Showing posts with label paint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paint. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

STAMPED CLOTH NAPKINS (& DIY POTATO STAMPS)


Hi, dear reader!

I'm generally a very floral, flowy, nature kind of person (and our apartment is just like that), but I'm such a sucker for modern, minimalist design and geometric shapes. I have lots of little modern/geo decor ideas collected in the back of my mind, but I've had no way to realize them since our (small) apartment aesthetic is very vintage/rustic. I haven't figured out a way to incorporate the geometric themes I love with the homey, traditional style of our decor.


I was going to stamp up some pretty vintage looking napkins when I realized this was my chance to sneak in some shapes. Napkins!

Perfect.


It was one of those last-minute craft urges - you know, where you have an idea and you HAVE to make it right this very second? But I don't have any stamps. So I pulled out some potatoes, spent about 20 minutes carving, and voila! (Almost) free stamps for my new geometric napkins!


To make potato stamps:
  1. Cut a potato in half (width-wise). 
  2. Insert a cookie cutter about 3/8" into the potato (white part, not skin part), to cut the shape. 
  3. Use a knife and/or your fingers to remove the extra parts, using the cookie cutter cut as a guide.
I used "soft" fabric paint - Washable. Got it at Michael's - some matte and some metallic. 

While stamping, you may get some extra paint around the edges of your shape (squished out when you pressed down on the stamp). Use a Q-tip to dab the extra paint away and smooth out the line. 

After the napkins dried overnight, I washed them in the washing machine, and they came out perfectly well and very soft (not stiff from the paint). 

Happy crafting!

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

DIY LYRICS CANVAS


Have you seen these types of canvas-with-words-painted-on projects floating around Pinterest? Probably. Home decor with words on it is so catchy - I love it. And when they're your own words, well, then how can you resist? Song lyrics, poems, quotes, whatever.


Actually, I have a whole list of words/phrases/lyrics on my computer, just waiting to be incorporated into some kind of decor some day. But I wasn't brave enough to make anything until I found these two large canvases for $5 together at a thrift store. I couldn't just leave them there.

Did I mention they were $5? Together?


So I painted them white (acrylic) ...


... and I painted them again (acrylic)...


... and stenciled lyrics on them (sorry it's difficult to see)...


... and painted them in. Voila.

My letters and lines are kind of crooked (very crooked in some spots). After the first few imperfections I decided I kind of liked it, so I kept it kind of that way (oooooooor I was too lazy to really fix it).



Do you guys know this song? I love it. One of my favorite recordings of it happens to be on YouTube, so I get to share it with you. Please enjoy Ray Charles, dear readers:


Hope your week is going well! Have a wonderful day :)
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