Mod Podge - Letters

So recently I rediscovered Mod Podge and oh my goodness, it is so fun! I honestly want to mod podge everything!! There is so much you can do! And there is so many cute ideas on pinterest!

Anywho... a few months ago I bought "S & T" at either Hobby Lobby or Joann's (I honestly can't remember which, they both have letters though) and the plan was to decorate them! The letters are about two inches thick and made out of some kind of cardboard material. First I tried Washi Tape. Fail. It really was a disaster hah. Washi tape wasn't made for that material of cardboardy letters. And then I was going to try wrapping yarn around them, because I've seen it before and it was so cute! Guess what? Another fail! That one was even MORE of a disaster! And I even started with the easiest letter! So there they sat... for awhile, away from sight, until I could actually decide what I was going to do with them...

Then about a week ago this girl I know reminded me of Mod Podge! And so it was decided, I was going to mod podge some super cute scrapbook paper on my letters. Boom. Target had this packet of scrapbook paper that was fairly inexpensive and I also bought a container of matte mod podge. (I didn't want to try making some from scratch just yet, but I pinned some recipes I'm going to try)

For this project, you will need...

• Mod Podge (store bought or homemade)
• Sponge brush (or any type of brush you have around)
• Letter's to decorate!
• Scrapbook paper
• Scissors or an exacto knife might work decently 
• Paint (Color of your choice)

I started off painting the outside of all the letters black. I also painted a little on the face of the letters incase I didn't do the best at cutting out the paper. :)

Note: Any type of paint should work just fine. You will end up coating the entire thing in the mod podge, which will seal it.

Peace of cake, though my paint had to dry for 24 hours... The paper letter's is where I had some slight issues. I kept trying to trace everything on the scrapbook paper upside down...which is a terrible idea. Erasing is also a pain so make sure you trace the letters correctly! And then cut them out. Make sure they are cut enough to fit nicely on top of the letters. I cut mine a little shorter so the paper didn't hang off the edge anywhere.

Now we get out the mod podge! Doing one letter at a time, sponge brush one layer of MP on the top of the letter and let it set for 30 seconds. Then, apply one more layer of mod podge on top. Stick on the letter and make sure there are no bubbles! Sometimes using a card helps to smooth everything out. Set that letter aside and repeat with all other letters. Let them dry at least 10-15 minutes. (You may want to avoid putting the mod podge on the back of the scrapbook paper to stick it down...it tends to start curling... it's especially annoying on the S)

Next you are going to cover the entire letter (except the back because I don't think there is a point for that). And don't worry, it dries clear! My paint dried glossy and the mod podge was matte, so it would look funny if I didn't completely coat all the sides. And, like I said before, it seals it up all nicely. I would suggest doing one coat, let it dry completely and then maybe apply one more coat. If you don't like the little brush marks, you could get really fine sand paper, but no one should be inspecting your work that closely. If they do, just poke them in the eye.

And that's about all there is to it! Mod podge can be used for SO many different applications, so let's get creative! I know I will be!

Also, be sure to check out my blog! Click the name below to check it out! <3

How To Make A Rope Rug - A Simpler Way

I am going to go ahead and share with you How To Make A Rope Rug! Yay!!

So I've seen a couple tutorials but I personally think their explanation is TERRIBLE. They look really nice, but they really aren't user friendly for beginners. I'm pretty much a beginner, so if I can do it... you can too!!! And I've been trying to take lots of pictures to show you what exactly I am doing :)

Also, the best motto ever I think is K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid!! I think some of these other tutorials forget about the simplicity part. If there is an easier and simpler way to do something, do it!

Here we go!! 

Materials!

1. You are going to need some kind of cording. The one I used for this particular rug is 1/4" clothesline from Home-depot. I used 2 packets (each is 100ft long). This is fine and all, but attaching it is kind of annoying. And if you want it bigger, you will need MORE. If you live in Arizona, I would suggest going to Mesa Sales or Tempe Sales and get one of those huge rolls. The cording is a little different than the clothesline but still soft enough to go through your sewing machine. 

2. A sewing machine!

3. A jean needle since you will be going through fabric and the rope or cording

4. A lot of strips of fabric 1" wide and however long as you want to make them! Two feet is probably long enough. Anything too long might be annoying while you are wrapping the cording. (I bought maybe 4 yards of fabric and still haven't even finished cutting it all up. I might not even need it all. You may need more if you want to make your rug SUPER big)
5. Matching tread or a contrasting color. Which ever you think will look the best (I would get the dual duty/all purpose thread) You may need to get at least 2 things of thread. Possibly more depending on how big you want it to be but it would stink if you ran out and had to go back to the store!!
6. A pin to hold your wrapping in place!

So first off, you are going to want to use the three zig zag stitch. It pretty much looks like a zig zag but it has little spots missing on the picture. Usually its next to the normal zig zag. For instance...

This is what my machine looks like. My normal zig zag is the second one and my three zig zag is right next to it. You are going to want to use this stitch! You also will want to make it the widest zig zag. The biggest zig was a five. I think that is normal on most machines but I could be wrong. You also will want the stitch length to be between 2.5-3. For mine, I used 2.5. (BTW: you may need to play around with the tension if you are having issues with the thread. I had to! My tension is usually always at four and I moved it to three for this project)

Starting your rug!!

So the first thing you are going to need to do is begin wrapping your rope! You will want to make sure that the tip is fully wrapped in fabric. Put a pin in the tip to hold it in place while you wrap the rest of that fabric strip. Make sure it is tight!! While wrapping, you are going to want to overlap the fabric about halfway, as you can see here. Once you finish that strip, just go ahead and place a pin in it to keep it in place. It will be easier to start the rug at this point, that way we dont have to worry about the tip! It also holds the rope in place which makes it easier for a tighter wrap.

So what I did when I started it (btw this is my very first rope rug!) I folded the tip about a centemeter and slipped it under my sewing machine foot. (You are going to want to make sure the wrapped rope that you are attaching is on the right side like mine is shown in the photo above.)

So when I began, I manually stitched it a couple times until it started making a nice circle. I did it this way because it was MUCH easier to control it. Once the coils are formed, you don't have to do it manually anymore because that would take FOREVER!!

While you are sewing, you want to have the center of the foot to be alligned with where the already coiled rope meets with the soon to be sewed rope. You can kind of see in the photo below. See the little lines that are RED on the press foot?? You can see how I liked it up. This is because we want the three zigzag stitch to be centered so it centered so it latches onto both of the ropes. You can see what I mean and what it should look like completed with the blue and green fabric in the left of the photo.

Once you get it started a little bit, go ahead and wrap your little heart out!! Since sewing is SO much faster than wrapping, I would suggest wrapping as much as you can before you sew. Pop in a movie or something! That's what I did. See? Just make sure you put a pin at the end to keep it from unraveling.

It will just start getting bigger and bigger!

Just a heads up, as you are sewing, make sure you do NOT pull on the rope you are feeding to be sewed tight. This will more than likely cause the rope rug to slowly turn into a bowl. If you want a bowl, thats great! but if you want a rug, you need to keep it flat. Try keeping it tight like this...

I just had one hand on the rug and my other hand where it is in the picture making sure the part where they are connecting is in the middle.

Basically you keep doing this over and over again until the rug is as big as you want it to be. To be honest, I still haven't finished mine.

When your rug starts to get bigger, you are going to want to keep your rug as flat as possible! I put some books next to my machine to keep it level. I would check out the photos they have on here. It's a fabulous blog!! They have the cutest crafts and pictures! However, I would suggest ignoring the steps to make their rug. To many steps and half of them are a waste of time and will probably cause more frustration than anything else. ( my opinion anyway..)  

See the books? 

This is as big as I have it right now...

It would be bigger but I did get a chance to work on it at all yesterday!! I also did all of that in an afternoon! :) 

Finishing:

When you finish, wrap all the way to the end and then wrap it back the other way. At least that's what I did and I folded it in so it was as neat as I could make it. 

I'm making this for my kitchen in the soon to be new apartment! Or whenever else I decide to put it.. Pictures will be posted once we move!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! And if you need more clarifications or if you have any questions or need me to explain something a little bit better, please ask away! Leave questions in the comment section and I will reply as soon as I can.

Enjoy!

Upcoming projects!

Projects project projects...

It's always a matter of trying to decide exactly what you want to do, right? I've decided to make a list of some of the next crafty projects I plan on doing in the near future! (Feel free to give me some input of more ideas of what I can make!!) 

1. Day tripper shirt with long sleeves (new fabric should be in tomorrow!)

2. Jersey shirt dress! Something similar at least. I'm attempting a DIY with a little help from this tutorial 

3. The new pants pattern I got! (bottom of the post) I just got some sweet chevron fabric I'm going to try out for this

4. This super sweet rope rug! (With a splash of some other colors)

5. A colorful 3D hand! (This just looks way cool)
6. A picture with embroydery string and canvas. (Inspiration fro my girl Tasie)
7. I want to make a new bag...not exactly sure which one...
8. I really need to re fluff my couch cushions…and then possibly make new covers for them. Or maybe try and reupholster the whole couch! (Here and/or here) I may have to wait until I move into a bigger place for this though
9. Reupholster the dining room chairs for the new-to-us table and chairs! (Helpful hints here) They are also waiting patiently at my parents house :)
10. Last but not least….finish ironing on the interfacing for my tshirt quilt.


It think this is a decent amount of stuff to keep me a wee bit occupied. However, these will happen in no particular order and I am more than like sure that I will be adding random other projects into the mix as well. But I'm excited!

And something I like to remind my husband at times… "I'm not messy…I'm crafty!"

Cheers!

Attempting to Crochet

So for this past little while I have been on a crocheting frenzy! Probably a good thing so I can start using up all the craft stuff I have before I buy some more… :) And some of this yarn I have had for yeeeaarrrrssss!

I haven't yet mastered these CUTE LITTLE BOOTIES. The directions, however, are in some language that I cannot read and there aren't even those kind of letters on my keyboard… SO I've been expanding my crocheting abilities in the mean time! OH and I also need to get smaller crochet hooks.. I think I have some, but that would require me to find them, but that is if they are actually somewhere in my apt…

BUT ANYWAY! Let's have a looksie on what I've made!!

This is going to end up being a tshirt rug thingy?

Super soft little baby blanket! 

This is nothing really. I decided to quit what I was doing lol

Kitty hat!

It actually turned into a slipper. But I messed up on it. And I only made one foot...

This bag..

is so big...

Peanut fits in it. :)

Here is a "how to" link for the bag btw!

Another cute little baby blanket! Though the photo doesn't do it justice. 

That's about it so far for my crocheting projects. Though I do have a half made blanket in a box… Note to self and everybody else…crochet normal sized blankets take forever!! Ahhhhh smaller projects are sometimes better because they can be completed! Unless maybe you try those blankets where you make them in sections. Also, the counting crochet projects get complicated… I made that bag a litttttle too big ha. Not too sure where but oh well. I have a giant crochet yarn bag now. Huzzah! :)

OH and I want to attempt to make these!! They are super cute! Next crochet project maybe…?

Anyway…those were my mini adventures for the last couple weeks sort of. 

I also just finished my pottery class this last week so stay tuned for a post of the pots I made! Eventually when I have a lot I may attempt to sell them! :)

Aaaannnyyyywayyy

Peace & Love!

P is for Painting!

I love the arts! Mostly creating it. Over the last year I have gotten into painting and I've been painting for a little over a year now. I still have a lotttt to learn.

Things have been super crazy though, after getting married and the holidays, but this past weekend I was finally able to make it back to Sundust Gallery! They moved locations from Mesa to Gilbert which is great for them! But they are further away from me...so it's hard to make it in especially since they close at 6. Anyway, I love places like this! They have a gallery and an open studio where you can come in and paint whenever the gallery is open. You purchas a canvas from them and then they provide the paint and other supplies. All you have to do it show up! And on top of that, the staff is great! I just wish I lived closer! 

Here is the painting I'm currently working on (I think it's on a 11x14) and the progression pictures I've taken in between sessions...And if you check back a little later, I'll have the finished product! Once I finish it that is...

 

You can also check out this sweet morph video of all the progression photos that my dad put together!! Super awesome! Click me!!

Peace & Love

Crayon Art

So while I was on pinterest the other day, I was looking through my lovely girlfriends pinboards. AND stealing all of her pins. (I'm not very good at exploring the world of Pinterest.) But anyway. I came across this blog! And I decided to be a little crafty! See here!

I don't really color too often anymore so I don't think it would really be that bad to destroy some of my crayons Besides, this looked like fun! My hubby and I went to walmart to get some canvas and then I also grabbed this cute little wooden frame. The canvases were 11x16? So glad I grabbed the wooden frame... It's much smaller. 

Monday night after we got the supplies, I found my crayons and took the paper off every shade of green I had in my box. Only 5 colors though. I couldn't find my little tee light candles so I just found a normal one. Bad idea. Tee lights work the best because you don't want to dip the crayon directly into the flame or else it will blacken the crayon and you won't get the pretty vibrant color! I was getting frustrated with the black crayon spots, so I put up my protects until I could find my other candles. Last night after my pottery class I was still feeling pretty crafty, so I whipped out my project! And my hubby found my tee light candles! 

Let me teeeeeell you. This is the most tedious crafty project ever!! And it takes forever!! And another negative that I found is that once you heat up the crayon to make a dot, if you hesitate, it dries. So fast too!! And I'm a bit of a perfectionist sometimes and I like my dots to be nice and smooth. A lot of the times the crayon dries too much and my dot is messy. An ugly dot. So after awhile I made my own solution. I got my long pointy nose lighter for candles and just held the crayon and lighter over my piece and let the crayon drip. So much faster!! However, you may not want to do this if you want to make a picture rather than randome colors everywhere. 

My final product! I didn't feel like covering the entire thing with crayon (though it would have been pretty sweet) but that takes a lot of effort..and if you do what I did, you may want to consider painting a base coat before you start melting so the spots that are wood would be a matching color to the crayons. It's up to you really. I think it looks pretty cool! And Scott wants it for his office! Funny thing though.. He's color blind to the color green. So he doesn't really know how awesome it looks! But oh well. I love it! 

(I'm not really sure how smart of an idea this would be to do with kids...so I would suggest you try it out first and then decided for yourself.)


Enjoy!

Attempting Scrapbooking

I really really try to be crafty. I have like a bazillion ideas but they are only ever halfway thought out. It's kind of depressing. Work takes up your whole entire life!

I know I know, math sucks, but we are going to do a teensy bit. Well, I will. You can just observe.

Let's say that there are 365 days in a year (which there are). That means that there are approximately 8769 hours in a year. If I were to work 40 hours a week for this entire year, with 2 weeks of vacation (lucky me!), then that is approximately 2000 hours worth of work this year. With that in mind, 22.8% of this year will be dedicated strictly to working. Bleh.

Now, I know it's not very likely for the majority of the universe, but let's just say that we, or I really, happen to get 8 hours of sleep every night this year. That comes down to about 2920 hours of sleeping this year. That comes to approximately 33.3% of this year sleeping. (not including afternoon naps)

That means that approximately 56.1% of this year will go to working and sleeping. That's ridiculous! That's over half of the year! And on top of that there is all the travel time, waiting time, eating time, church time, bathroom time. There isn't much room left for craft time and adventure time! Basically that means there is only 5 months this entire year to finish all the projects that I come up with. I will also be in new york for 7 weeks so that's another 2 months down the drain! So that leaves me with 3 months. Which means I only have 2160 hours this year. I must use my time wisely!

So there are 2 options I could take: digital scrapbooking and oldschool scrapbooking. Oldschool just seems like so much fun! Cutting paper, stamping and printing a bazillion pictures! Which has got me thinking for my birthday present idea! Which is in less than 2 months! boom! That's a pretty fancy printer right there! It may be wishful thinking since it's 500 big ones. But I will press on and cross my fingers. I'd even be okay if it was a christmas present! But that would make scrapbooking way easier! I could print everything right at home!

If you like digital scrapbooking, you should check this out. It's super awesome because you can sign up for emails and every week you can get an email with a collect-a-minikit, which is a little kit that you can download right to your computer and best of all, it's free! If you love it, you can become a Gold Member and have access to tutorials and tools to make your digital scrapbooking experience easier!

I think for my first official scrapbooking fiasco, I will do the oldschool route. It just seems like more fun. And I don't have children yet or any of the distractions or whatnot that will mess with my stuff, except for my husband...wink! Oh and my cat of course. She's kind of a monster, but super adorable at the same time.

I really like this gal. Her blog is pretty sweet in general but check this out for some scrapbooking for beginners! It's quite helpful really and there are cute ideas and great tips!

This means I have some upcoming tasks! First and foremost, I need to get a scrapbook (kind of important), some cardstock paper and some plastic paper sleeves. I also need to start snaping away and taking more photos! My husband isn't a huge picture taker. He just doesn't think about it. So it is now my new job to step it up and snap away! Man I am super excited!

Oh! Which also reminds me! They have these sweet lens adaptors for the iphone! Which means I could do away with a dslr for now! Boom! Now I just have to find one of those that isn't a bazillion bucks.

Also, share some of your sweet and creative scrapbooking pages and inspirations with me via instagram! Tag me if you wish {at}iamtrissab or let's hash tag it with {hashtag}scrap2014

Let the scrapbooking begin!

Peace & love