create the design. This took a lot of time and a heck of a lot of patience, but it turned out great. I did the words in colored pencil, then covered them with masking tape. After most of the melting was done, I removed the tape and did some slow speed-careful melting around the words to make it look not so square. I then went back over the words in colored pencil again to ensure that you could read them.

Now comes the fun part. Set your canvas upright, crayons right side up, with a garbage bag or plastic bag underneath/behind it. I set my fox one in the sink because it created a nice nest for it. Then start by using the blow dryer on a low speed setting to melt the crayons together a bit. Point your air stream so that drips fall down onto the canvas and are propelled down towards the ground. Don't get too close or it will go sideways instead of down! Once the crayons have melted a bit, you can switch to a higher setting and finish it up. Should you want to keep part of your design right where it is, or keep your crayon line from drifting downward (this does happen occasionally if not secured properly, they start to sink down) just switch your blow dryer to cool setting real quick and go over it until it cools, keeping enough distance so as not to blow the drop any farther down the canvas.

If you added a tape design, when you're done blow drying you can remove the masking tape. Start by laying the canvas flat on its back, and remove the tape while it is still soft. Otherwise, it can come up in chunks and ruin the shape under the tape.

Here is my simple one, no taping required:

The tag on the corner says "Sisters come in all different colors"

There you have it! I may re-read this and clarify any spots I feel need it after I finish my ridiculous amount of Chemistry homework for the week. :-)

Melty Crayon Pointillism

So, one of my favorite things on the planet is to melt crayons onto canvas. I know it sounds childish, but it turns out a product that is more artistic than you would ever expect it to be. I've done several of these now, and I'm still perfecting them. When I get time to find the photos, I'll post the Chi Omega one that I gave to my last roommate. For now, I'm going to show you one of the more unique ones I have done, which included the use of pointillism.

I started out by drawing out the letters that I wanted to stay "clean", as it were, of crayon. I did my sorority's letters since it was to become a gift for someone else's little. I made it monogram style, with the letters in the correct order but the middle letter bigger than the other two. Use a pencil to sketch this out, and do it VERY LIGHTLY. You can't erase efficiently off of a canvas, it will leave a smear. To cover up my pencil marks I later traced over it with orange marker. If you want it to be completely white underneath, tape it off with masking tape. I suggest using this since you can peel it off and move around your design to make sure you like what you get.

Next, I picked out the colors that I wanted to use. I chose two shades of purple and two shades of green. For this particular crayon melt, you do want variety in your shades so that you can actually see the end design. After you pick your colors, you must peel the crayons! You're going to be sticking them into open flame, and that wrapper on fire is not something you want to deal with.

Before you start melting, get an idea of the pattern you want to put on the canvas. Sketch it out if you need to. I picked a bunch of intersecting spirals of different shades. How I picked that particular one, I'm not sure, but it was probably a mental conglomeration of sixty different Pinterest projects.

Now it's time for the fiery goodness. Light yourself a candle that you don't particularly care for (the crayon drips will probably get on it and make it ugly). Now, this takes practice. Hold the crayon right above or beside the flame until a drop forms on the tip or it is running into a drop. This doesn't take very long at all, and the first few times you'll probably just drip it right into the flame. Once you get the hang of it, it'll be pretty simple from that point onward. Just take the crayon and drop, put it over the canvas in the spot you want it, and gently touch the canvas with it. It should form a nice roundy drop on the canvas when you pull the crayon away. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the pattern is finished. Yes, it is tedious, but it looks great in the end and makes a fantastic gift for anyone. Here's a picture of my final product!

Sea Glass Candy

So, here's a tutorial for something I loooove to make. It's not as hard as I thought it would be. I initially picked it out for our nautical themed Bid Day Dinner, but made it several times after because it tasted so good.

This is a link to the recipe that I used, and I followed it very closely:
http://www.intimateweddings.com/blog/diy-wedding-favors-make-your-own-sea-glass-candy/

The only thing I didn't follow was to sprinkle it in the confectioner's sugar after it's all said and done. In hindsight, this would've helped keep the candy from sticking together.

Both times I made it, I used vanilla flavoring because that's all I had, and lo and behold...it came out tasting like cotton candy. This was a great surprise to me, and my sisters and I enjoyed it greatly. The first batch looked like this:

This was a few drops each of blue and green food coloring.

And the next time, I put sprinkles in it! I just put them into my hand, spread them evenly across, and then tapped them in with the back of a spoon (gently). This was done right after I poured it in the pan and it achieved a smooth state.

To break it into pieces, I have this adorable tiny hammer (pictured top right of the sprinkles photo) that I used. But I assume you could use any hard object; a vase, a coffee cup, a brick, or even a very large hammer at a gentler tap.
Note: Big hammers are for adults. When using your big hammer, do not place it on the top of a door frame and forget about it. Candy will not be the only thing it crushes. I know this from experience.

  Hammer safety is extremely important, guys.

Anyway, this candy is delicious. As in the recipe, you can use any color or flavor you want. You do have to stir the sugary goodness really fast once you put the food coloring in. If it hardens on your pot, just throw the pot in the sink and let hot water run over the area. The hot water will dissolve the sugar and make it a lot easier to clean up. The cookie sheet probably won't have any stuck on it when you're done, mine didn't. Another word to the wise, watch the candy thermometer well. Once it reaches close to the right point it can climb past hard tack really quickly, which makes the candy extremely hard to deal with.
All in all, this is a super easy intro to candy making. It really doesn't need any prowess other than the ability to mix, boil, and pour quickly. If you need something to give out as gifts, or to bring to an event, I highly recommend it. It's relatively cheap for the amount of enjoyment you get out of it.

 Make it your own and enjoy!

Revamping my Otterbox

So, for my first tutorial, I've decided to put up my most recent accomplishment, fixing up my Otterbox. Before I started this project, I looked around everywhere on the internet and there were surprisingly few tutorials on this sort of thing. So here is mine. I transformed a camouflage Otterbox given to me by a sister into a shiny, glittery, much more adequate reflection of me. (Everyone wants their phone to reflect a little bit about them, right?) This is one of the ones with the smooth backs, mind you. I'm not sure how this would work on the more rubbery of the Otterbox cases.

The first thing I did was cover the entire back of it in a turquoise nail polish. I've found that this seems to work exceptionally well, and has so far stayed wonderfully. I had to do several coats, letting each one dry in between so that bringing the brush back across did not clump the polish. Make sure it's completely dry, and not at all soft, before you touch it. Otherwise you have a nice fingerprint in it. Light coats, while tedious, do the trick just fine. I didn't take a picture of this step since it seemed fairly self explanatory.

Step two: My incredibly talented mom cut a chevron pattern out of contact paper for me. I imagine you could use masking tape to tape it off, but contact paper was what we had. This worked lovely. I adhered it to the back of my phone. (With the actual iPhone NOT in the case at the time) Next, I painted the open areas with a black nail polish, which is shown in the picture below. Let it dry completely before adding glitter. I didn't wait long enough, and it was stuck in all sorts of places that I didn't want it to be.

Step 2- After adding the black nail polish and removing the contact paper

For my third step, I took elmers glue to the teal in between the black chevron stripes. I worked small sections at a time, brushing it on with a cheap brush and then applying a silver glitter. I also patted the glitter down into the glue a little bit to assure that it would stick. For this particular project, make sure that you only apply the glue in small quantities. You don't want it to bubble up too far off the back of your case or it will rub on everything too much. I also assume that it would increase the chances of the glitter chipping off. Mine has done well so far.

After the glitter is dried on, apply a coat or two of clear nail polish topcoat to the glitter chevron stripes. This will hold it in place and keep the glitter from flaking off as it is wont to do. I also painted a silver nail polish over the Otterbox logo at the bottom to make room for a small design. You should be able to blow off the extra glitter if it hasn't stuck to the other polish.

After adding glitter and the silver polish

At this point, there was glitter stuck to my other colors, so I simply painted right over it. I also added another coat to the turquoise/teal section as well. I put a little fox on my silver spot, because I looooove foxes. He was grabbed off a bing image search.

Ta-da! My back part is finished!

Lastly came the repainting of the inner case, since it started out hunter orange. I again removed my phone from it before I started this. (Let's not get polish on a $200 dollar phone, right?) I'm still working on putting coats of this on because my silver polish is terrible and the orange was really bright, but I basically covered every inch that sticks out when the rubber part is on with silver nail polish. When I stuck the case back together, I found that more of the orange stuck out than I originally thought, so more painting is to be done soon.

It's still a work in progress, but I'm pretty proud of the end result on the outer layer. Plenty of colors and styles could be used instead of what I did, and this method just screams for a monogram to be done. But here you go, my crafted Otterbox that is a much better show of my personality than the original camo! :-)

<3 M

P.S. This is the print of the case before, straight off the Otterbox website.

Welcome!

Well,
I finally decided that it would be a brilliant idea to put my crafts online for all to enjoy and try themselves. (With the methods and screw ups already found) This blogger thing is completely foreign to me, so it's going to take a lot of adjusting and trial and error. I ask for patience as I struggle to figure this out, and I hope that many can come to enjoy my blog and have just as much fun making things as I do! So here's to many posts and happy crafting tutorials, coming right up.
<3 M