Embellished Burlap Table Runner How-to

     I wanted to have something fantastic on the table for Christmas dinner this year.  I've seen a lot of burlap being used for various projects and thought to myself, why not a table runner?  From there, the idea just kind of took off on it's own and evolved several times.  At the end, though, I'm super happy with what came to be...

         
    There were a few firsts for me, (using burlap, fabric ink, and a new material for stenciling) so it was a bit of a shot in the dark experiment.  Sometimes shots in the dark work out!

Here's what you'll need:

Main fabric- I used burlap.  You can find it at your local fabric store.  You'll want enough to have one continuous strip across your table plus about 12" or so on either side to hang over.  (So length of table + 24")
Backing fabric- I used muslin that I had in my fabric stash.  There should be the same amount of backing as there is main fabric.
Rotary cutter and Scissors
Ruler or measuring tape.
Sewing Machine
Thread
Pins
Paint Mask- This was a first for me.  I guess this stuff is used for painting cars, but it can be found at vinyl suppliers (I used H&HSignSupply.com).  You'll need enough for your graphics plus a 1-2" border around the design.
Transfer tape or contact paper
Squeegee
Sponge Paint Brush
Fabric ink- I used the stuff that came in my Silhouette kit, however, it's the same as you can find at the hobby store for silkscreening.
Vinyl Cutting Machine or a steady hand, utility knife, and a lot of patience- I used my Silhouette Cameo, as I am seriously lacking in that kind of patience and it was a huge design.  If it's just a small one, I could see doing it by hand, though.
Weeding Hook or needle and tweezers
Iron and/or Heat Press- I used both, though just an iron would be okay.  You'll see in the tutorial how I used them.
Freezer paper or scrap paper- To keep the ink from bleeding through onto the surface of whatever you are painting on.

Step 1- Cut your main fabric and backing to the size of your table plus 24" (that gives you 11" of overhang on either side after factoring in a 1" seam allowance) for the length and then the width you want plus 2".  (Mine was 20" wide.)  For burlap, I found that an easy way to make a straight cut was to pull on one of the end threads.  It would gather the burlap and eventually snap, but left a nice, clean straight line to follow for when you cut it.

Step 2- After your main fabric and backing are cut, iron freezer paper on to the back of your main fabric.  (Main fabric being the top fabric that you are going to paint.  See which side of the burlap you want to use... some sides are prettier than others, and iron the freezer paper onto the ugly or "wrong" side.

And keep ironing...

... until the back parts of the runner that will have the graphics on them is completely covered.

Step 3- Using your cutting machine, cut out your design on your paint mask.  You may have to cut the paint mask down to fit onto your mat.

     Also, if your design is large.... you may have to cut it in several sections.

Step 4-  Weed your design.  Using your weeding hook, remove the parts of the stencil that you will want to paint.  This part may leave you a little covered in paint mask vinyl.

Step 5-  Lay out your design the way you want it.

     Once you're happy with how it looks (keep seam allowances in mind!  Don't place it too near the edge or some may disappear into a seam), use your transfer tape or contact paper to remove the design from the backing and onto your main fabric.  (Use the squeegee over the transfer tape once it's on top of the vinyl and then peel off the backing... then place it on your main fabric and squeegee again.)  Before I put the contact paper on top of the vinyl to remove it from the backing, I like to stick the contact paper on the carpet and pull up a few times to get the stickiness down a bit.  Makes it easier to remove later.

Step 6- This is BY FAR the hardest part of making this.  Peel back the transfer tape.  Go slow, take your time.  Cut the excess transfer tape away as you're doing it. I don't have a photo of this step because I was charging my phone, but use one hand to hold down the vinyl and the other to remove the transfer tape.  This takes awhile.  Be patient.

   I do, however, have a pic of some of the words with the transfer tape peeled off while the rest wait for  transfer tape and placement.

     As you get the decals on there, go back over them gently with your squeegee, and/or press firmly with your hand to resticky it to the main fabric if it came up at all.

Step 7-  Now comes the fun part.  Using your sponge brush, apply the fabric ink to the decals, being careful to stay within the frame of the decal and not go out of the lines.  I did a thin coat and waited for it to dry.  Then did a second coat a bit thicker... blotting up and down with my brush.

     What you DON'T want to do, is paint so forcefully that you pull up your stencil... or blob so much paint that it bleeds all over the place regardless of the stencil.  The freezer paper will also help keep the ink in check.

Step 8-  Once the paint is COMPLETELY dry, peel back the stencil.  This was my favorite part by far.  So fun to see the end result peeking through.  Then, heat seal it.  You can either use an iron and iron through a protective layer of fabric (such as an old pillowcase) or a heat press if you want to blaze through it.  Make sure you use a teflon sheet if you use your heat press.

Step 9-  Now it's time to sew it together.  Pin your fabric right sides together.  Starting on one long side, sew down and around 3 sides with a 1" seam allowance.  Leave one short side open so you can turn it right-side out.  Iron.

Step 10- Tuck the unsewn short side inside 1" and press flat.  Sew as close to the edge as you can.  To finish the runner off, top stitch around the entire  runner.  I topstitched slightly under 1" to catch and hold all of the layers.  Then, you're done!

     Send pics if you guys make some!  I'd love to see them.  Enjoy!

Christmas Ornament: Polar Bear in an Ice Cave

     This weekend consisted of a lot of experimentation with ornaments.  I had found this fantastic glitter paint that I wanted to try using to coat the inside of glass ornaments.  I thought that maybe it would be even easier than glittering.  (Boy, was I WRONG.)

     In the course of my ornament experimentation, I managed to blow up an ornament in my oven, resulting in a massive glitter bomb.  I also wasted more ornaments than I care to think about trying different techniques.

     One of those techniques was just coating the outside of the ornament.  It was successful, but what's the point if you can't adhere vinyl to it and can find them at any dollar store... minus the mess and hassle?

     While coating the outside of the ornament, I noticed that the paint dripped down in a neat way.  So I did one ornament that was completely coated to test the technique, and the other one, I added significantly less.  I WANTED the drips.  To me, it looked like a cave... an ice cave.  Awesome.  I immediately knew what I wanted to do.

And I also did the back.

     When I was thinking about the design of the ornament, I went looking for some cute polar bear artwork, but nothing seemed to fit what I was looking for.  So I made my own.  :)

     I'm really loving the Designer Edition of Silhouette Studio.  Lots of neat tricks!

     I cut out all the vinyl, adhered it to my transparency to make the bear "float" in the middle of the glass ornament, and then added Swarovski crystals to the snowflakes for a little extra pop.  Super excited about this one!

And a few pictures of my experiments this past weekend.

     The vast majority were fails... but you can't win them all!

Santa and Rudolph Canvases

     I made my first canvases this week!

     There's a blank wall in my entryway that I thought would look good with a little Christmas art.  When I saw the Santa file on my Silhouette group, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  I went to Michael's and picked up some canvases (value bundle pack) to decorate, prepped them with some white acrylic paint, and then vinyled them.  Of course, Santa couldn't be alone, he had to have his buddy, Rudolph, with him.

     So happy with how they both turned out!  I may be slightly hooked on this "canvas" thing now.  :)

     The Santa artwork is originally from Pottery Barn and someone in the group was kind enough to share the file with us.  Rudolph, I created after seeing a beautiful wall hanging in the "Land of Nod" catalog.

     I had a few requests for a tutorial on how I made Rudolph, so I learned how to use iMovie... with the help of my 9 year-old son.  Guess I have finally crossed the threshold into "old fart" territory.

     Here's how I made Rudolph:

     Hope this helps give you all some tips and tricks!

Give Thanks!

     Everyone ready for Thanksgiving?  I'm not.  I don't even have a turkey yet!

     I did, however, think of something that would be fun for Cameron's class to do as a project.  I thought it would be fun for all of the kids to have Thanksgiving cards that they could each write something about their teacher that they are thankful for.  In turn, their teacher would have cards to write something she is thankful for about each student.

    Spread the holiday love.

     While looking in the Silhouette online store, I saw an adorable turkey cut design.  However, I didn't want to have to cut and assemble multiple layers for more than 25 individual cards, so I worked with it in the Silhouette software to make it a print and cut.

     Here's how the kids-to-teacher cards turned out:

     Aren't they sweet?!

     To make the turkey file a print and cut, click on each part of the turkey and fill it with the color you want, starting with the biggest part of the tail feathers and working your way forward through the layers. Also, make all of the lines transparent. (Just select the turkey part, then "line" and "transparent".) Do the fill and line transparency for each of the turkey parts until it's totally colored in. Once it is, "Group" the image and then start from the beginning of the "Under a Cherry Tree" tutorial. The image will act like a print and cut image while it's grouped and you can personalize it from there. 

     After making the turkey cards, I designed my own file for the teacher cards using Silhouette Designer Edition software.  I love the fill background selections they have!  It was a lot of fun to play with the new software and start to learn the ins and outs.

Teacher cards (left) and student cards (right).

     When I finished with the cards, my younger son saw them and begged me to do them for his classroom as well.  We decided to make his different from his brother's and used Lettering Delights' Kanshasai file to do the same project for his class.

     Definitely enjoying the new software!

     Hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Vinyl-Embellished Bento Lunch Boxes

     I love bento boxes!  I've had some in my Amazon wishlist for a really long time, but just recently, I was lucky enough to come across some of these great bento boxes at Tuesday Morning.  While the colors were bright, they were missing some pizazz... so I asked the kids what they wanted.

     Kai, of course, chose Batman; and Cameron chose Pokemon.  I'll admit that the Batman one was much, MUCH easier to accomplish.  The Batman logo was in the Silhouette store and after I downloaded a free Batman font from dafont.com, all I had to do was add Kai's name, cut and vinyl.

     With Cameron's, well... it was just a nightmare from the get-go.  I couldn't find any Pokemon files that I wanted and he was very specific about wanting Zekerom on his lunchbox.  I was able to find a pretty clear image of the dragon/bumble bee guy, trace it, and then start cutting and layering the vinyl.  It took a total of 5 colors to complete him.  A base layer of black, then light gray and dark gray for the body, blue tip on the horn, and a teeny tiny red eye.

     For the Pokemon logo, I was able to trace and cut with no problem.  Cameron's name, however, took a bit more work.  I won't go too into detail, but I noticed that the Pokemon font didn't have the vowels overlapping and cutting into the other letters like the logo did.  With my crafting OCD, this was unacceptable and I spent a good hour to an hour and a half playing in the Silhouette software to cut chunks out of the letters surrounding the vowels and crowding the letters to look more "authentic".  Finally, I was able to put everything on there and proudly show my project to the children.

     The kids, of course, nodded and said, "Nice, Mom.  Thanks."  Hmm.. not exactly the whooping and screaming reception I was hoping for, but I was happy with how they turned out anyway.

Halloween Pics and Angry Bird Cups

   
     I hope that everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!  We had another fun year and it was Liam's first Halloween, so he was able to continue our family tradition of wearing the infant lobster costume.

     Usually the lobster costume brings on the baby screams, but Liam had shots that day, so I think he was just happy to stay warm and wrapped up.  Poor little guy never made a single discontented peep.

     This year, aside from Liam the Lobster, we had Cameron as Lord Voldemort, Kai was vampire Spiderman, and Scarlett was... of course... a princess.

     And here is Kai in all of his decked out "vampire Spiderman" glory.  Yes, we actually trick-or-treated this way, which brought on a lot of weird looks and people cracking up.

     That's my boy!

     While the boys were at school, I used my Silhouette to make the Angry Bird cups that I've been wanting to make for the kids.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the right color orange for the yellow bird, so I had to wait on that, but here's how they turned out.

     All of the files, with the exception of the black Angry Bird, were shared files that were shared on the Silhouette group that I'm a part of.  The black Angry Bird was my first attempt at creating my own layered vinyl file and I'm super happy with how it turned out.  The kids were thrilled with their cups.  We're big "Angry Birds" fans here.  :)

Bat Snacks

     It was Kai's snack day today.  With it being so close to Halloween, I decided to embrace the Halloween spirit and make... BAT SNACKS!

     I made 17 bat snack boxes with googly eyes.

     Had Kai help me mix together some animal crackers and bag them.

     Then we stuffed them...

     And the kids went to bed.  After they'd left for school in the morning, I decided to take the whole "bat" theme and just go with it.  I ripped the labels off the water bottles, designed some of my own (the goofy-eyed bats were a "cut" file from the Silhouette store that I filled the color in with in the design software and removed the "cut" feature)... and transformed them into bat juice.

     I dropped it off at his school for today's snack, and I'm waiting for him to come home to hear the verdict.

Getting Ready for a Magical Party

My oldest son just turned 9.  He is totally into Harry Potter and reads the books constantly, over and over again; so when I asked him what kind of party he wanted.... no surprise.  "Harry Potter, Mom!"

     I've seen bits and pieces of the movies.  Never been able to catch one all the way through, but I think I have the general gist of it.  Plus, with a H.P. obsessed kid, it's not hard to pick up extra tidbits here and there.

     My first venture into this magical party prep had to start at the beginning... with invitations.

     Finished these today using the Silhouette's "Print and Cut" feature.  The Harry Potter font for the invites was found here at DaFont.com.  It was free to download and worked perfectly.  All of the clipart was purchased from the Silhouette Online Store.

     The ticket at the bottom of the invitation is cut with a perforated cut to make for easy removal from the invite.  The registration marks that were on the page were cut off by making a large rectangle cut around the entire page, just inside the marks.  That way, they show up to align the image (for perforation around the ticket), but aren't in the completed project.

    Roll up, tape closed with clear tape, and finish with a bright red ribbon.

    Now to make the "magical prize", potion drinks, and other random magical goodies.  Will keep you all posted.

"Ol' Red" Silhouette Shirt

I've had this project in mind for a few weeks now.  I've always loved the song, "Ol' Red" by Blake Shelton and wanted to create a project inspired by it. 

I finally came up with this:

Front

Back

Close-up of "tracking party"

Close-up of "puppy love"

   To make this shirt, I used Simplicity Pattern P2027 (Size A), which I found at Wal-Mart for $0.99.  All of my fabric was pre-washed  and then ironed before doing anything.

I modified the bottom of it by adding a 1 1/2" border of green to simulate grass.  To make the border, I cut a 4 x 20" strip (The size I made the pattern in was a size 2, so adjust the length and width of your strip accordingly... it should be the same length as the bottom of the pattern piece, though).  I folded this strip in half and pressed it.  Then, I folded each long raw edge down 1/2" towards the wrong side and pressed again... like a huge piece of bias tape.  Once your pattern pieces are all cut and before you sew anything, first sew the border onto the bottom of the main front and back pieces, right sides together, down the 1/2" crease you had pressed.  Then, just treat the piece as if it were a whole piece of the original main part and continue with the pattern.
  
     Follow the pattern and finish the main part of the shirt.  Then, you'll start embellishing.

Shirt ready to be embellished.

     To get the silhouettes, I did a lot of image Googling.  The extent of my drawing ability is limited to stick people, so if the person wasn't in the right position, I didn't even attempt to alter it.  I searched high and low for law enforcement photos, running people, etc.  Some were pictures of actual people, others were free vector images.  Once I found the images I wanted, I scaled them to size and printed them off.  It may take a few tries.  You should see the number of "wardens" that I had to print.  It was ridiculous.  Also, the only law enforcement guy I found in the "holding the leash" position was insanely large so I had to give him an Xacto tummy tuck or you wouldn't have seen his hand.

    Once you've got your silhouette images, cut them out using a Fiskars swivel knife.  For some reason, the PX didn't have a regular Xacto knife, but this is like a miniature version and it worked okay on the paper.  I cut out the silhouettes, making slight modifications as needed.

Paper silhouettes

Now it was time for the Steam-a-Seam (S.A.S.).  I used the sticky-back stuff to keep the fabric in place while I cut it.

I cut a strip of the S.A.S., then pulled off the paper, leaving the sticky side up on the ironing board.  Very carefully, I placed the black fabric on top and smoothed it out.  Then, one by one, I pinned the silhouettes to the fabric and cut them out.  I tried using the Fiskars knife on the fabric, but it just pulled it and made it all crazy.  Instead, I had to use my small fabric scissors to cut them out very carefully.  In the end, I had my silhouettes all cut out.  One of each, except for the standing dog, which I cut two of... one a mirror image.  (Just flip the paper silhouette over.)

    Then, I used more S.A.S. and put a scrap of green fabric on, the same way that I did with the black fabric.  I freehand cut some grass and set those aside as well.

    Now comes the fun part.  Laying it all out on your shirt and moving the pieces around.  Find positions that you like and then seal it in place by ironing it.  Read the back of your S.A.S for specific instructions.  I pressed the front about 15 seconds, let it cool a tad, and then pressed through the back.  Those suckers are STUCK.

     Once you've got your silhouettes in place, you can add buttons and do your hand embroidery.  I hand embroidered the collar and leash (adding a metal bead on each of "Ol' Red's" collars to look like a tag), and the bow collar on the female dog.  Buttons were hand sewn and the rose on the front of the shirt was attached.