Home Made Tea Bags

Hope everyone had a fantastic Valentine's Day. Here is our last post of hearts for love... I know it's a bit late for this year around but it's never to early to find inspiration for next year!

I want to share these adorable tea bags I've made with my Sister. She primarily made them for her boyfriend, they turned out so cute we just had to make more. We made them for her Sunday school kids to give to their parents, and I made a couple for my sons teachers.

The idea came from this blogger who explains great instructions.
http://asubtlerevelry.com/handmade-valentine-youre-tea-riffic

We tried it out that way but also made our own adjustments.

First of all we cut out several different shapes of hearts, also some straight ended and some scalloped (the scalloped ones were a bit of a pain to cut). Coffee filters is actually what is used to make these tea bags and they can start to rip if they are over worked, this mainly happened at the final sewing step.

One change we started making is, we started off by sewing the two hearts together at the centre "v" part of the heart. We stopped just diagonal from that point and left a length of string to sew the rest once filled. Once it is completely sewn, we left a long enough tail to make the pull string that now comes from the centre of the heart which I think is very cute. This way also eliminates having to punch a whole in the heart, which is one less thing you have to do. And of course a printed tag finishes off the tea bag perfectly.

The other thing I want to tell you is the sewing method in the original post is certainly nice and practical... But it takes forever! We found that a straight stitch worked up a lot faster and actually created quite a nice look and certainly still holds the contents in place.

For our tea we used dehydrated strawberries and kiwi. And added some rock sugar for sweetening which is some German brand that I cannot translate. We let the kids fill them up and finished sewing from the point we left off.

I placed the ones for my sons teachers, in small ziplock bags with labels describing the flavour.

And that's our home made tea experience! I think they are very clever and unbelievably cute! And who doesn't love a cup of tea! This obviously made a great valentines gift, but the possibilities are really endless since you could do any shape. And any flavour for that matter, just dehydrate whatever fruit you want and there you go. You could also use leaf tea bought at specialty tea stores, or I thought of dried apples and cinnamon sticks. I could have a hay day and I'm sure you could too. Enjoy!

Be inspired...
Get Creative!

Lollipop Heart Flowers

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

My next post are these adorable lollipop flowers. At first glance they are a pretty flower... But the petals are made of hearts! And that's what makes this craft so special.

It's quite easy too! We used plain coloured card stock to cut the pieces. For each flower you need three hearts, one leaf and a starburst centre. I used a stencil for the heart but just sketched the other shapes until I got what I liked.

Once cut we let the kids colour the shapes if they wanted. Punched a hole in the pointed end of each heart, one end of the leaf and the centre of the starburst.

To assemble the flower, you can use any lollipop pop you want. We used tootsie pops. First the starburst gets feed through the end of the lollipop, then the three hearts and finally the leaf. Space them out evenly and place a small piece of tape over the leaf to hold everything in place.

We did this with my sisters Sunday school class. The kids thought they were great and each got to choose one person to give their flowers to. The leaf acts as the tag so we wrote the to's and from's there. We tied this craft into a "Loving your Neighbour" story.

Depending on what lollipops you use, we also covered some up with tissue paper and fastened with ribbon.

But that about wraps up these sweet Valentine's day gifts. Our Sunday School kids loved them and I'm sure your kids will too!

Be Inspired...
Get Creative!

A Hug that Lasts Forever

There's still time to get inspired for Valentine's Day! so here is My second post of Hearts for Love.

This time I made these super cute hugs with both my kids to give their Dad.

I used plain coloured card stock. Traced each of my kids hands and cut them out. The kids coloured their hand prints and decorated them with stickers. While they got creative, I cut out some hearts. A large and medium heart for the middle which I decorated saying "an Oliver hug" and "a hug from Opal". The back of the two hearts was were we wrote "I love you as far as my arms can stretch and more".

I measured with ribbon the span from my kids left wrist, across their chest and all he way to their right wrist. I attached one end of the ribbon to one handprint and finished it off with a small heart. Fed the ribbon through the two wholes punched in the large heart and attached the other end to the other hand print.

and thats how we made the hugs that will last forever, for my kids to give their Dad for Valentine's Day. I wrote on the back of each of the large hearts, the age that the kids are so Daddy will always remember what their hugs were like at 3 1/2 and 1 1/2.

Hope you Enjoyed! More to come of Hearts for Love.

Be Inspired...
Get Creative!

Button Valentine's

For my first post of Hearts for Love, just in time for Valentine's Day, I would like to share these cute heart button Valentine's my son and I made for his class mates.

I found these great button packs at Michael's. I thought it was a cute way to add something special instead of giving out candy.

I used some simple heart stencils and cut out various sizes in several different coloured and patterned papers. I paired a large and small heart together and let Oliver colour the back before writing the "to" and "from" info.

Finished off, by pinning the pin in the centre of the heart and they're ready for delivery on Valentine's Day!

Hope you enjoyed this quick little post. More Hearts for Love to come...

Be Inspired...
Get Creative!

Personalized Dishware

A few weeks ago I created some personalized dishes and mug sets as gifts for two of my closest friends.

Now just to give you some background; my girlfriend is, shall I say, a Tiffany fanatic and her husband... Is a geniuses when it comes to computers and frankly any type of technology. So I wanted to come with gifts for their birthdays that really said something about them. So I came up with designs for each of them which I incorporated onto plain white Dishware. And how did I portray these designs you ask? Well that's what this post is all about!

As I said before I found some nice quality plain white Dishware in a style that I liked.

On the computer, I used Word to design my templates where I used the technique described in my Painting Words post to mirror the text and images. I came up with several templates and I would share them, but I can't figure out how to upload a document for download. So if anyone would like to tackle this project and see my other templates leave a comment with your e-mail and I can send them to you.

The next step is a bit delicate... And of you are comfortable free handing it, you don't need to follow it. But I wanted a guideline as these dishes were gifts and I wanted them to look great.

So after each template is cut out, turn it over and use a slightly damp cloth to wet the paper. Once the lettering shows dark through the back of the paper you can place it on the dishware of choice and use you fingertip to firmly press along the design.  I taped my design in place so it did not move during this process.  Carefully peal away the paper and you will be left with a soft ink transfer of your design.



Dampened Design Template

Transferred Design

It took me a few times to get a dark enough transfer. So If your transfer does not come out right just wipe it off with a wet cloth and try again.

Once my designs were transferred to the Dishware I used permanent marker and carefully, I mean CAREFULLY, drew over the ink transfer.

If you make a mistake or are not happy with your final design, don't fret. Until you bake your Dishware the marker will come off with just a little scrubbing.

Finally once you are happy with your designs you simply bake your Dishware.

One blogger had a good tip in terms of baking temps and times. She recommended to set your oven to 350 degrees and place you dishware on the rack and let your oven pre-heat. Once pre-heated, bake for 30 minutes then turn your oven off.   Let cool completely before removing the pieces from the oven.

I did scrub the design after, and it was in fact permanent. But I would recommend to hand wash.

Viola, personalized dish sets! My friends both loved there's and I hope you give this easy project a try, either as a gift or just for you. There are endless possibilities.



Finished Products

My mustache model

Oh and here are the cards I made for each of them, both were also inspired by some pins on Pinterest.



Feminine Card

Masculine Card

















And also the gifts all done up in the pretty boxes I picked up.

Patchwork box with pretty flowers

Rustic damask box with green bow

For my girlfriend I made up these adorable flowers out of cupcake liners and coffee filters... Sound interesting? More explanation to come... Keep an eye out for our next post!


Be inspired

Get Creative!



Colourful Play Keys

Hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving long weekend.

I thought I'd brighten this gloomy day with this quick post about these super cute multi-coloured play keys.

Do you have a ton of odd keys laying in your junk drawer that you don't know what they open?

And do you have young kids who love to steel your actual keys to play with and usually end up setting your car alarm off or just loosing your keys all together... (I have been through this all to many times).

Well, I propose a solution that requires no expense and little work.

I was inspired about this idea from a pin on Pinterest. This example used nail polish in various coloures to colour code their existing keys. Also a geniuses idea!

So I thought why not paint the entire body of a key I don't need and make some fun play keys for my kids.

So that's what I did. I picked two set of complimenting nail polish colours (one boy version and one girl version) and I applied three coats on each side of each key.

And voila! A set of colourful keys for both my son and daughter.

Two tips:
- use wax paper to set the keys on while painting (I used plain paper the first time and it stuck to the nail polish and was a pain to get off)
- once the nail polish is dry you can scrap off any access to ensure the edges are smooth

Also I made these for my kids whom are old enough not to put them in their mouth. I am not sure how the nail polish will stand up or if it would chip.

And that's that! Hope you enjoyed this bright little post and I'm sure if you make these for your kids, they'll love them.


Be inspired,

Get Creative!

Painting Words

So I went to try this new technique I found on Pinterest to trace a printed word/name with a ball point pen on a desired object to give you an indented outline for painting.  Well when I attempted to do this with my kids names on their bedroom doors I realised, to my dismay, it would not work.  Firstly our panel doors with wood grain effect made it all too difficult to trace a straight line.  Secondly, these doors are so hard that no pen or pencil would make an indent.  My heart was set on painting these names directly on the doors... and since my free handing skills are good but not that good I had to think for a while of what I could do!

So I came up with an amazing solution!

Painted Name

 

I printed my kids names off Word in the desired size and font... but mirrored.  Then I placed the printed paper face down on  the door in the position I wanted it and rubbed along the letters as to act as a transfer.   It worked... surprisingly, and faintly left the ink from the letters on the paper, on the doors.

I then painted over these transferred names with the desired colour and done!

Doors Before

Doors After

Now this may sound all too easy.  Well once I figured out how to mirror the image with Word 2010, it was.  Sadly with Word 2010, my trusty old Wordart trick didn't work to flip the text in a mirrored position, and my printer doesn't have the automatic option.  So it took several different attempts of a few different techniques before I finally put a few ideas together and made it work!

You can flip Wordart by using the 3D Rotation tool found in the format shape option in the drop down menu, when you right click on your Wordart.  But for some reason it does not let you make Wordart larger then 72 pts, which was not big enough for what I wanted to achieve.

So I found another technique that I will use for much more computer projects now and for those of you who have this same problem here is how to make text on Word "Mirrored":

- type the name/word using the standard word cursor
- selected it
- click copy

The next step is the new trick I learnt:

- when you go to press paste; click the little down arrow underneath it and select "paste special"
- then from that pop up menu select "Picture (Enhanced Metafile)"

This action pastes the text you just copied as a picture. 
Now to rotate it to be Mirrored:

- right click the object and select "Format Picture"
- select 3D rotation
- then in the "X" row under the rotation subtitle enter 180 degrees
- click close and your name is now mirrored!


Here are the pictures off the process from start to finish for the "Painted Names" project.


Print Text in Mirrored Position Using an InkJet Printer

Tape Document Face Down in Desired Area

Ink Transfer Left Behind

Rub Along Text With Finger

 



Painted Word

Paint Over Letter Transfer



Apply Second Coat



Finished Name On Bedroom Door



 

 



And that was my Sunday afternoon project.  I am very thrilled with how the doors turned out!  I painted the names in the same colour as the hall way, which was Benjamin Moore's CC-570 (Night Train).  My best tips for anyone who would like try painting text is to take your time, relax and enjoy! 

 

 

Here is a quick note about another project I did this weekend.  I found these great one time use, "peel & stick" stencils at Dollarama.  So I put them to the test and added a little flare to my powder room.  It worked pretty simple.  They come on a roll so you just have to make sure it's level, smooth it on the wall as you unroll, paint and peel off.  It did bleed a bit, but it was uniform... and I kind of liked the effect.

 

Powder Room with Dash Border Stencil

 

Stencil Sample