Wood

DIY Painted Tray Set

1 · May 19, 2014 · 4 Comments

+ This DIY Painted Tray Set post brought to you by the lovely folks at Elmer’s +

With the spring in full swing and summer fast approaching, my creative spirit has started longing for all things beach. The nautical trend is one that I whole heartedly adopt. I love the colors, the simplicity, the way that it takes me back to slow days on the beach with my family and especially my sweetheart. Yea, I’m loving it!

Last month I had the chance to meet a couple of the lovely ladies that work at Elmer’s while I was attending SNAP. Now, I’ve worked with Elmer’s products for years and I’m on the Elmer’s Craft It Crew this year and while hanging out in their booth at SNAP, I started to realize the potential of a product that has kind of hung out in the background of the Elmer’s family of products… Their line of Painters Markers!

Painters Markers are acrylic paint markers that come in fine, medium or chisel tips. They are easy to use and virtually mess-free. The are permanent on most surfaces and can be used on pretty much any type of surface. Wood, glass, ceramic, tera cotta, plastic, metal, foam board & even fabric. They are streak-free, non-toxic & acid-free. Yea, they ROCK!!

Recently, I found a fun wood and metal serving tray at Target and thought it would look great with the addition of some coral to give it a bit of a nautical theme. I decided to take these Elmer’s Painters Markers for a spin to see how well they worked!

First, I found a coral image that I like and cut the image out on Stencil Vinyl from Silhouette on my CAMEO.

Then I colored in the image with the Elmer’s Painters Marker in Sea Mist Brume.

Tip… I did learn that you need to shake it up really well and draw on another piece a paper for a little bit in order to get the color to regulate.

Once I was finished coloring it in, I removed the stencil and then outlined it with the with Gold Ore Painter’s Marker which is a FABULOUS metallic marker. I LOVE IT!!

The acrylic paint from the markers dries so fast and the ease of being able to “paint” with acrylic paint in marker form just makes my day. No more brushes, and all the mess that comes along with painting. I decided my tray needed some matching glasses to complete the look so I took some jar glasses that I also found at Target, and using the same stencil process, stenciled a gold anchor onto the glass.

The gold paint goes onto the glass so smooth and looks fabulous.

Tip… I did learn that you need to remove the stencil while the paint is still wet, or you may pull some of the dried paint off when removing the stencil.

I even painted the silver metal lids that I have for my jar glasses gold with the Painter’s Markers. It was super slick!!

Now, I have a stylish nautical display piece for my house or I can make a few more glasses and I have a fun serving set for a party! I LOVE it!!

The cool thing is that it really only took a few minutes to make all of these creations, less than an hour for sure and the paint was dry within minutes.

As for the anchor glasses… I’m not sure how this paint will react to a trip though the dishwasher and I do think that it could scratch off easily so I would hand wash for sure. I plan on using them mostly for display and not really for everyday use. If you would like to use them everyday I would try to find some type of sealant to make the gold image a little more permanent.

Now, that I’ve hopefully inspired you… What would you like to paint with Elmer’s Painters Markers?

Disclaimer // I am a member of the 2014 Elmer’s Craft It Crew and was compensation for my time while preparing this post. However, all thoughts, idea and opinions are my very own!

Simple DIY Art

4 · Apr 2, 2014 · 8 Comments

Simple DIY Art // Hey all! It’s Jenn from My Fabuless Life! Last month I shared my embroidery hoop bulletin board I did for my daughter’s big girl bedroom, and since then, I’ve caught the makeover fever, because I’ve moved onto my master bedroom and am here to show you a quick, simple art project you can do for less than $10. Finding large scale art for those bigger walls can get expensive, which is why I love creating my own. You can customize everything about it, for next to nothing!

I started with a 4′ x 4′ piece of thin, pine plywood from my home improvement store (in the lumber section with the peg board), and stained the whole thing. If you’re more into the painted look, you can do that too, it’s up to you.

My original plan was just to put the text right on the wood (which you’ll notice below), but after I wrote directly on the wood, it was hard to see, so I got out the paint. I wanted a really unique, sort of “messy” look, so I just grabbed one of my favorite sponge rollers and roughly rolled out the paint in the pattern I wanted. I let that coat dry, added another, and filled in some spots with a paint brush, and then it was time for the writing.

Remember, I tried writing first, so this picture is a little backwards. You’ll notice though, that if you’re writing with white, it would be just fine. Anyway, I measured for where I wanted the writing to go, and then drew a line with chalk so that the text wouldn’t be all over the place. Then, I wrote out my phrase with chalk and wrote right over it with a gold paint pen. After the gold was dry, I just wiped off the remaining chalk with a damp cloth.

I did mine free hand, but if you’d rather use one of your favorite fonts, this method is AWESOME for transferring the font to your board.

To hang it, I just hot glued a pop tab to the back of the wood like a picture hanger and hung it on a little nail. And that’s it! Super simple art!!

Hello Spring Burlap Sign

2 · Feb 25, 2014 · 9 Comments

Spring Burlap Sign brought to you by Elmer’s Glue // It’s almost here and I just can’t seem to get spring off my mind these days! The folks at Elmer’s challenged me to come up with a fun spring project and I was super excited to get busy working on it. Not to long ago I attended the product launch event for the new Cricut Explore and all of the fun projects we saw at the event inspired this fun Hello Spring Sign…

Doesn’t it just look cheery? Spring has no choice but to appear with this fun sign.

Everyone is still in love with burlap, and this new polka dot burlap that I found at Jo-Ann’s Fabrics I think is going to extend the life of the burlap trend. It is just so fun. I glued it onto a rustic palette wood board that I also found pre-made at Jo-Ann’s. Score on that one… I’ve made plenty of my own palette wood signs and it’s such a time saver to not have to build it yourself. I topped it off with some Basic Grey Hey Girl paper, the graphic elements of the paper together with the burlap makes this sign just pop!

Now, I was super excited to try something new with one of Elmer’s glue sticks that I’ve been wanting to try. It’s their Elmer’s Xtreme School Glue Stick and it works like magic!! I would have to say I was a little skeptical, I, like many of you have been a little let down at times with the performance of glue sticks in the past. They just don’t have the chops for some projects. I thought for sure the glue stick wasn’t going to be able to handle affixing the burlap to my palette sign, but sure enough it did. Not only that, it only took minutes rather than hours for the glue to dry and my sign was ready to work on in a snap… LOVE that! Needless to say, the Xtreme Glue Stick has won me over, it’s defiantly a case of “under promise, and OVER DELIVER.” Here’s how I made my sign…

Hello Spring Burlap Sign Supplies

Hello Spring Burlap Sign Directions

Lay your palette sign on a flat surface and lay your burlap on top.

Cut the fabric to roughly the size of the sign with about a 1 inch boarder around the board. Then center the burlap and using your Elmer’s Xtreme Glue Stick affix the burlap to the wood. I started on one slat at a time and in small 3-4 inch sections smoothing the burlap and I went along.

Wait for 15-20 minutes until the glue has completely dried. Next, you will trim your burlap. I used both an X-ACTO knife and scissors. Either one will work just fine. I did find that the scissors were a bit easier in certain places.

I was thrilled with how well the burlap trimmed up and my palette slats look fantastic with the addition of the burlap.

Next, I cut out my pinwheels on my Cricut Explore,

NOW, I know that the Cricut Explore isn’t available until March 15th, soooo… You can cut basic pinwheels using this great tutorial from First Palette. I used Elmer’s Glue Spots to secure the pinwheels and then dressed them up with a mini brad in the center. Then I used the Elmer’s Foam Mounting Square to affix the pinwheels to the sign…

Next, I cut my lettering using a couple of my favorite fonts on my Cricut Explore. The fonts are League Gothic and Suburbia. League Gothic is a pretty standard font, but Suburbia will be available in the Cricut Design Space once that is launch on February 27th. Now, if you don’t have a Cricut or a Silhouette to cut your letters, you can always print them out from your computer and cut them out with your X-ACTO knife. That’s super slick as well. So… choose whatever font you would like for the Hello Spring and select your paper for the words.

Next, I affixed the letters to the burlap sign with my Elmer’s Foam Mounting Squares…

I LOVE these mounting squares, they give your letters a 3D effect which just adds more dimension to the sign…

Isn’t that fun?! Once you have everything mounted to the sign, you’re finished! I added it to my giant frame in my living room to update it for the season…

Isn’t that a fun project that will brighten up any space? You can use it for any kind of saying, the polka dot burlap comes in a bunch of different colors and the skies the limit as to what you can create with that! One of my Creative team, Jenn from My Fabuless Life even used it to dress up some old folding chairs. All you need to do now is head over to JoAnn’s, stock up on supplies and get busy, you’ll have a fun new sign in just a couple of hours!

Disclaimer // I am a member of the 2014 Elmer’s Craft it Crew and received product and compensation for this post. Please keep in mind… I will only endorse products and brands that I believe in 100% and use in my day to day life!

Embroidery Hoop Bulletin Board

1 · Feb 24, 2014 · 7 Comments

Hey all! It’s Jenn from My Fabuless Life and this month, I’m SO excited to share this simple bulletin board project. I’m just finishing up my daughter’s “big girl” room that we started a little over a year ago, and by “finishing up,” I mean we basically started over from scratch and went a whole different direction than where we started. We had a bulletin board in the room for her pictures and art, but I knew I wanted to change it for something a little different and unexpected. Enter a giant embroidery hoop and some fun tribal print fabric from JoAnn’s. This project cost me roughly $10 to make and the impact in the room is huge (I’m so excited to share the whole room over on my blog next week).

I bought a 27″ embroidery hoop in the fabric section at JoAnn’s–I assume these are for quilting or for embroidery like mighty hoops, but I don’t sew, so who knows. What I do know is that my heart totally skipped a beat when I found out they made them this big!

I started by staining the outside ring of the hoop with Early American from Minwax. (If you need a little staining guidance, you can see my tutorial here).

After the stain dried, I pulled the fabric through the hoop AS TIGHTLY AS POSSIBLE, then hot glued the fabric to the inside of the ring — again, TIGHT, TIGHT, TIGHT! Then I took the outer ring back off, zig zagged some gold ribbon across, and used thumb tacks to tack it to the inside of the ring.