A Hand-painted Gift for Dad

Hi there,  yes it's been too long since the last time I've done a post.  So I thought I would share this sweet gift for Dad.

For this project, I purchased plain wood coat racks from a local Micheal's.  Took them home and painted then with this super sweet saying.  

What does Dad always seem to get as a gift?  Well in our family it's TIES.  So now he has a sweet place to put them.  Take a look...

I originally saw this idea off, of course, Pinterest.  The original blogger is Poppy's at Play (http://poppiesatplay.blogspot.ca/2011/06/fathers-day-gift-idea.html).  She actually made her own tie hook and then used a vinyl decal.

I actually made these for the father's in our family for Christmas, and was busy making many other items too.   I found it much easier to purchase a pre-made one.  I painted the whole plaque with a tuape first and then with a cream colour.  This allowed me to sand some of the edges and see a slightly darker shade through the top coat.  Which gave a slightly more masculine (rustic) look.

I then painted the saying.  I printed the saying in the required size on paper and traced it out with a pen, which left an outline guideline to go by when it was time to paint the letters.  This trick helped a lot!

I also made a version for "Papa" and "Grandpa" which worked out super sweet as well!

Well that's all for now!  Hope everyone enjoys their Father's Day!  There will be another fathers day post to follow (I just need to give the gifts to the Dad's first and I don't want to ruin the surprise!).

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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!

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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!


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