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!



Bird House Gift Tags

Thought I would post a quick little post to share my new creation. I tried to think of something cute and different to use as gifts tags for a gift for my mother-in-law. I found inspiration from a stencil a had laying around and the bird house gift tags were born!

What I used:
- brown card stock
- patterned scrapbook paper in two colours
- pen
- scissors
- permanent maker
- roll on scrapbook tape



I first picked a set of coordinating scrapbook paper and paired them with a combination of two colours of brown card stock.

I traced the house part with he hole onto one piece of brown and the roof on the other brown colour. Then I traced the back piece on one of the patterned papers and the butterfly on the other.

I cut all the pieces out. I used a hole punch to start the opening of the main house piece so I could easily get in there with the scissors to cut the circle.

Individual Cut Pieces

Butterfly Piece Folded from Bottom Middle to Top Left Side of Body

Finished Butterfly

I then attached the pieces together. I first attached the back piece by rolling tape onto the back corners of the house piece.  Then the roof by taking the middle peace and the side about one inch in from the edges. Before I attached the butterfly I bent the wings from the middle of the bottom to the top corner on either side of the middle section. I then attached the butterfly by just the middle section. I used a marker to fill in the body of the butterfly and add antenna.

And those are my cute brid house gift tag creations!  The hole in the centre is where I wrote my "to" and "from" information.  So I do recomend to use a subtle tone on tone patterned paper in order to see your writting.

Finished Product

Shown on Two Garden Flowers from Each of my Kids for their Grandmother





Here is the template for this project.  Right click to save image and print it on plain paper as an 8 1/2 x 11 picture. 
Done this way, your bird house gift tag will beasure about 5 inches tall.

 

 

 



Wedding Thank-You Cards

So I did it!  I made about 100 thank-you cards within the first two months after our wedding!

A while back I lucked out and found these super cute square folded cards from IKEA.  They're made from recycled brown fibber card stock with black printing in a striped motif and a damask.

To embellish I tore white and green paper and layered them over the bottom half of the card.  I added thin teal ribbon with a black paper punch.  My Critter Cutter worked very hard to cut out 100 ''thanks'' out of silver paper.

The teal ribbon from the front I wrapped around and tucked under the photo which would be held in place with silver photo corners.  My favourite stamp in my collection in the ''Happily ever after'' which I stamped under the picture.  Than I stamped ''thanks so much'' in the bottom portion with black ink.





The picture I used on the inside of the card.

I can never leave the back of the card ''naked''!  So to finish it off a overlapped a green and teal punched flower.  And because I love the stamp so much I used it again on the back!  It's so suiting!

So that's our Thank-you cards!  Hope you liked them!!

Be inspired...

Get Creative!

Our Wedding Invites

Our wedding invitation adventure....

It was a long tedious venture but with the final product it was all worth it!

I had purchased the DIY kits from Micheal's

It Included:
- willow green scroll motif background card stock
- vellum inserts
- willow green ribbon
- willow green scroll motif card stock response cards
- invitation envelopes
- response card envelopes

I of course decided to make my life harder and wanted to print the invitation information on the vellum.  Three printer attempts later and we finally were able to use my Mom's portable printer if we individually feed through the vellum and layered each piece out to dry.  In hind sight, make sure you have a working laser printer on hand when you decide to print on vellum!

Once the info was printed we stamped with silver ink a scroll stamp beneath our names and added a silver double heart charm dangling from the ribbon.  The ribbon was feed through the pre punched holes in both the card stock and vellum.  Each end is feed through from front to the back and then pulled through from back to front through the opposite holes... sorry I don't have pictures to show this better, hope that makes sense.

The response cards we made into reception cards.  They were drastically easier to print on since they were card stock.  Once the printing was done we stamped them with the same scroll stamp but with willow green ink.

One hundred invites layed out on all the tables in my parents house.

An invite and reception card that I kept for my self and put into a shadow box.

Be Inspired...

Get Creative!