Happy Halloween

Success! I have finally finished the project I have been saying I would finish. 

I painted the 12x12 wood piece in a chalkboard black by Valspar. It turned out really nice. The blue thing is a Pepsi drink thing turned over - wonderful for my projects! 

Transferring the lettering to the transfer tape. I love transfer tape because you don't have to press very hard to lift the letters. Also, you can reuse it - or at least I have depending on if the stickiness remains. I added an extra E later. =)

Here is the finished product! The color here does not do it justice. The letters are bright orange and it looks really good! Yay me!! This did not take long at all once I actually started. 

Happy Happy! 

An apple a day keeps the...witch doctor away?

This project was not easy...I repeat NOT EASY. I do not recommend this. I used burlap canvas that I painted for this project and it was super difficult to get the vinyl on there.

First I took a roller brush and painted the sign (from Hobby Lobby) pumpkin patch orange by Glidden. It was a great color and turned out wonderful. Those are shoes on the floor in the background...they play no role in my project. 

These were the 2 designs I came up with on silhouette studio. The Doctor's office picked which one they wanted. The word "Witch" and the flying witch were both purchased off of Silhouette online store (with my nifty little $10 gift card they gave me). The fonts are from Dafont. If you don't know how to get fonts off of other places, let me know and I will do a brief tutorial.

I get my vinyl from Expressions Vinyl. It is great quality and you can get big gigantic rolls that are 10 yds. Okay...so once again I goofed during the transfer step and I accidentally ripped off the D in Doctor. So, I had to improvise. I cut the transfer paper and made a black space where the D would be and went ahead and applied the vinyl and LATER cut out the D and just put it on there. I also thought that the sign needed a little more something and added this great spider web to the top.

I then set it up all nice and cute looking so I could use it to share with all of you. 

Happy Bewitching! 

Borrowing is not stealing...well I'm not taking it back

I'm supposed to have a really awesome finished project to show y'all right about now...yeah I don't have it ready. BUT, I will....just not now...well lets be reasonable, it's not happening tonight. I have 2 Halloween projects that I'm in the middle of plus I'm still waiting on my hubs to go down the street and borrow some wood scraps from the new house being built.

This isn't a very good picture. It's a little further away than I thought it was, but that pile there that you see is wood...and I want it. Before you call the police, we aren't stealing it. They will throw this away, but if it will make you feel better I will call the construction manager in the morning to let him know that it will be gone and down at my home should they wish to retrieve it. 

Just to keep y'all interested though...here's another pic of the fabulous project that I will do the tutorial on -TOMORROW. I will also be working on a Witch Doctor sign that should be equally fabulous. 

Also...take a look at this amazing cup cake holder by Rivka Wilkins.

Those are absolutely adorable and I will be doing a tutorial -SOON ...not right now so don't get all huffy when there isn't an automatic post following this about cupcake boxes. And don't you dare look tomorrow either and wonder where it is because it won't be here...definitely not the cupcake because I will have eaten that. Anyways, for you lovely Silhouette owners you can find this design on the Silhouette online store. 

Happy Waiting...again

Delivering Christmas

I posted yesterday that I would finish the Christmas subway art today and I have!

What you see here is the finished vinyl with the negative removed. Like I said before, I do not suggest doing that way. It was a pain in the rear end both taking them out and then again after I had painted over the stencil. 

Next I applied all by myself with my wonderful husband, the transfer tape and transferred the design onto the wood. I think the "Away in a Manger" is supposed to look like snow...it doesn't. You will see that I left this off in the next post. 

I took the wonderful paint that I got from Home Depot (the Behr paint) and covered the stencil using a sponge. You don't have to lay it on too thick because if you do (and then you let it dry too long) you may accidentally pull up your paint when you remove your stencil. Notice that I did not paint the bottom - I used judgement here and figured that this was not going to turn out well if I did paint it. Let this dry about 10 minutes or so before peeling off. If you notice it is drying very quickly, then use your own judgement about removal. Peel back slowly. 

I let it dry for about an hour before sanding over the entire thing. I sanded the painted letters to give it a better look to it. 

The final project! I really like how it turned out. I may use a little stain in some areas and a good wipe down in others where you may be able to see the white paint from sanding. Otherwise...looks old and rustic and I like it! 

Happy Subway art...ing! 

* I forgot to mention that this was supposed to be a 12x24 inch project. My silhouette machine ate the rest of the lettering. I'm really not sure what happened. The vinyl started twisting and turning and then it just all went to crud after that. I may have my husband cut this down or fill in the negative space with some cute vinyl decals! 

Hello STICKY

My Silhouette cutting mat has made me a little irritated today. The mat is a little too sticky for my taste and has completely destroyed my project. HOWEVER, although this is a minor set back - I did Google it and the number one response was to take a t-shirt and rub it over the mat to take off some of the stickiness. I still love you, silhouette...but I don't have to like you right now.

Sneak Peek

Okay...here is a little sneak peek of what I will be working on to show you tomorrow as well as my other project. I like to keep entirely too much going at one time.

Yes...I know that I accidentally tore off the 3 E in EEEK. 

Happy EE K ing!

Silhouette Cameo...my new love

So...I have found a new love and it is the Silhouette Cameo! It is absolutely, without a doubt...amazing. 

There's that beauty right there...eating some vinyl. Today I have started some subway art and will continue to post until the project is done. If I didn't have 5 little people, I'd live a life of luxury in the Bahamas I could get this done much faster...but somehow I ended up with them so I'm kind of stuck. ;) The first one I'm going to talk about is my Christmas project. 

I started out by going to home depot and buying a 24x24 inch board that cost me little to nothing. While I was there I went ahead and picked up some red Behr paint (sample size since that is more than enough) for a little over $2. That other thing is what we like to call a paint brush...and I already had that. 

I painted the board the red color, I didn't need primer because Behr is greatness and comes with it in there, and I sanded the edges to round it out a bit. You don't have to sand it..but I did because I like the edges better, plus I will stain them later to give it a more distressed look. After this I had my wonderful husband cut the board in half to make two 12x24 inch boards. No picture...sorry. 

Okay...this is obviously not the finished product. In the first picture there you see what is called Silhouette Studio...it kind of works like Photoshop, but for cutting out projects. Below that is the vinyl that I am currently working on. I'm taking out the negative and so you see the blue coloring underneath. That color will not be there. What I'm doing with this particular project is making it into a stencil so that I can lay it on top of my board and use another paint color to paint on top. There is an easier way to do this. So why didn't I do it the easier way? Because I painted my boards the wrong color. I will show you the easier way at a later date...or you can comment and I will go ahead and answer. 

This is not the same project, but I just wanted to show you this nifty little tool that helps to take out the unwanted vinyl. This is made by cricut. Silhouette also has one, but not one hobby store in my area sells it, which I find odd. Anyways, this is called a weeder - I believe...if not then it is just that tool that they use at the dentist office. 

Okay..that's it for this one. Tomorrow I will fix it all up and post the end result.

Happy waiting!