A Friday night craft hour

I love my craft time for Worship Committee projects.  In this case, I volunteered to create a Trinity symbol the Thursday night before the Sunday it needed to go up.  I hit up Hobby Lobby Friday after work and constructed most of it that night.

The Plan: buy three grapevine wreaths, white spray paint, and wing it.

The Modified Plan as I shopped: price three white styrofoam wreaths and white fabric and wing it.

The Final Plan as I put the first six wreaths away: cut three embroidery hoops to interlock and cover in fabric (wing it).

Hobby Lobby purchases:

Three 14" embroidery hoops

White tulle (40% off coupon!)

I chose the white tulle because the Trinity symbolizes the Father, Son and Holy Ghost- the Worship Committee wanted an ethereal, delicate look.

So The Final Plan was modified again.  Instead of attempting much more measuring and multiple cutting and piecing together, I chose these steps:

1. Only using the middle hoops, I overlapped the three circles
2. Tied the hoops together with strips of tulle
3. Started wrapping the hoops with tulle
4. Realized I could still see the wood
5. Unwrapped the tulle
6. Painted the hoops white (yes, got paint on my hands and legs)
7. Wrapped hoops with tulle, tucking and weaving- much more time-consuming than you might think*

   *though not as long as the wedding letters wrapped in yarn and lace

The next day, Ben finagled a way to prop the symbol up using items in our office.  I used a piece of kneaded rubber eraser to hold the wire in place on the table.

Above display by Worship Committee

I had a different post planned for today- but then my mother, one of my faithful blog followers (I have two), e-mailed me some pictures and included one of the card/packaging for her Mother's day gifts.  

So, thanks, Mom, for the photo of your Chevron card (and polka dot washi tape- another current obsession!)  Most of the time I am trying so hard to get the card made and mailed in time, I don't always remember to document- even though that is one of the main purposes of this blog.

Just like my last post, this one takes a winding little path.

Months ago I was playing with wedding invitation designs.  This is one of the samples I came up with:

I didn't get to see it used as a wedding invitation, but I have started using the Chevron design more for smaller projects.  It has really made a resurgence in scrapbooking, home decor and even nail (as in, manicures) design.

For commissioned work, I came up with this note card design.  The client wanted to give personalized note cards as a high school graduation present; and after discussing the project, this seemed perfect.  The design is clean, not too girly, but has some color.

I've since tweaked the colors and sizes for other cards, including a birthday tag and gift tags (Mother's Day and pregger roomie gift, both not pictured).

I'm working at saving time when I can use designs I already have versus creating something new, and utilizing Chevron right now when it is still so popular allows me to focus on those "something new" details for other projects.

If you give a mouse a cookie...

I sat at the computer the other night to print out a couple signs for church.  Five minutes, max, to type, print, cut and frame.  

As I saw the files I had left open, I realized I could print a sticker for a birthday present instead of making a tag.  So I wrapped, taped, typed, printed, adhered.

The table was a bit messy, so I started putting everything out in its place and realized I should just make the labels for my drawers I've been meaning to put up for awhile.  That also meant I had to rummage through the drawers and make sure each was properly labeled.

So I found in the "Scrapbook Paper" drawer something that didn't belong: a wrapped gift.  For the life of me I could not remember what it was, or who it was for.  

After I carefully used an X-acto blade to open the wrapping- then I sat down to the computer and finally made the signs.

Five minutes.

What a coincidence that Andrew shared photos of his dresser refurb the same week I was attempting my first furniture painting project.  Darn!  After I am always reminding others to take progressive pictures, I didn't.  I do, however, at least have Before and After:

Ben's aunt Judy supplied me with this table from one of her storage units.  Two years ago, when we moved in, my MIL helped me clean it up by scraping off the bubbling top and using our pal Old English.  It has been in my dining room ever since, housing multiple collections.

I needed a change, and initially was going to go with an Heirloom White- distressed, of course, courtesy of this inspiration by Shanty 2 Chic.  This blog gave suggestions for distressing.  Originally I was thinking the table would be against a painted wall again, but then decided it would be next to white, so I nixed the Heirloom White and went with a red to accent other parts of the new room.

This project ended up costing a little more than I initially planned (though not a ton, by any means).  

Items I ended up buying:

• sandpaper
• 1 can of red spray paint
• 1 can of primer spray paint (Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon!)

Items I already had:

• 1/2 can of red spray paint
• bottle of harvest gold acrylic paint
• polyurethane satin finish spray

I didn't have Vaseline, as the tutorial suggested, so after reading other "distressing" tutorials, I ended up using a candlestick.  The wax serves the same purpose, and I didn't have an extra cost.

What I'll do differently next time: paint the underlying color (in my case, the gold) everywhere.  After spraying the red on, I didn't remember the oh-so-clever places I had painted the gold, and it was a little uneven.   I'll also try to remember to take progressive pictures.

For a fun but simple card/tag, I combined two of my favorite things right now: Chevron design and washi tape!

I enjoyed putting this piece together, although it was a real challenge at first.  Amanda sent me some great inspiration and then let me have fun.  This is an example of what I really love to do- combine different media and try something new.  

I used some watercolor element from a previous project for the background, as well layered color, texture and font; I sketched the nest, scanned and manipulated it in Photoshop, creating more depth with colors and gradients within the nest.