Stamped Metal Dog Tag

We recently added a furry addition to our family, which gave me the perfect opportunity to try out metal stamping for the first time.  I grabbed the circle blanks from Joann's in the scrapbooking/embossing section, and I got the stamp set last year at Harbor Freight.

My setup was masking tape onto a piece of wood.  You don't need the masking tape, but it was nice to hold the metal steady and give me a straight line to follow.  After a couple of not-so-nice attempts, I found that the best impression is made when you firmly tap the stamp once.  It's no good if you don't pound enough or if you do too much.  Once you are done stamping, color the impressions with a sharpie and wipe off the excess.

After I finished our pup's name, I added our phone number.  (Don't try calling that number... I did a little bit of Photoshop magic to change some of the numbers.)  I love the personalized feel of this tag.  The imperfections-- like where I double-stamped the "S" or pounded the "7" a bit too hard-- all add another piece of character to the tag.  When I was completely done with everything, I pounded on the back of the tag a little bit to flatten everything out nicely.

The best part about this project is that you don't need a real animal to make tags for!  My next tag stamping will be tags for stuffed animals.  You could even make these into pendants for necklaces, which are really popular right now.

Catch Up and Fabric Dye

Don't know if you noticed, but I've been away from the blog for a few weeks.  During that time, we went on our first family vacation since our youngest was born, I ran my 10K, and we've been back for a few days getting back into real life. 

Right now, we are doing some serious yard work to better accommodate the backyard playset.  I've also been doing fun decorations for my ward's girls camp that is coming up next week.  Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time to work on my other projects, but I did get the chance to try using some clothing dye on an outdated curtain panel and a new t-shirt a couple of days ago.  First, I tried the sink method.

My kitchen sink is big, but it definitely wasn't big enough for the amount of fabric I had in there.  Everything on top looked great, and I thought there was plenty of room for the fabric to move around, but when I took the fabric out, there were still some lighter, and even undyed, spots in the middle of the bunch.  Since I still had some dye left, I threw everything in the washing machine and tried that method.  I was able to cover my mistakes enough that it isn't terribly noticeable, and unless I am dying baby clothes or sewing notions, I will most likely use the washing machine method from now on.

This is the shirt.  It started off as a super-light pastel pink, which is one color of t-shirt that I don't believe I will ever wear.  Fancier shirts, sure, but not t-shirts.  In real life, the color is much brighter and warmer than I could get it to photograph.  Another touch that I actually really like is that the thread didn't dye, so now I have the contrasting look going on.  You can sort of see it on the bottom hem, but it is really noticeable along the seam on top of my shoulders.

And this is the curtain panel.  It started off as a darker khaki color, so the color that it came out was a slightly muted version of the t-shirt.  The red stripes didn't change color at all, which was totally unexpected.  Regardless, I think it will bring a lot to my (future) laundry room makeover. 

I love trying something new, and I'm glad to be able to add dyeing fabric to my crafting skills arsenal.