Read how I made it here.  Oh and if you like the paper I used for the grass, you can make your own at Japonizer.  Japonizer is a neat little Japanese inspired background generator site.  I use it all of the time to make cute paper for craft projects.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season, Cheers!

Supplies Needed:

• Pretty fabric
• Aleene’s Fabric Fusion Glue Pen (or any type of fabric glue)
• bracelets
• clothespin

I started by taping my fabric to the bracelet just in case I wanted to change the fabric later.  Next I wrapped the fabric pretty tightly around the bracelet and secured it with a little fabric glue.

I used the clothespin to hold the fabric while the glue dried.  I let the glue dry over night but it technically only needs a couple of  hours to dry.

Once the glue is fully dry your bracelet is ready to wear or wrap up if you are making them as a gift.

This was the first time I have every stenciled on anything and I am hooked.  The worst part is cutting out the stencil, but once your stencil is cut out, the rest is quite easy.

Supplies Needed:

• Freezer Paper (Not wax paper)
• Good Scissors/Craft Knife
• Iron
• Acrylic Paint or Fabric Paint
• Stencil brush or sponge applicator

Either draw your own stencil or find a stencil template,  trace it onto the Matte (non-shiny) side of the freezer paper and cut out your stencil.  Place the stencil on the fabric with the shiny side down and press with your iron.  My iron was on a medium setting and I ironed it for about 30 seconds.  The freezer paper works wonderfully as a stencil and is easy to pull off once the paint is dry.  Since my design was simple, I drew it myself (as you can tell) but there are plenty of free stencils available online.

Place a piece of cardboard or a piece of freezer paper under the fabric before you paint to catch any paint that bleeds through the fabric.  I would suggest using a piece of freezer paper because the cardboard I used stuck to the underside of my fabric and it was kind of a mess.  Use the sponge applicator to gently paint the fabric.  Allow the paint to fully dry before you remove the stencil.  I let my fabric dry overnight.

Now the fun part!  Peel the freezer paper off your fabric to revel your nicely stenciled design.   Read the instructions on your paint.  You may need to iron over the paint to set it.  I didn’t do this step.

Since I was only stenciling the stems and leaves, I still had to sew on the fabric flowers.  I simply layered circles that I cut from a light cotton fabric  and stitched them on by hand.  My fabric was from a thrifted cotton button up shirt.

I was pretty happy with the final result and so was the mother to be!

Day of the Dead skulls are fine for a baby's onesie right?

Here are some of the other onesies the shower guests made for Christy.  I love the punk rock onesie!

Photo Credit: Raven Guyton

This year I made my mom this little decorative tray for her bedside table or bathroom.  The tray I choose to use was already painted gold.  I used paint markers and acrylic paint to paint the flowers and initials.  Once everything was dry I covered it in varnish.  It took a couple of days to finish because some of the paint markers were oil based and took longer to dry.  But overall it was pretty easy to make and my mom loved it.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

I am not sure why I am making that face.

Look at that customer service!

The Doughtys were very helpful.

These screens were such a great idea.

I love Nikki's airplanes.

Nikki's bags, stationery and aprons

Nikki's cute little bows were a hit. She sold all but 3.

Since I didn’t get any really good photos of our booth, I included these photos I took the day before the festival.

Upcycled T-shirt Pillows

Aren't these Tooth Fairy pillows cute?

Planners and Journals

I will be adding some of my unsold items to my Etsy shop soon.  So what do you think?

Yesterday The Reflector (Mississippi State’s student newspaper) did a story about Nikki and I having a booth at the Cotton District Arts Festival this year.  How exciting is that?  Read it here.

The Cotton District Arts Festival is one of my favorite things about Starkville and this year will be our first time to be vendors! I always have such a great time at the CDAF and I am sure this year will not be an exception.  Check out our stuff on Etsy to get a peak of what we will be selling.  See my notebooks and journals here and see Nikki’s stitching here.

I bought this charming little mail organizer at the Salvation Army with the hope of painting it and making it wonderful.  After the first coat of paint, I realized that there was nothing charming about this dumb mail sorter.  I underestimated its cheapness really.  Also I hate sanding, so I skipped that step which was my first mistake. The paint of course did not stick.

Skip ahead 6 months.   I decided to dig my failure of a mail organizer out of my closet and try again.  This time I did research on painting laminate and sanded it first with a fine grit sanding block.  Next I painted on a coat of Zinsser’s oil based primer and let it dry, this resulted in another epic fail.

Mail Organizer after 1 coat of primer

At this point, it was me against the shelf.  What I thought would be an easy afternoon craft project, turned into all out war really.  No longer did I think fondly of this little mail organizer.

Next I added another coat of primer, lightly sanded it again and then added a fresh coat of white spray paint.  After the spray paint dried, it still looked horrible!  So once again I lightly sanded it and added another coat of white spray paint.  After the 2nd coat of white paint dried, I almost gave up and had to walk away.

I cooled off and decided that I would just have to cover it with  pretty wallpaper and sheet music.  I guess it was late at night  or maybe because of the wine drinking associated with craft failures but  I thought spray gluing wallpaper and sheet music onto painted faux wood would hold, which it did not.  After a couple days of watching the wallpaper slowly peel off, I decided to Mod Podge the wallpaper to the mail organizer as my final effort.  This worked thank God!

Although I am still not 100% happy with the results, I think it is fair to say that I won and the mail organizer lost.

Here are a few of the Valentine’s Day Cards I made this year:

These Valentines are made from vintage early readers.

After scanning the vintage early readers for cute images, I used my sewing machine to sew the images onto cardstock that I had previously folded and scored using my bone folder. Next I glued patterned paper to the inside of the Valentine using rubber cement to cover the exposed string and make the Valentine look more neat and clean.

The Niagara Falls Valentine is made from a Niagara Falls WPA poster image.

For this Valentine, I printed off  a Niagara Falls WPA poster image that I re-sized to fit onto a 4 x 6″ piece of cardstock.  I used rubber cement to attach it to the cardstock.  After trying a couple of different types of glue, I found that rubber cement works the best for card making since it doesn’t cause the paper to wrinkle or bow.  There is a really nice collection of WPA posters available on the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.

To make this Valentine I glued an Ace of Hearts playing card from a spare deck of cards onto a folded and scored piece of cardstock. The letter stickers I used on the inside of this Valentine are from Lowe’s.  Finally I used a rounded corner punch to round the corners of the cardstock.

I also made another version of the Hearts are Trumps Valentine.  Obviously I only had one Ace of Hearts in my deck of cards and I have 2 ladies in my  bourre group, so I had to be creative.

The heart image I used on the 2nd hearts are trumps card, is from a thrifted copy of The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary. This book is perfect for finding awesome clip art.  I used rubber stamps to stamp hearts are trumps on the opposite side of the Valentine.  For the envelope, I simply cut my fabric to fit the card with pinking shears to prevent fraying and sewed a straight line on both sides to finish the envelope.

This Valentine was made from wallpaper samples and leftover Christmas wrapping paper.

I love being an aunt because it allows me to make way more fun gift packages.

Sneak peak of what my niece's and nephews got with their Valentine.

Oh and let me just say that the SweetTarts Lollipops are the best!  You should really try them.