• Art - Blog - Creativity

    Paint pouring process

    I know its taken a while but I’m finally going to show you how I do my acrylic pours.  (This is a photo heavy post)acrylic pour walk through

    Lets talk about the colors I used first off.  I use all brands of paint, even house paint for my pours. I really only care about the color I achieve in each cup. I mixed the 2 browns until the color felt right. I did the same with the 2 reds in the right of the photo.

    acrylic pour walk through

    In all I have 7 colors. As I’m mixing these I add a product called Floetrol, which is a paint conditioner. I plan to use some of this in my paint for the front door…hopefully eliminating my brush strokes.

    acrylic pour walk through I use about a 50/50 mix of paint and Floetrol. I eyeball it…this girl doesn’t measure. If the paint is still quite thick (which is almost always is) I add distilled water very slowly until I get the proper consistency. For me that is the paint running in a thin line from my stir stick. acrylic pour walk through

    Now comes the dirty pour part. I always start with a small amount of white in the bottom of the cup then begin adding streams of color in a varied order. I pour from different heights which distributes the color in the cup in different ways.acrylic pour walk through

    As you can see I tried out colors from my paint drawer on the canvas before preparing my cups. It doesn’t matter what is on the canvas before so feel free to reuse an old canvas. After filling the cup with enough paint or what I assume is enough…remembering that some paint will be poured off the edge in this process….I’m ready to pour or flip as the case may be.acrylic pour walk through

    Some people quickly flip the cup over onto the canvas…I have yet to be brave enough to do that since I am working in such a small space. Instead I flip with canvas over.acrylic pour walk through

    And now we wait a minute or so for the paint to settle. Not sure how necessary this is but its the way I do it. I also tend to put a little paint at the corners to get the pour to flow over the edge quicker.acrylic pour walk through

    Every time I’m amazed by the designs that come straight from the cup.acrylic pour walk through

    Already cells are forming from the paint bubbling up and popping. No silicone used or needed.

    acrylic pour walk through

    I sometimes lightly blow on the paint to pop the surface bubbles before tilting the canvas to begin the flow.acrylic pour walk through

    acrylic pour walk through

    acrylic pour walk through

    acrylic pour walk through

    So much fun!!acrylic pour walk through

    Here is the completely dry canvas. I did drizzle some paint left in the cup at the bottom of the canvas to add interest. Not sure if I entirely like that addition but its all a grand experiment.

    Here is the second one I did with the same colors.

    acrylic pour walk through

    Crazy how different they are from each other. I love this this one…so does Mini-me. The colors work as a perfect accent in her room which was why I used them in the first place.

    Special thanks to Mini-me for her photography during the process.

  • Blog - Creativity

    DIY workstation ironing board

    Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to make another quilt. A fun, random scrappy quilt. A real scrap buster quilt.  I have several totes full of fabric. I’d say about 1/3 of it dates pre 1980’s. Of course not old enough to be really cool retro fabric…just that awkward 70’s fabric that really doesn’t mesh well with today’s patterns. However I do believe it will work well in a scrappy quilt because it will be small pieces and hey, its scrappy.

    One of my main issues with quilting in my current space is that I don’t have room for both a cutting station and small ironing board. It’s one or the other so usually I set up my tabletop ironing board on the game table and am constantly walking back and forth.

    sewing space

    Marvin is also an issue. He is not good about obeying the rule of no cats on the table. It’s a constant battle with him. I’m afraid he’s going to either burn himself or knock the iron down and have it burn the carpet. Either way it’s bad.

    While browsing around at Goodwill I saw this wooden TV tray for $3.99 and was inspired to create my own ironing board that is perfect height for ironing while remaining seated and folds away when not needed.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    I knew I needed special batting for this project. I researched a bit then found the product I needed on Amazon.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    At this point I turned my TV tray upside down onto the batting and traced around. I then cut another piece of batting about 2 inches bigger so it would wrap around the outer edge of the tray. I then cut a piece of vintage tablecloth about 3 inches bigger than the previous batting piece. I just eyeballed all the pieces….you know me, I hate measuring.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    I used a staple gun to attach it to the underside of the TV tray in the same way you’d upholster a chair seat. You basically alternate stapling from side to side pulling the fabric tight as you go leaving the corners for last. The corners are mitered by folding then stapling. There are lots of tutorials and how-to videos out there for this if you’ve never done it before.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    After getting the fabric stapled down good and tight I used my scissors to trim away any extra. The underside isn’t really ever going to be seen so I don’t care if it’s perfect.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    Ta-da! Now I have my new work station ironing board and no excuse not to get to that scrap busting quilt.

    DIY workstation ironing board

    Or have I just made an upholstered cat stand? What a turkey!!

  • Blog - Crafts - Creativity

    Graduation card

    It’s grad party season…that means is card making time too. This year I decided it might be fun to use the school colors for each of the graduates especially since both of them are really active in athletics.

    I searched around on Pinterest for inspiration. I saw a few cards featuring tassels and thought that would be really fun. In fact it was the tassel in particular that prompted me to look up their school colors so it would be more meaningful.

    school colors graduation card

    I used my Cuttlebug with the Sizzix Bricked embossing folder to give the texture to the white layer of cardstock. It added that “school” look I was going for.  The tassel is embroidery floss. They are quite simple to make. I wrapped the floss around a card until I had the desired amount…personal preference here. I slipped a length of floss through the top and tied a knot. I then cut the bottom and pulled the card out. I cut another length of floss and tied it around bundle approx 1/4 inch from the top.  I poked a hole in the hat and threaded the top strings through and taped it to the back of the hat before mounting. I trimmed the ends nice and even to the desired length after attaching the hat. The hat was made using a 2 inch square punch which I then adhered with 3M foam mounting tape.  I also used the foam tape under the congratulations banner for interest.

    I have one more card to create but that one will be blue and yellow instead of the black and gold. I think I may create a few more in our school colors as well as long as I have the supplies out. I know I’ll be needing the eventually.