July 2011 crafts

Copied the basic idea for these two wooden crafts from somethings I came across on etsy last summer. I'm really happy with how they turned out (once I finally got around to them last week). For the white blocks, I used vinyl as a stencil with blue paint for the words and glued on two rusty stars I bought on etsy. The red board lettering is white vinyl, and again rusty stars from etsy. The red board is about 12 by 7 1/2 and the white blocks are a 2 x 2 (so it's 1 1/2 x 1 1/2) cut at about 7 and 10 1/2 inches. I mixed the red paint up from two other red colors and the blue is a modified navy. I like using magnolia white paint, it's not too bright of a white, but not cream. The fonts are susie's hand, annabelle, and modern no. 20. I have some ideas for other boards too, I could just make them even though it's August tomorrow and be ready for next year, or procrastinate again.

And now, for the mess up craft....,

I used modpodge to glue a bunch of red, white and blue paint chip samples (free from lowes) onto a canvas. It was late at night, so the picture isn't great, but after getting the paint samples glued on with a few coats, I then spread dark walnut minwax stain all over and wiped it off. I was pretty happy with it. Had plans to put 'AMERICA land that I love' along one side. It's not my usual style of decor, but it's seasonal and cheap to make. Then the mistake. I wanted it to have a little bit of a shimmer, but I got the modpodge shimmer paint (metallic sahara gold) ratio wrong. I did four parts modpodge to one part shimmer paint, but it was too much shimmer, at least too much for the look I was envisioning. I guess a smart person would have tested the shimmer out on a scrap first. Oh well. I could always make another one.... Could be something fun for the kids to make something along these lines too.

Inspiration here and here.