Spring Projects

I have been terribly busy with spring softball (dear husband plays Monday thru Thursday) and bad attempts at potty training.  But I am back, and I have been doing a little bit of crafting and such.

Here are some projects/ideas I have been working on or done since I've been on hiatus.

Hot Dog!

I made Addilyn octopus hot dogs..which turned out to be an epic failure. There must be some trick that I am missing, because the octopi did not have cute little legs that stuck out, they either broke off or stuck straight down. I won't even put a picture of what mine looked like, in order to hide some of my shame at failing at a seemingly simple task.

Glitter Key
I made a sparkle key! Which turned out infinitely better than the octopus challenge, so I will show you a picture of that! It was a key that had  Pepé Le Pew, one of my favorite cartoon characters as a child and he probably sparked my Francophilia, but he was scratched and chipped so I just painted over him with purple nail polish, sprinkled some multi-glitter while the polish was wet and sprayed it with some acrylic sealant I had from another project. I love this key and I am thinking about doing all my keys like this so that my key chain looks like a giant glitter bomb.

 

Glitter Key!

Painting Spring!
I have been inspired by all the adorable spring Lilly prints I see popping up on facebook and pinterest and I decided to pull out paint brush and do some spring canvases just for fun. I did 5 mini canvases inspired by flowers and largely inspired by Lilly and then on a 16 x 20 I did a sweet chevron pattern in colors that match the nautical theme that is my master bedroom. The chevron has a big blank box in the center because I have not decided the best way to add beach sand to the monogram letters that will be painted in the center. I am going to do some test runs on some small canvases before I try and sand texture my chevron print canvas.

It's shiny because the paint is a little wet and the center white box is uneven, but it dried with a nice matte finish and I evened out the center box lines.

Log Side Table!

I have completed the log side table! Dustin wanted to keep it natural so I just softened up some the rough spots and coated it a clear, waterproof protective varnish. It looks awesome, (actually it just looks like a clean, shiny part of a tree trunk) and Dustin loves it, but I think it needs some legs, so I am gonna figure something out, and maybe add some thin, random paint stripes in the style of antler art to make it mesh a little better with our nautically natural room.

Log Side Table: The Beginning

 This is going to be a multi-part series of posts. As it is going to be a multi day project.


This project is one that D actually suggested.

There are several log slices in the woods by our house from a tree that was taken down and D needs a bedside table so of course our logical thought process was lets MAKE a table from a raw slice of tree.

Raw materials and natural looks are something Dustin and I can agree on when it comes to decor, so this worked out well.


The Plan: 

1.Shave/sand/chisel the wood until it reaches the desired smoothness and color.

2.Coat it with a sealant.

3.Decide on a top. (We are thinking about a round glass or acrylic top of maybe just a thick sealant coat on top.)



Sounds simple, right?
It is simple, just time consuming. But I have faith that the end result will be worth it all.

Here is what we have so far:

About 30 minutes into the bark peeling process.

Started chiseling, looking good!

How To Paint Letters Perfectly

Today's pin is "how to paint letters perfectly"

This pin takes you to a blog where the blogger explains how she personalizes wood that she is painting. Its a pretty simple process and it works like a DREAM!

"take me to the sea"

 The idea is you print out the word/letter/font you want, tape the print out on to the wood you want to paint, trace them with a ball point pen (it makes an indent in the wood so you have an outline! genius)  and you paint within the outline. you can see my first word "take" is a little off but once I got the hang of it, it was easy.

It is something I would definitely recommend to anyone who wants to personalize something, I'm certainly going to use this technique again.  My daughter's headboard is next!