Family Monogram Plaque

I'm guest posting today at Texas Women Bloggers, sharing a fun little monogram project. It's versatile and so easy to customize. Come check it out!

Painted Picture Frames {kid craft}

We like to make gifts when we can, especially for Phee's teachers.  When Phee left her favorite teacher, we decided to make a cute frame for a picture of the two of them.  Phee has done this project a couple times for different people and it's always a hit.  And she loves painting!

The first time we did this project, I painted the frames a solid color and gave Phee stickers to decorate with.  Those frames were for the grandmas for Mother's Day a couple years ago and they loved them.  This time, Phee did the painting, picked out the stickers herself, and did all the decorating herself.

You can adapt this project for different ages which makes this a great activity if you have toddlers and older kids.  It's fun for kids to personalize, too.  They get to show off their artistic skills and give a sweet memento to a teacher, relative, or friend.  It's easy to make and the materials aren't expensive.

Materials

• unfinished frame
• acrylic paint
• brushes
• paper plate
• embellishments (optional)

Directions

• Set up the frame on some newspaper or scrap paper to avoid spills and stray brush strokes from an over zealous painter. 
• We use acrylic paint which I squirt out onto a paper plate.
• Sometimes we use just one brush since the colors get mixed anyway.  Sometimes, we use a couple brushes.
• After the frame is dry, add some fun embellishments: buttons, scrapbook stickers, beads, etc.
• Add your picture and wrap your gift!

Painted Seashells

Last fall when my father-in-law, Phee's Gramp, camp to visit, he brought a box of seashells that Nana had found over the summer. Nana knows that we like our arts and crafts! I forgot about the box of shells for a while and just came across them again this week as Phee and I were looking for a project.

At first, I thought we might just play with them for a bit. The box turned out to contain three large shells that were just begging to be crafted, though. (Thanks to Nana who thoroughly cleaned the shells before sending them!) We're currently working on landscaping our backyard and garden beds.  I thought these might be perfect decorations for a little corner of one of the beds.

Better still, Nana would certainly love to put them in her flower garden. So, I got out the acrylic paints and the shells and Phee set to work creating some fantastic artwork to go with Nana's beautiful flowers.

Materials

• Seashells
• Acrylic paint
• Clear sealer

Directions

• Paint!
• Once the paint is dry, use the clear sealer to protect your shells.

Phee did a fantastic job with these shells. I just love them. We had some excellent paint colors to work which certainly helped. (I bought those colors for another project so stay tuned!) I'm hoping we can find some more great shells on vacation this week so that we can do this project for our own garden.

This is a great toddler project. They can paint to their heart's content and the result doesn't really matter. The mess was easily contained with paper on the table and a big paint shirt on Phee. The results are fairly immediate. And, for toddlers who haven't reached the stage where they care about the finished project, this is perfect. They get to create and someone else gets to enjoy the art!

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Holiday Placemats

Last year, Phee and I went to my mom's for Thanksgiving. It ended up being a sort of last-minute trip. Doug was working for the holiday, plus the days right afterward and I missed my mom. Plus, that was Phee's last shot at a free ticket since she turned two just a couple weeks later.

One afternoon while we were painting, I had the great idea that we would make placemats for everyone who was going to be at Mom's for Thanksgiving. The next day I picked up some watercolor paper and hit the jackpot in the Hobby Lobby clearance aisle and got four sets of Thanksgiving scrapbook stickers for $.99 each. It doesn't get much better than that!

Phee happily went to town painting the pages. She loves to paint and it was still kind of new to her at that point last year. After the pages dried, I peeled off stickers and handed them to her so that she could decorate each placemat. The results were adorable. I laminated them and we were all set for holiday dinner at mom's house, plus everyone had some Phee artwork that they could take home and reuse!

This is such a great way to get kids involved in any holiday. When I was a kid, we used to help my Meemaw make place cards for everyone. It was so much fun to dig through the old place cards she had and create new ones. It's fun for kids and adults alike to have the kids involved in the holidays.  Plus, if you have them working on a project the day before or on the big day itself, you give yourself a little more quiet time to finish holiday preparations. The kids will be proud of their contribution to the table and those memories are priceless.

Materials

• heavy card stock or watercolor paper (watercolor paper if you're going to use paint)
• holiday themed stickers
• other flat embellishments

Directions

• Have kids decorate the placemat pages with paint, markers or colored pencils.
• Add stickers and other embellishments.
• Laminate each page so it's protected from food splatters and spills.
• Set the table with the brand new placemats!

Another alternative is to print a holiday coloring page or black and white clip art on each page before the kids start coloring. Or, if you have a lot of kids working, a short guest list or you're very ambitious, you could print each guest's name on a page before starting.

A fun, creative project for artist and recipient alike! 

 

Painting T-shirts {diy}

There are any number of ways you can decorate a t-shirt: fabric paint, fabric markers, printable transfers, iron on transfers.  All excellent options and all can be a little pricey.  And you might not have them on hand or want to purchase them for a one-time project

Use acrylic paint!  Chances are you have some of that lying around if you like to craft.  Even if you don't have very much (or any) on hand, it is inexpensive and versatile.  Fabric paint and markers might not be ideal for a bevy of projects, but acrylic paint can be used for lots of things!

I've used acrylics to make a few t-shirts for Ophelia, particularly for Western Day at her little school.  If you are an artistic whiz and can easily freehand drawings and decorations, you're golden.  If, like me, your drawing ability is limited to stick people and ducks, here are some tips for painting t-shirts (or other fabric for that matter).

-Wash the t-shirt before painting

-Lay it flat and put some newspaper or cardboard inside the shirt

• doesn't have to be thick
• something sturdy works better than newspaper if you're going to paint a large area

-Foam stamps work very well for getting a general outline and base layer of paint

• foam stamps have a nice flat area and you can easily apply paint to them
• foam stamps aren’t as detailed as ink stamps

-Thin, stubby, stiff bristled paint brushes work best

• soft, thick brushes will smear paint outside your boundaries
• tiny brushes will be better able to handle details
• it’s easy to switch colors with thin brushes; they don’t hold a lot of water after rinsing

Once you’ve gathered your supplies, you’re all set to create your t-shirt masterpiece.

1. Prepare your t-shirt
2. Squirt your paint out onto a paper plate or flat piece of cardboard
3. Paint a thin layer of paint on your foam stamp
4. Decide on a position and stamp your t-shirt.  Don’t wiggle the stamp and be sure to pick it straight up off the shirt.
5. Go back with a paint brush and fill in the color in the area you stamped.  This may take 2 or 3 coats depending on the color you’re using and the look you want to achieve.
6. Once your base design dries a little, you can go back and add details or embellishments
7. Allow your t-shirt to dry completely
8. Heat set your painting by throwing the t-shirt in the dryer, by itself, for 30 minutes on regular heat.  (you can do multiple painted t-shirts at once, just don’t put the painted shirts in with other laundry)

The heat set is the most important step when using acrylics.

Now, the paint, after a few washings, may crack a little bit and get little wear lines.  I didn’t have a problem with that.  Ophelia’s t-shirts were obviously homemade and I was fine with the look.  Plus, she plays hard anyway so her shirts are bound to be stained.  A little crackly paint just adds character to the stains and spots!

Enjoy your t-shirt creations!

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