DIY: Why Can’t Harlequin Print be on EVERYTHING, ALWAYS?

Sooo it has been a very, very long time since the last post. There are too many reasons to list why it’s been this long and I clearly do not want to bore you, but to sum it up very quickly…Holiday Installs, Family Medical Issues, Sprained Ankle, Holiday Take Down, Huge Bar Mitzvah with a lot of Decor and Costumes…..and It’s February. That sums it up in one quick sentence. To think that I can sum up the last 2 months of my life that quickly is slightly sad, but I guess those are the main points, 3,000,000 other things happened as well.

This project your about to see was planned to occur before the holiday season, but it never happened, so here it is for your enjoyment, or maybe just mine. 🙂

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There are certain prints I just wish would be in style forever and ever, Harlequin being one.  There is just something about the Diamond print and the high contrast that I feel adds the right amount of fun and whimsical flare to any project.  The top 3 prints that I gravitate towards, whether it be a Wreath, a Tree, a Invitation, an Event etc. etc. are as follows, Harlequin (clearly), Damask, and Chevron. As a designer I question if it’s “In Style” to add these prints to my many endeavors, but at the end of the day in DIY it’s up to you to do as you wish, so never be afraid to do what you love.

I found this amazing Harlequin tissue paper. It was a little more expensive then I would have liked, being that I had seen candles like this for sale in a harlequin print but would never spend the price they were asking, the tissue paper with all the other necessities for this project was still way cheaper then the already made candles, and taking on this project was clearly more fun!

During High School I attended a Fashion design half day program where I learned to Sew, construct garments, create fashion renderings, and pattern making.  I bring this up for the most random of reasons, but don’t fret, this project did not involve sewing of any kind.  In class we learned to sew with store bought sewing patterns.  These patterns were printed on tissue paper, and we were taught to Iron the pattern before we cut it so any creases or wrinkles would disappear.

This applies perfectly to our project.  Before cutting the tissue paper down to the size of the candle, I lowered my iron to the lowest heat setting and turned the steam completely off. The tissue paper came with some lovely fold lines, which I easily ironed away.

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Shockingly I do not use Mod Podge as much as I think I should, as it was not something my parents graced me with growing up. This was probably because if I knew it existed as a child every wall and item in my house would be modged with something, glitter, newspaper, or tissue paper. I precut my tissue paper with an extra 1/2″ on the length and the height and no I was not overly meticulous about the pattern matching up on the seam.  IMG_9322IMG_9325IMG_9326IMG_9328

I applied one coat of modge, then the tissue, then another coat.  I let that dry and then applied one more coat, then I let that dry….Great thing is with Mod Podge it doesn’t take that long to dry.  Once the second top coat was dry I took a brand new exacto blade and trimmed the excess tissue paper to the curving lines of the top of the candle. (Always cut away from your hand!(No I did not have a exacto accident on this project 🙂 ) )

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I think the best part about making something  is being able to enjoy it, the hard yet fun part is over.  It is like unpacking an Etsy or Ebay purchase when it arrives at your door. It brings you complete happiness, except this time YOU made it

I love them! I am really happy with the way these candles turned out.  I love them for Valentines day, I love them for Easter, I love them even more for Halloween, and even Christmas. I love them for every day, but I think I will put them away after Easter and take them back out at Halloween.

As my list of craft project grow, and years go by I have began to notice something. Sometimes as you are crafting you are overly critical of our own work. When you pull it back out you look at it differently. You see it in a new light.  Maybe what you thought was an imperfection upon creating it now adds character. What you may have seen as a flaw or something you questioned makes the item special.

Hopefully this has inspired you to take out your modge and start podging, because now I foresee more Mod Podge projects in the near future. 🙂

 

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Ugly Christmas Sweater . . . Party of Two

Target you did it again!  Every time I step into Target I become more and more impressed.  The Visuals constantly improve, the store lay out, and the product.  A lot of the holiday decor this season is amazing, and if you have not been there to see it yet I suggest taking a trip before the Thanksgiving madness occurs. So on one of my MANY Target trips, I stumbled upon the most amazing thing ever!IMG_8221

First off, we know Ugly Sweater parties are all the rage lately, and we thought it would be a quick trend that was going to last maybe a year? two? but they are still going strong and don’t seem to be going anywhere. Not that you don’t want to wear them every day of the season.  I am not one to go buy an ugly Christmas sweater at a big box store, but more on that later. This sweater is hanging on two hangers? and taking up a whole clothing wrack, and has Santa wearing very thick glasses, and what appears to be PIZZA?  I don’t think a second past before I unhooked both hangers and threw the sweater into my cart.  The only thing about this sweater that bothered me was that it was in the women’s section of target, which I obviously don’t shop on the daily, thank god it caught my eye from across the store.

My friend Megan and I started a tradition last year that we are going to buy an Ugly Sweater as a gift for each other every year (Megan, I know your going to read this post, so that cats out of the bag. This is obviously your Christmas present this year! Merry Christmas!)  We normally find the most unique sweaters we can find. Which brings us back to the big box store sweaters.  The fun of an Ugly Christmas Sweater is that they were sold in stores not that many years ago for your mom or grandma to wear, and I guess it was ok then?

I do remember buying  my mom one for Christmas one year. I believe she even asked for it.  I wasn’t of driving age at the time, so I asked my dad if he would take me to Kohl’s to buy mom a Christmas sweater (please note the absence of the word Ugly).  Would you know that when Ugly sweater became all the rage I ransacked her closet looking for it for a friend to borrow and she had thrown it away. Which I guess wasn’t completely a bad thing, being my mom would no longer be seen wearing it, but I needed it!

The best ugly christmas sweaters are the ones you stumble upon at the thrift store, but this doesn’t happen to often. My friends and I are convinced that one little old lady is going around buying every single one and making bank on Etsy or Ebay.  So if in store shopping isn’t going to work then I guess I have to go buy it on Ebay from the business savvy  grandma who took them all.

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Last years Ugly Sweater was pretty amazing, counting down the 12 days of christmas with a lot of added notions. Buttons, Sequins, and ribbons galore.  Please note I am not wearing my ugly Christmas Sweater in this picture 🙂 .  My Ugly Christmas sweater gift from Megan didn’t come in the mail yet, but I couldn’t wait another day to give her hers.

So I guess this year I broke my own rule, but could you blame me??? A Ugly Christmas sweater that we can wear together, at the same time!  After a sweater test drive with my sister, the photo of it hanging flat on two hangers (still amazing) did not do the sweater itself much justice. So I took out two matching mannequins (yes, if you weren’t aware I do have a mannequin collection) and proceeded to dress the mannequins in this two armed, two head hole sweater.  I felt like I was dressing  Sarah Paulson as Bette and Dot from American Horror Story : Freak Show, making this sweater yet again amazing, and making me even happier that I bought it.  The only question is. . . what do you do with your other arm on the inside of the sweater?

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DIY: Saturday Craft Night with Your Best Friend!

So my friend Victoria sent me a text this week asking if I would assist her with a Holiday themed project. I obviously couldn’t say no, for multiple reasons, one it being Holiday themed, two the fact that she is one of my best friends, and Vickie’s projects usually involve paper. I can never resist a good paper project.

“I want to make an advent calendar” she stated in her text.  So my first thought was oh no! this may involve chocolate.  My only holiday memory involving an advent calendar was getting a shipment from my Grandma around the end of November, and like any child every year I had not a clue what she could possible be sending us in the mail….obviously a chocolate filled advent calendar. Thank god she wasn’t cheap and used her motherly instincts she also sent one for my brother and another for my sister, because we obviously each needed our own piece of chocolate before breakfast every single morning in the month of December.

A call after work hours cleared the whole chocolate part up.  She wanted to create an advent calendar using envelopes with holiday “tasks” for a family to complete (obviously a lot healthier then chocolate before breakfast, let alone every day).  She wanted to showcase a fun way to use envelopes for the holidays. We spoke about it every day for the rest of the week, and then came today….go time!

I raided my home stash, and pre cut Vinyl numbers, she had the envelopes we needed, and then came one of my favorite parts…shopping!  We went to the local craft store, luckily getting everything we needed in one stop.  Anticipating to use a coupon on our “VERY BIG” purchase, a frame that needed to be at least 17″x 22″, we were pleased to find that there were doorbuster sales, making the 24″ x 36″ frame 70% off, costing only $14.99!

Luckily with weekend crafting a glass of wine is allowed (not that I won’t do it on a weeknight every now and then).  So after only one glass of wine, no major crafting accidents, and a few hours this rather large advent calendar was complete!

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I promised myself if I ever started a blog, in which I guess I decided to do 🙂 I would not list every little detail of the project and give every single step in chronological order.  Why? Well if you read this and decided you want to take on creating your own advent calendar it should be YOUR OWN.  I want this to inspire you to create, if you wanted yours to look exactly like mine you might as well just go to the store and buy one. The fun about crafting is that it has your own touches, and own ideas.  Also it would suck all of the fun out of it if I gave you the steps one by one, the best part about crafting is planning out your ideas and problem solving.

MATERIALS:

TOOLS:

  • Scissors
  • Hot Glue Gun
  • Ruler/Tape Measure
  • Spray Adhesive
  • Straight Edge
  • Exacto
  • Tape
  • Thin Ribbon/ String
  • Wine 🙂 (Optional of course)

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Unfortunately the paper that we fell in love with wasn’t big enough for our frame, so it had to be seamed.  Keep in mind, you can always cut your paper with a straight edge to make your patterns match up.  When pulling the paper from the rack in the store I made sure to get two pieces which matched up with out me having to cut them just to make it slightly easier.

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If you look closely you can see we taped the seam of the paper from the back so that when we laid it down after we sprayed the glue we did not have to worry about matching it up.  Also notice the hanging hardware on the back piece of MDF of the frame. We mounted the paper directly to it. In this step it may not matter but always keep note where your hardware is when laying out your calendar. Make sure everything is mounted in the correct orientation to match up which way you are going to hang it.

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The next part needed a little bit of thought and calculation. I took this part on while Vickie got do the fun stuff like sticking the numbers on the envelopes (which could also be hand written) and writing out family friendly holiday ideas to fill each envelope with.  I guess I partook in that slightly while we exchanged ideas for things that families can do together to enjoy the holidays.  We obviously also exchanged a few good laughs.

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Originally I was going to measure out each of the clothes pins correct home and place a small pencil dot where it belonged. For some reason I thought it may be easier to use ribbon to make a grid.  With most of my projects I try to figure out the best way to overcome challenges with repetitive tasks.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t :/ .  I think this one was a winner.  I measured out the space I had to place the envelopes, the size of the envelopes with the clothes pin, and with some basic mathematics, some thin ribbon, a ruler and scotch tape stuck to the counter the grid was born. A line of hot glue on the back of each clothes pin and now we are getting somewhere.

You will soon come to learn that this would not have been a Tis A Season creation if it didn’t have some ribbon on it. Let’s be real that not everything needs ribbon, but what can I say, I have a problem.  So this may have been the most tedious part of the project, but I think added that extra charm it needed.

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Twenty four hand tied bows, it could be worse, and it has been, so it was doable. You can also use the fork tying bow method, which if you have not seen it already it can be easily googled. Which I did try one that way, but it was way to perfect, which was the look I thought I was going for….but it wasn’t.

We placed the whole thing back into the frame, we hot glued the bows on and “pined” in all of the envelopes.  As soon as the frame went on and that first envelope got put into its place it took on a whole new look and really brought it all together. IMG_8189 IMG_8192 IMG_8191 IMG_8196

IF I DID IT AGAIN:

We chose the foiled poster board cause we really liked the print, but if I did it again I probably would have found paper large enough to fit the frame with out having to seam it, most likely wrapping paper. The seam stands out more in the photos then it does in person, but me being me it will bother me every time I look at it.

 

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