Crafts DIY

An Introduction to Colorful Art Mediums

01/12/2011

Sometimes getting your hands (your clothes, your surroundings…) messy and covered with a rainbow of colors is part of the art/crafting experience. I’ve gotten pretty familiar with several different mediums and I’ll give you a little run-down of why I love them and how I use them. If you haven’t used some of these before, I hope I can inspire you to try them! Note: I’m not an art expert, just a lover.

Oil Paints

Creamy, dreamy, vivid. I love working with oils because you can do so much blending (they dry slooowwly) and the colors are so rich. In school, we got to stretch and prime our own canvases ourselves. You can go to the art store and buy a canvas all ready to go, but you can get some satisfaction out of doing it all yourself. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that you have to use turpentine to thin them and get the paint off of your brushes (it smells), but its a small price to pay.

Watercolor Paints

Of course, the first kind of paint I ever used. They aren’t just for kids though, as you can do so many different tricks with them! Since you can re-wet the paint once it is dry, you can blend existing colors. If you want to layer different colors without disturbing the layer underneath, you can use the next kind of paint on the list…

Acrylic Paints

I’m a big fan of acrylics. You can use them to paint many other things besides canvases. I’ve used them to customize wooden boxes, journals, jewelry, and I’ve painted wall murals with them. They dry very quickly and once they are dry, you can’t re-wet them like watercolors.

Oil Pastels

Messy, bright and beautifully blendable! These may be my favorite of all to work with. I keep some wet wipes handy to clean my fingers if I’m going from a dark color to a light color. I also like to use an in-between color to blend two other colors together. Blending them with my fingers is a lot of fun and makes me feel like I have even more control over the colors.

Colored pencils

They can do a lot in the way of blending, if you vary the pressure, use strokes in different angles and layer the colors gradually. The kind of paper you use will also determine how your picture looks. I like using paper with a smoother “tooth” (roughness), but if you like the gritty, textured look, a rougher tooth is the way to go. The more rough the paper, the more your colors with stick and, consequently, the sooner you will need to sharpen your pencils. Make sure your paper is acid-free so your artwork lasts longer!

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Crafts DIY

Kawaii Crafts From Around the Web

01/10/2011

Recycle old magazines to make thrifty canvases.
Create a plush, retro deer similar to Ayumi Uyama style.

Create Hello Kitty cake pops with Bakerella.
Make a sugary sweet felt coin purse.

Merci to each of the authors for your lovely craft tutorials! I’m very happy to feature these blogs because they really excel at creating visual, eye-candy heavy tutorials and I know you Miseducated readers will love them as much as I do!

Now let’s get creating…

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Crafts DIY

Make Your Own Beads Out of Sand

08/21/2010

This perfect summer craft originates from the Bahamas and other tropical places where they are blessed with beautiful sandy beaches. Die-hard jewelry makers will use just about anything to make jewelry with, even the beach itself! If you are lucky enough to live by the beach and have access to any department store or craft store, then you can make your own sand beads from scratch. It is a bit time-consuming to roll and shape all of your own beads, but its worth it in the end when you have tons of colorful beads to make all the jewelry you want!

You Need

Fine sand (from the beach or from the store)
All purpose flour or papier-mâché
Elmer’s Glue
Wax paper
Vegetable oil

If you got your sand from the beach, sift it through a cheese cloth or a window screen to separate the larger grains from the fine stuff. Pour the fine sand into a bowl and mix in the flour or papier-mâché and mix it together well. You need to use equal amounts of flour and sand. Coat your hands lightly with vegetable oil so the sticky paste that you’re about to make won’t stick to your hands. Pour in your Elmer’s Glue slowly and knead it with your hands like bread dough. If it starts to harden before you’re done mixing, add more glue. If your hands get too crusty as you work, rinse your hands off and apply more oil. Also, if you are using beach sand and you want to add color, mix in some acrylic paint.

Break off pieces of the sandy dough and roll them into your beads. This is where you use your imagination to create the beads you will use for your jewelry. Make many different colors and sizes, or make a series of the same kind for a long beaded necklace. You can also make short tube-shaped beads, square ones and irregular shaped beads.

Set your beads on a piece of wax paper and let them dry overnight. Use a large sewing needle or any other sharp metal skewer (be careful!) to poke a hole through the middle of each bead. You need to do this while the beads are still slightly tacky, but not so soft that you squish the bead. Let them dry all the way.

Coat them with clear acrylic varnish to make them glossy and protect them, if you want. Now you can make your homemade jewelry for yourself and your loved ones!

More Ideas

Substitute half of the sand (or less) with fine glitter to make sparkly beads.
Swirl different colors of the sandy dough together to make multi-colored beads.
Make beading kits with your left-over sand beads and give these kits away as gifts.
Add other natural beads like shells and tiny pieces of drift wood to make a real beachy necklace.
Sell your sand bead jewelry to people at the beach.

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Crafts DIY

Let’s Start Digital Scrapbooking

07/05/2010

Because I’ve never actually made myself finish a digital scrapbook page this feature gave me a reason to pick up the hobby as well! Why digital? It’s much easier if your photos are digital, you can scan and photograph favorite patterns AND you don’t have to keep a big box of paper and glue handy for scrapbooking~ this is especially important for minimal me.

My first digital scrapbooking attempt.

What do you need to get started with digital scrapbooking?

A bunch of patterned paper to scan or a collection (think of a theme!) of digital scrapbooking materials.
A digital camera, scanner or collection of scanned photos.
A photo editing program.
Creativity and patience.

Which photo editing program should you choose?
Are you a beginner or have you had experience with more challenging programs? If you are a beginner, you may want to purchase a first-time user friendly program such as Adobe Elements or Corel Paint Shop Pro. If you have more experience with more challenging graphics programs, you may want to invest money in a professional program like Adobe Photoshop.

How hard is digital scrapbooking?

It’s not hard at all! With a few design elements and a graphic design program just about anyone can throw together a scrapbook page, even a child. Don’t let it scare you away, it’s easy, entertaining and fun!

Digital Scrapbooking Materials

Kitschy Digitals
Two Peas in a Bucket
Jessica Sprague
Pugly Pixel Freebies
Designer Digitals
DigiScrap Boutique
Scrap Girls
Free Digital Scrapbooking

Your Style

In creating a digital layout from scratch, there are the same basic steps: add background paper, add photos, create photo mats or accent papers, add embellishments (if desired), and finish with text. You can use these steps to create your own personal style, whether it’s clean and streamlined like a magazine layout or contains drop-shadows and a more traditional paper feel. With digital scrapbooking there are about a million ways to go and it’s all up to you to define your own personal style!

by Nicole LeBlanc

Methods

Instant-Page
You can download or purchase a pre-made layout template for easy scrapbooking. This is a great way to begin if you’d like to learn the ropes and get used to the techniques. Simply add your photos and text for instant pages.

Build it Yourself
Once you’re ready to start designing your own pages using your own embellishments or downloaded embellishments you can follow this tutorial:

by Jennifer Johner

The Makings of a Digital Layout

The following is an outline of the steps needed to create a basic digital layout from scratch. Don’t get overwhelmed, it’s quite easy to follow along with your own design program.

Create a New (Blank) Image
Determine the size of the layout you would like, such as 8.5” x 11”.
180-225 dpi is a good resolution for inkjet printers; 300 dpi is professional quality.
Enter the settings in your software’s new image dialog box, including a white background, then press OK.
At this point, and frequently throughout the design process, save your layout as a TIF so all the layers remain intact and you can go back and make changes to individual layers whenever you wish. Choose File > Save As and then save as a TIF.

Add Photos
To add a photo to a layout, browse your file system to find photos or drag them into your program (Mac).
Click and drag photos into the layout or use the edit/copy and edit/paste commands to paste them into your new layout.
Move and resize the photos as you desire, there’s no glue involved so you can always change your mind later!

Create Background
Use a paint-fill, pattern or downloaded background.
Creating your own is just as easy as photographing a favorite blanket or piece of paper.

Add Text
Using your text tool, pick the text color, font, and font size. Then click the mouse on the page where your text should be placed and type away. Try different sizes, colors and effects for differentiation between text elements — such as journaling and dates!

Add Ready-made Embellishments
For a punch of detail and splash of color, you can add ready-made embellishments (visit the sites above to download some!) that can be dragged onto your layouts.
While your layout is open, choose File > Open and browse your hard-drive for which embellishment(s) you’d like to add, open them, and then drag them into your layout. You can change their rotation, color, and size, if desired.

Save File for Printing and/or Web Display
Save the final image as a TIF — for a high-resolution print you can print from this file.
If saving to print elsewhere, save as a full-size PDF or JPG file.
To make your file ready for web, save as72 dpi, about 500-600 pixels wide and as JPG.

That’s just a bit of information to get you started, hopefully this sends you into a frenzy of creating your own scrapbook pages digitally. For more help with your graphic program view the instruction manual or search the web for more tutorials. There are many great scrapbooking blogs and forums for you to play around on and get more inspiration~ go explore the world wide wonderland!

Our own Wendy Rose tried her hand at scrapbooking as well and found a new delightful hobby to share.

by Wendy Rose

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Crafts DIY

Make a Tiny Fawn For Your Flower Pot

05/07/2010

This craft features pictures from Martha Stewart Living — it’s a simple and cute craft for kids. I absolutely love fawns and deer, it just so happens I’ve been lucky enough to live in a place as a child where they often came into our yard to visit.

So how about a few little fawns to top your indoor flower pot soil? Or strewn around your desk? On a cupcake? The possibilities are endless!

All you need are a couple of brown pipe cleaners, a section of a tan pipe cleaner and tiny white spots — just glue on tiny sections of white fabric or ribbon.

Also, you must send all photos of these if you made them for any purpose so I can display them here!

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Crafts DIY

Blythe Clothing Pattern Collection

04/15/2010

One of the best things about Blythe is she’s just the right size to whip up an adorable outfit for in a couple of hours (or less!) .. and she looks adorable in anything!

Blythe is known as a model among the community and a creative inspiration. Some of my favorite outfits were handmade painstakingly with a cute photo in mind — yet another creative way to spend your free time.

Sewing Patterns

Puchimadam
XOXO Blythe
Jam Fancy (new)
Jam Fancy (old)
Tshirt

Knit Patterns

Wooly Rockers
knitty

Crochet Patterns

Suncatcher Eyes

.. and remember we have a pattern here as well you should try!

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Crafts DIY

Customizing Blythe: How to Paint Lips Like a Pro

04/15/2010

Hello! I customize blythe dolls for both fun and for some profits. So far I have been doing it for just a little over year. I started when I was 15 and my first doll was quite terrible (as I wasn’t very careful), but I got better and better with every doll,and have now done 20+ dolls. So here is a tutorial for re-coloring or customizing the lips of a Blythe doll, hope you like it!

Step 1

Gather your supplies: Blythe, fine-grit sanding sponge, a small flat paint-brush and a bigger softer paint-brush, chalk pastels in a lighter and darker color, and watercolor-pencils in a darker color and white.

Step 2

Sand off the original lip color (you may have to scrape the paint in the crease away with a some-what dull x-acto knife). With the small paint-brush, brush the darker pastel color in the crease of the lips and lightly outward.

Step 3

Use the darker watercolor-pencil to define the crease and add some lip wrinkles.

Step 4

Use the white watercolor-pencil to add texture with quick strokes, and lightly color with it to blend with the darker color.

Step 5

Brush the lighter color pastel on with the bigger paintbrush and you’re done!

… and it make take a few tries to get it right, so don’t get frustrated! 😉

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Crafts DIY

Make a Flower Accessory with a Hawaiian Lei

03/30/2010

Feeling crafty? Are you not sure what to do with the Hawaiian lei that you’ve had for years but, its so pretty you don’t want to get rid of it? Make a cute accessory with it! Its fun, easy and you only need a few materials…

You Need

Fabric Hawaiian Lei
Scissors
Needle
Thread
Clear nail polish
Hot glue gun

Get a container to put all of your loose flowers in and cut the string of the lei. Keep them so you can make more later, because your friends will probably want one too. Pick out about five or six loose flowers and a leaf (if your lei has them) if you want to incorporate it.

Stack the loose flowers on top of eachother, with the leaf at the bottom. Try to stagger the petals so that they aren’t perfectly lined up (like in the picture) and slip one or two pins through to hold them together while you work.

Run a few small stitches through the middle of the flower. You don’t need to do very many, just make sure its secure and the thread won’t come loose. Try to make sure your thread is the same or, close to the same color as the fabric so it stays invisible. If you have to use a different color (like I did) it won’t be too bad, just try to stay close to the center.

Now you can make your flower look more three-dimensional, like a rose or a peony. If you like the flat look, you can skip this step. Starting with the petals on top, fold one side over and run a few small stitches close to the center. Work your way around on different layers, repeating this step until your flower has the shape that you want.

Swipe a little clear nail polish along the edges of the petals so that they don’t fray any more than they may have already. You can also use your scissors to trim any strays.

Now you can attach your flower to… pretty much anything! Use a hot glue gun or your trusty needle and thread to tack it onto a pin, barrette or head band. You can also attach it to a hair tie or wear it around your wrist like a corsage. Decorate a plain hand bag with colorful fabric flowers!

More Ideas

Run some fabric glitter around the edges of the petals, or make “rain drops” in random spots.
Attach a button, pretty bead or cabochon to the middle.
Hot glue some some crystal rhinestones on the petals to create the “rain drops”.
Add other embellishments to the bottom of the flower like ribbons or lace.

If you make one, feel free to post it in the comments!

5 Comments

Crafts DIY

How to Hello Kitty Crochet

03/03/2010

Crocheting is quite a fun and addictive hobby, unlike knitting it seems like the sape possibilities and graphics are endless, it’s just perfect for crafting little plushes (amigurumi) and graphic designs.

I’ve become addicted to both knitting and crochet living in cold, cold Indianapolis and even more so now with a baby on the way. I can’t imagine all the rainbow kitty afgan cuteness that will erupt!

So how do you do it? Not sure where these notes originated from, possibly Craftster, but they’re quite useful for new cute-crochet lovers!

Such a beginner you still can’t get it? A great way to learn crocheting and knitting skills is to watch tutorials online, you can pause and take as long as you want.

What is a Single Crochet, Half Double Crochet, Triple Crochet, Chain Stitch and Double Crochet ?

The Hello Kitty pattern is quite elusive, it takes a bit of a search to find it. The book is out of print, hard to find and expensive. If we simply learn to crochet Hello Kitty to scale and the rest of the granny square the possibilities are endless! They seem to attach the white head to quite a lot of the projects, so this is absolutely necessary to learn for any crochet kittiness.

7 Comments

Crafts DIY

How to Repair a Dress with Heart

02/26/2010

So, you were lounging around in a comfy dress and ran right into your incense? You went out dancing and your best friends cigarette went missing for a second? It happens!

Luckily there are always cute ways to snazz up a boring dress or to repair a fallen dress. Mine is a lounge dress I got for my pregnant-belly, but you could use any number of dresses.

A simple method, and the one shown in the tutorial here, is to cut shapes out of a contrasting color iron-on-patch and iron it on.

Other great replacements would be pompons, sequins, embroidery, cute beads or handmade patches! Make your own patch by cutting favorite designs out of tshirts or painting a blank iron-on patch. The possibilities are endless if you have the creativity. I can’t wait to see how you use this method!

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