Lyrics + Photograph

First and foremost, Cassie if you are reading this, STOP! This is a present for you! No, seriously, stop reading!!!

My freshman year of college, I was introduced to Jack's Mannequin. I quite enjoy their song "Swim". It was stuck in my head the other day and I was immediately inspired to craft. I talked to my friend and we collaborated some ideas. Finally, I settled on a picture (from my friend's trip to Tahiti) and some lyrics from the song.

I printed out the photo on card stock. I let the picture dry for about an hour. I then trimmed the photo using the canvas board I would attach it to as a guide. I left some white as a boarder for the picture.

Then I painted the board with a layer of mod podge making sure I covered the entire board so there wouldn't be any air bubbles.

After letting that sit, I painted the front of the picture with mod podge. I did this quickly so the color wouldn't have time to bleed. I also made sure all the brush stroke were going in the same direction. I let it dry over night (it dried quicker than that but I had to help out my roommate with a project.) Taking an ultra fine point permanent marker, I wrote some of the lyrics in all lower case across the top and on the bottom of the picture in the white space.

Finally, I added the title of the song in white puff paint to the bottom of the picture. I set it aside to dry and voila!

Pictures will be added later tonight after I download them from my phone!

Fall Leaves "Canvas" Art for $1

I have a hard time with seasonal decorating. One reason is I'm picky. Another reason is I'm thrifty (aka cheap).  This year I decided to make some fall decor to go in my home. I headed to my trusted friend: Dollar Tree. There I found a pack of 50 fall leaves. From there, I made my Fall Leaves "Canvas" Art.

Materials:
Leaves (from Dollar Tree)
Lid to a shoe box-- yes that's your canvas!

Tools:
Scissors
Glue gun

First, map out your "canvas," This is to make sure you have enough leaves. 

Next, start gluing!

This is the fully covered "canvas"

I didn't like the little specks of white poking through on the bottom. I only had a few leaves left and they were all red. I chopped them up like so:

I slipped the pieces in the bottom to fill up the white:

I also scouted out any white spaces I left and filled them in. I wanted a more finished look for my canvas, so I glued the edges of the leaves to the sides. This is the final product:

Fall art for $1. What do you think?

Summer silhouette painting: rough draft (project in progress)

Happy Memorial day! We're grateful to all those who have helped to preserve our freedoms.

Don't forget: today is the last day to submit your version of Jaime's scrapbook sketch!

Some people in our family have natural talents with the visual arts. I'm not one of them.

I'm okay with that. But every once in a while (Who am I kidding? I'm Wayward! This happens all the time!) I get an idea for a craft in my head and I want to make it whether I really know how to use these media or not.

In this case, I've had a vision for my daughter's room basically since she was born. I haven't gathered the courage to do it yet, but after seeing this silhouette painting tutorial on Sisters of the Wild West, I'm inspired to make it happen.

What I want to make:
A framed silhouette painting. Since it's the unofficial beginning of summer, the painting is inspired by the carefree whimsy of summer and childhood. I want to paint it in the colors of my daughter's room: cream background with a rose pink silhouette.

I've been planning to make a computer graphic of the picture I had in mind and use a computer project to project it onto a canvas to paint.

Here's the rough version of my image, a collage of Creative Commons licensed Flickr images:

I'm still thinking about and tweaking the individual elements, of course. I've been consulting with Brooke, resident painting expert, on exactly how to make this happen. She advised me to use a pre-stretched canvas (which is a lot cheaper than I thought if you're using a standard size) and said that the latex paint we used on the walls would work fine as long as it dries between coats.

I'll keep you posted on my results!

What do you think? What would you put in a summer silhouette painting?

Photo credits from the collage: water—Lois Elling; sitting person and his other leg—Chris Palmer; 

tree—Laura Nolte; tire swinger—Amit Kotwal