Altered Thistle Notebook

I crafted this thistle notebook to carry in my handbag.  I got the pen from Pier 1, and it's the best $3.59 I ever spent in my life!

I created this using a Dollar Store notebook, computer printed image on fabric, Angelic font for the wording, ribbon and a purchased thistle mold.

Burlap Covered Box

                         I crafted this little box for storage today.

It's a simple little project, and here's a brief explanation of how it's done:

Choose your fabric and wrap your box as you would a present. I used a plain ole cardboard box, cutting off the top to create an open box. I used Mod Podge to glue the fabric in place.

I used pegs to keep the fabric in place while it dried, like so.

Embellish with...whatever. I used Mod Podge again to glue the elements in place.  The daisy was crocheted with butcher's  twine.  I found a tutorial with photos here which shows how to crochet daisies and I sort of got addicted to making them in different sizes. See how tiny?!

Look at the horrific mess I make no matter what I am crafting.  Who would think this kind of destruction can happen while making a simple little box?  Me, that's who. I'm impossible.

And there you have it.

Altered Floral Notebook

I put together this little notebook yesterday when I needed a bit of distraction.

The hardback notebook is from the dollar store and was covered with cotton fabric which I left very wrinkled on purpose.

The flower petals were cut out of a thicker fabric which frays. I embroidered around each petal and stitched french knots on the center part.  I used regular markers to colour the stem and petals and then glued everything down with mod podge.

I printed out the little love quote on white tissue paper and then mod podged it onto the fabric. 

Rustic Christmas Star Giftwrapping

My simple gift wrapping this Christmas was done with my typical kraft paper wrapped with white bows and adorned with gold glitter salt dough stars.

I am lucky enough to have a ton of off cut fabrics from a bedding factory, so my ribbons and bows are ripped into strips using the offcuts, but you can certainly use old white sheets that are destined for the rag bin.

The simple salt dough recipe is:

1 cup of salt (get it at the dollar store, it's cheaper than the grocery store)
2 cups of flour
3/4 cup of water

You may have to adjust the water/flour by a bit, and I always add a bit of oil, about a tablespoon. This keeps the dough from sticking to your hands.  Once you've rolled the dough and cut out your shapes, bake at 200 degrees for about an hour.  You can also leave them to dry for a day or so.

I brushed my stars with Mod Podge and then sprinkled gold glitter all over.

I used a stamp set to mark the name of the recipient, and I'm going to see if I can stamp right onto bare dough ornaments because I think that would be a cute presentation too.

Fall Luminary

I made this simple luminary with a glass mayonnaise jar and coated some maple leaves with Mod Podge and arranged them on the glass.

Altered Mini-Suitcase to Nail Polish Storage Case

I altered a dollar store cardboard mini suitcase into a box to hold my nailpolish. I covered it using a wrinkled Taiwanese newspaper my son sent me which was used to wrap a breakable item. The dragonflies are images I found, printed and painted using watercolours, then I applied glitter to the wings.  Everything was set into place using Mod Podge.

My son had a seal made with my name on it, and that is stamped in the lower left hand corner. Seals are used to 'sign' your name on official documents in China and Taiwan, and no two are alike, even if you have the same full name as a thousand people. Fun fact!

I told my son that I chose to believe that the Chinese writings were all thought provoking or spiritual articles, but it's actually the classified section and contains ads for iPhones and Honda Civics. Ha!

Altered Stationery Box Turned Sewing Stash Box

My son gave me a boxed set of stationery eons ago, and I have a thing for boxes and save everything he's ever given me, so this box sat empty in a drawer for over a decade.

I've recently fallen in love with altered art in all its forms, so it was only a matter of time before I remembered the existence of this box, and tried my hand at turning it into a useful item.

The image of the ladies came from a photocopy of an Advantage sewing pattern from the early 1960s and was printed using an office laser printer (Shhh!), and the embellishments were items I gathered up from my sewing stash.

I haven't quite decided it I've achieved maximum overkill with all the elements I've added because I tend to keep things simple, but it's growing on me.

I keep it on end table within reach of where I sit on my couch and it's filled with the items I am constantly in need of when I'm hand sewing, because I'm too lazy to run a flight of stairs to retrieve them.

Here's the before shot:

Upcycled Bucket to Clothes Peg Holder

I've been using a redneck Margarita cocktail bucket to store my clothes pegs in for three years now.  It's great because it keeps my pegs dry, I'm able to hang it from a post within reach from my clothesline, and it's just the right size.

It's become grody over the years, and since everything else about it is perfect, I decided to cover it.

I'll give you some tips on how I did it after the break.

Label Your Toiletries To Match

I care a little bit more about packaging than I should. I will buy something mediocre if the packaging is fabulous.  I should work in the packaging industry.

Anyway, I have been wanting to label my toiletries to match ever since I saw a medicine cabinet organization post on Martha Stewart's website. Yes, I am in awe of Martha's attention to detail, I admit it.

So I designed some pretty labels and printed them out on white tissue paper. I simply wrapped a regular sheet of copier paper in tissue, carefully taped it down and fed it through the ink jet printer.  

I removed the labels from white plastic bottles that I washed out and have been saving for this day, then cut out the new labels and carefully glued them down with Mod Podge, and coated the surface with another application of the Mod Podge so that they are water resistant.

All my bottles match! Heaven!

Altered Round CD Case

I altered this CD case which is holding my circular knitting needles.  The echinacea was simply cut out of thick woven cotton, each piece separately.  I stitched around the pieces and then coloured them with markers.  The head of the flower is done in french knots.

I love how the butterfly turned out, he was drawn onto thin cotton and then embroidered.  His body, legs and antenna are drawn in ink.

The zipper pull is an earring I haven't worn in ages, and I took the second one apart and glued down the beads.

The lyric was printed on tissue paper and Mod Podged, and it's still wet in this photo but will dry completely clear.  It says 'and I think to myself, what a wonderful world'  for those who are curious.

I know that I'm going to be changing a few things on this because it doesn't feel right to me yet. 

The basic construction is similar to the little tutorial I posted here

And here is the before.

  
I was in the process of removing the zipper and handle, and remembered to take a shot.

Altered CD Case

I enjoyed making the altered notebook which is posted here so much that it gave me the desire to alter a CD case that I keep in my kitchen.

I'll show you how after the cut.

Altered Notebook Tutorial

After having bought Mod Podge to do an image transfer, I gave some thought about what other sort of project I could do to use up some more of it, and decided to try my hand at altering a dollar store notebook.

I am in love with how it turned out so much that I'm going to cover my address book in the same way.  

I'm going to give this one to my mother on Mother's Day.

Here's a tutorial 

Image Transfer Onto Bedside Table Using Mod Podge

I was on the verge of putting this little bedside table into a yard sale and then decided I really should use it in the guest room instead.  Since I'm crazy for image transfers, I hunted for one (at The Graphics Fairy, of course)  that would suit the piece.  I simply enlarged the image into three separate parts that fit on letter sized paper using Word.

After painting two coats of white acrylic, I set to work using the photocopies printed using toner and burnished the image using Citra Solv and to my surprise, it blurred badly.  I painted over the drawers and tried again.  Another fail.  This method worked perfectly on my J.P Coats sewing box project so I was at a loss to figure out why it wouldn't work on this piece, as I had even used the very same paint on it.

I thought I must be doing something wrong so I found some tiny images I had on hand and tried to transfer them onto the sides of a drawer where it wouldn't show, and all three times every one of them blurred badly.  I am completely stumped as to why it wouldn't work this time.

I was not going to give up easily, so I did some research and decided to try out the Mod Podge image transfer method.

I followed the directions as outlined in this really good tutorial, and the dang image rubbed off as I worked on the first drawer, so - another fail. 

I felt defeated but began to work on the second drawer, gently rubbing off only a thin layer the wet paper as instructed, and then decided I was tired of it, so I left it alone overnight to be worked on the next day.

Leaving it to dry overnight after wetting it again and removing a thin layer of paper seems to be the key.  

The next morning, I saturated the leftover paper again, gently rubbing it off, and the image had firmly set onto the paint and didn't come off this time around.

So in a nutshell, this is how I managed to get a good transfer:


Brush a moderate amount of Mod Podge over the image on your photocopy - use cheap thin paper, it's easier to remove later.  Don't brush the Mod Podge onto white spaces  - you'll waste time rubbing it off later.  Don't use an excessive amount of Mod Podge, but don't be stingy either.

  

Position and then lie your copy onto the painted item print side down and gently remove bubbles or wrinkles with your fingertips or a flat item (a credit card would work well).  Do this step gently or you will rip the paper.  Also! make sure your print is properly oriented.  I put one upside down on a drawer by mistake. FUUUU....!  If you are transferring the image to drawers, make sure the images line up perfectly.  I taped my image down and used an Exacto knife to cut the print between the drawers.

Let your piece dry for 24 hours.

Put down newspaper because the next step is messy.  Completely saturate your photocopy with water (I used a spray bottle) and gently rub the paper off with your fingertips using a circular motion. Key word: Gently.  You won't be removing all the paper, there will still be a layer left.  Keep your paper damp as you work.   You will find this step to be time consuming. It's tedious, but be patient and stop yourself from wanting too rub hard because you will end up removing the image.

Let your piece fully dry again for at least 10 hours. 

Completely saturate the paper and gently rub it off with your fingertips again, some more, ad nauseum. 

You may have to repeat these last two steps a few times based on how much Mod Podge you used and whether Jupiter is aligned with Mars or not.  It's hard to say which affects the process more.

I much prefer the quick and easy method using Citra Solv, but if this is the only way to transfer an image onto a painted surface, then it was worth it in the end.

After the image had set and was ready to go, I painted a thin coat of Mod Podge all over the drawer fronts to make sure the faux finish would cover evenly over the areas of the image where trace bits of paper remained.

Next, I applied a glaze (half glaze, half leftover acrylic taupe paint) to give the piece an aged look, and added some drawer pulls that were salvaged from a dresser that was given a makeover a while ago.

Cost of project: zero.  My favourite amount to spend on stuff.

Here is the bedside table before the transformation, in danger of a rehoming: 

As an aside, I often see comments from people who use French ephemera saying that they have no idea what the words mean.  I read an entry where a woman said she chose to believe a transfer she used meant something dreamy and romantic and it literally said 'Quality chicken feed wholesalers.' 


Anyway.


This particular image I have used is either the work of someone not very knowledgeable in French who threw some unrelated and random items together for this ad, or else stores in France sold a weird assortment of goods way back when.


This place sells clothing, stationery, bootmakers' items and cutlery.  That's sort of like a pastry shop selling doorknobs and pillows.