Wooden Easter Eggs

Easter is fast approaching, so with that in mind I bought these unfinished wooden egg cutouts from Wood Creations and gussied them up.  I am not always huge into wood crafts, but these were just too cute to pass up!  I also had a lot of fun with the design and method on these.

I got all my supplies at Hobby Lobby, which include the paint, ribbon in a scrap pack, scrapbook paper, and that awesome flocked glitter.  Isn't that just neat?  First, I painted each egg with about three coats of acrylic craft paint.  Once that was dry, I decoupaged the paper onto each egg.  Next, I did the flocked glitter.  I used a Martha Stewart ball point glue pen (best idea ever) and drew a line of glue along all the paper edges.  I spread the flocked glitter along the glue and kind of pressed it down to make sure it got glued evenly.

As a finishing touch, I tied lengths of ribbon around each egg.  On the two biggest eggs, I tied little extra pieces around the knot to give it a little bit more substance.

 

I just love how bright, fun, happy, etc. these little babies are.  Who else is super excited for Easter now?!?

Chillin' with My Peeps Stenciled Shirts

I was in the middle of about four other projects, when I had this idea for Easter shirts for my girls this year.  I am someone who is easily suckered by seasonal items at the store.  Before, it was mostly candy and decor, but now that I have kids my little love of all things holiday reaches into clothing as well.  This year for Easter, I wanted to make dresses for the girls (which are almost done!), and I got to thinking about other kinds of holiday-themed clothing, which is when I had the idea for these shirts.

Admittedly, the idea wasn't entirely my own.  I first saw it as a wood craft, but thought the concept could easily be really cute for Easter shirts.  Plus, I was able to use things I already had on-hand, so I didn't have to spend a penny on these.

My method was the same I have used on my stenciled shirts in the past, using vinyl cut on my Silhouette as a stencil.  It works pretty well, although I'd love to try their stencil vinyl or freezer paper.  I tried cutting freezer paper on my Silhouette a year or two ago, and it didn't work at all, but now that I have new mats(yes!) I am thinking it might work after all.

After I designed the graphics and cut the vinyl, I put the vinyl on each shirt and used my fabric ink and brushes to paint the shirts.  I had to do three coats of the white, which was a little bit ridiculous.  Once I was done painting in the stencil, and I pulled off the vinyl and let the paint dry.  For the eyes and noses, I dipped the other end of my brush in brown fabric paint and dabbed it on.  To make sure the ink was cured, I baked each shirt in the oven for one minute at 350 degrees.  This was mostly for the silver paint, since it doesn't cure just by air drying.

If you'd like the Silhouette .studio cut file for these shirts, just leave a comment with your email or send an email to audzipan at gmail.

Linked: Craft-O-Maniac, Skip to My Lou, Sugarbee Crafts, Shwin&Shwin, Tatertots & Jello

Faux Weathered Metal Letters

As part of my master bedroom revival, I revamped my little A and C letters.  Here's what they looked like before:

I had painted the sides black and decoupaged cute black and white scrapbook paper on the front.  It was cute, but we were overdue on an update.  I was able to get most of the paper off, but some of the paper didn't come off.  Due to the nature of the letters, I could have just flipped them around and painted them.  Since I would be able to flip them over if I didn't like it, I decided to try an experiment and see if I liked it.  (Story of my life.)

 

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I sanded the rest of the paper off with low grit sandpaper (very coarse).  I sanded in the direction of the lines, meaning I sanded the direction that I would write the letter.

After I sanded the front of the letters, all I had to do was hit them with a few coats of Rust-Oleum's Hammered Metal spray paint in silver.  So easy!  I am in the process of hanging these with a new focal piece above the headboard, plus I have a couple of new spring projects to work on.  I also finished a couple more decorative pieces for the master bedroom that I am really excited about.

Linked up: The CSI Project