Tutorial: DIY Word Art

I made this for one of my closest friends after she helped me through a rough time.  It is her favorite passage from the bible, and her favorite color! It took about 5 hours in total, but it would have taken way less if i hadn't had to stop frequently to reload my paint palette because the air conditioning kept drying it out.

This entire project was inspired by this DIY Shapely Word Art post from a penny saved...  Although i did not follow her tutorial - as i dont have photoshop, and i prefer to freehand things anyway - the design and concept for the gift came straight from her post!  

Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take any "during" pictures.  So while the following tutorial can be applied to whatever shape/color/words you want, the pictures will be for a circle with "Hello Beautiful" inside.

DIY Word Art Tutorial

Materials:
canvas board (mine was 16" x 20")
pencil with an eraser
acrylic paint in the colors of your choice
paint brushes
scrap cardboard or paper pate to use as a palette


Instructions:

Decide how you want to break up your quote.  I started by taking a piece of scrap paper and my pencil and sketching out the pear shape.  This was done really loosely, and at a much smaller scale than the finished product.  Draw loose lines to help you space out your letters.  start playing around with placing your text on the lines.  It doesn't have to be neat, and i guarantee you will use your eraser.  Remember, not all lines of text need to be the same height.  So if you want something to be emphasized, make it bigger!

Paint your background color.  Take your canvas board and paint the entire thing whatever color you want your background to be.  Even if you want a white background, paint over the seemingly white canvas - trust me it will make your life a whole lot easier when you go back through to clean up your letters.  Let dry.


Transfer your design.  Using your pencil, re-draw the design you came up with earlier, onto your freshly painted canvas.  It can be done loosely at first, then clean it up using your eraser.  As for the lettering, make your letters reach all the way from the top of the text line to the bottom of the text line, but dont worry about their shape.  The penciled letters are just to help you eyeball the spacing.  Lightly paint over the penciled letters with paint.  again, this dosent need to be perfect.

Block in your letters.  Do this by making your letters thicker, and whenever possible, make the edge of the letter follow the shape outline and text lines you made in pencil.  Also, dont be afraid to go back and add more to a letter you have already blocked in.  See how in the last photo, you can see that I went back and chaged the H?

Clean up your lines.  Once your paint is dry, erase all visible pencil lines.  If you have any stubbon pencil marks or accidentally made some of your letters touch (see the H and the B above!), take some white paint on the tinyist brush you have and go over them to clean up your lines.  You may have to do a few coats if your background color is lighter than your text paint like mine.  Now is also the time to add some highlights if you want, or to edit the colors etc.  

Finished.  Congrats!  You have made some fab word art by hand!

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Love: JooJoo Prints and Jewelry

I used to paint... a lot.  Like, it was my dream in high school to be an illustrator - or an astronaut (I am such a random person, I know...).  However, with all of the grade-chasing and job-hunting I've engaged in over the past few years, painting has been put on the back burner.

I stumbled across JooJoo's blog and etsy site last night and found myself wating to paint.  She has an absolutely beautiful hand, and a beautiful vision.  Her prints are just stunning, and her jewelery is so unique. 

Some of my favorites:

Her blog shares a lot of progress pictures and up-close views or her beautiful paintings.  In celebration of my newly charged passion for painting, here is a wishlist of watercolor wants.

Love Love Love

I am totally in love with evey article of clothing in this editorial posted on fashion gone rogue.  I must try to find a way to get these pieces in my closet:

Just delicious!

Featured On: Remodelaholic

Eeeeeek!  I'm so so so excited to be featured on remodelaholic for my reupholstered chair!  Project!

See it here:

Thank you!

Reupholstered Armchair

Finally!  I finished reupholstering my armchair!  The whole process only took about 12 hours.

BEFORE

AFTER

Cost Breakdown

Ugly orange chair: $25

Waverly fabric from Joann's: $21

Extra heavy-duty staples: $2

TOTAL: $48

I am so happy with how it turned out, considering it was the first thing I have ever reupholstered.  The arms were tricky because they required sewing slipcover-like pieces to staple onto the frame as well as piping along the seam!  (it was also my first go at piping...)  I cut my new fabric using a "pattern" made from the old deconstructed pieces.  Luckily the foam and batting were in perfect condition so I didn't need to replace either!

I kept the legs wood because my couch legs are dark stained wood as well, although I would really like to try pickling them.  Maybe when everything else on my to-do list is done.  What do you think?  Keep the wooden legs?

Couch Slipcover

I bought this World Market "Studio Day Sofa" frame on Craigslist.  Its previous owner didn't have the cushion for whatever reason, so I bought a large thick foam roll from Joann's and wrapped my old comforter around it to create a make-shift couch seat.  Ugly, I know.  But pretty comfy.

I have been meaning to sew a quick slipcover for the comforter-wrapped-foam seat for the past few weeks, but I only got around to finishing it last night!

I chose to jump on the dropcloth bandwagon as a source of cheap material, and used Miss Mustard Seed's "How to Bleach a Dropcloth" tutorial to get my cloth whiter and softer.

My drop cloth shrunk a bit more than I was expecting it to when I put it in the dryer, and the width of the fabric turned out to be just wide enough to wrap it around the width of my foam-comforter seat.  The drop cloth also had a seam down the middle - which i wasn't expecting at all.  I decided it would look silly if I had the seam showing.

My solution was to make a three piece slipcover...


one piece on each of the "arm rests" (which actually fold down flat to make a twin sized bed)...

 
...and one that goes around the middle and hides the raw edges of the arm pieces.  Easy peasy.

What do you think?

Flounder Fish Tacos

My furniture updates are on the way, but in the meantime, check out this yummy and quick dinner i made for myself this weekend!

Flounder Fish Tacos

Ingredients
     1 fillet, or approx 0.5lbs, flounder (or any white fish, really)
     Tony Chachere's Salt-free Creole Seasoning
     Salt
     Pepper
     Lemon
     1/3 avocado
     1/2 heirloom tomato
     2 small ezekiel corn tortillas

How to

1. Heat oven to broil
2. Drizzle oliveoil on a broiler pan.  Place flounder fillet on the pan and season with Tony's, salt, and pepper to taste. 
3. Squeeze a slice of lemon over the fillet. 
4. Place in oven and broil for approximately 8 minutes, or until fork tender. 
5. Meanwhile, cut avocado and tomato in 1/2 inch chunks.
6. Heat tortillas in oven or microwave until warm.
7. When fish is ready assemble into tacos!

I know its not a particularly well written recipe.  I just dont know exact measurements of things because I just kind of wing it (which is how i cam up with this recipe to begin with).  The entire thing is super healthy for you and super yummy!  But then again, you put Tony's on ANYTHING and I will think its delicious.

Weekend Projects

Ideally I would like to finish the following projects this weekend:
 

Finish Reupholstering my Armchair

I am like 75% finished with this, but I cut my fabric a few days ago and realized that the piece I cut for the back is 1/2 inch too short.  Oopsie! Even worse, the Joann's in my area is out of stock, so I may have to come up with a make-shift solution.

Couch Projects

 (image source)

I need to sew a slipcover and pillow covers for my couch.  Currently it just has my spare comforter safety-pinned around a block of foam for the "cushions" and some pillow forms thrown on top acting as the back of the couch.  Pretty sketchy, right?  I'm thinking of covering it with duck cloth or a drop cloth if it is more economical that way - but I've never sewn something that thick before, it might be a bit tricky!  

Kitchen Table and Chairs

My kitchen table needs a touch up (I dropped my heavy metal measuring tape on it... whoops!) and another few coats of protection.  My two thrifted bentwood kitchen chairs also need some TLC... badly.

Organizing

I need to draw up some organization plans.  I have a lot of stuff that needs a home - and for the past few months I have just been too lazy to find them one.  A list of my homeless items and areas needing some organization:

Art Supplies
Painting/Carpentry Supplies
Sewing Supplies
Throw Blankets

Desk Storage

Kitchen Storage

Bedroom Closet Storage

"Foyer"

Its a long list of things for this weekend, but I am hoping to get at least the first two finished.  My beautiful new XBOX 360 Slim came in this morning, so being the nerd I am, I will absolutely be distracting me for a large part of this weekend. 

White Linen Party Dress

Every year the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center hosts a "white linen party."  It is a huge outdoor party that spans from the 300 block to the 800 block of Julia Street.  People from all over put on their best white clothing and come to fundraise/celebrate and consume copious amounts of alcohol. 

image source

This year, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to help bar tend and make a little extra money.  I didn't want to ruin my good white dress so I decided, I would try to sew a white dress on the cheap.  Only thing was, this would be the first article of clothing I ever tried to make.

The dress I made was loosely based around the "Scarf Dress" on Sewing Republic.

To Make The Dress:

I cut my piece of linen in half and shirred the top 2 inches of each with elastic thread.  I shirred around 8 lines, approximately 1/4 of an inch apart from one another.   Then I placed the two pieces faces together, and sewed them together on one of the sides.  I flipped it back around and wrapped it around myself to mark how tight the dress should be around, and sewed the other side shut accordingly.  I hemmed the bottom.

I added a sash, which i just kind of winged.  I cut a really long strip of fabric twice as wide as I wanted my sash to be.  I folded it and sewed the long side shut.  I stitched the ends shut into a triangle shape, making sure to leave enough of the seam unstitched so that i could pull the sash right side out.  Finally, I pulled it right side out and hand stitched the tiny opening shut.

Thankfully, the whole process went smoothly.  Infact, I wound up loving the dress I made so much that I was really hesitant to wear it to the event!  Go figure, right?

Please ignore the massive mess in my apartment, I was in the middle of reupholstering my ugly orange armchair (which is a whole different post in and of itself)!

Not bad for my first article of clothing.  I am really excited to make my next piece!

Linked up to:

Kitchen Table

After perusing decor blogs for a few months, I stumbled across this table on k.f.d. designs.  Her blog is absolutely beautiful and her painted furniture inspired me to go out hunting for a crappy kitchen table to repaint!  Because my apartment is so small, it needed to be something super tiny and super cheap.

After a few days of stalking the flea markets in the area I found this:

[oops!  I can't find the picture now, will post a before picture tomorrow]

After hours of drawing the pattern, hours of painting in the little shapes, and hours of poly-ing, the table transformed into this beauty:

I used some white "oops paint" from Lowes for the base, and some silver craft paint from Michaels. 
It was super labor intensive but really theraputic.  There is something about repetitive tasks that is just so relaxing.  I love how it turned out!

...linked up to...