Disney Countdown Sign

We are going to Disney World Florida in October as a celebratory treat to mark the end of a year of operations for Joseph. We booked it shortly after we found out that our baby would have a cleft lip and palate while I was pregnant. The most difficult thing to come to terms with was the fact that my poor little baby would have to go through the pain of the operations. We knew feeding was going to be more difficult than it would be with a non-cleft baby and we just felt that we could do with something to look forward to after dealing with all the difficulties we would face.

I was lucky enough to visit twice as a child but my partner Simon has only ever been to EuroDisney. He is Disney crazy and always buying the boys DVDs and popping into the Disney store to buy them little treats. Needless to say he is VERY excited about the holiday. As I've said before he regularly rolls his eyes when I try to talk to him about my ideas or makes so I thought I would test him..... and I made him this countdown plaque:

I actually made two and gave him the choice of which to use. He said he wanted both! :o) so the small one has been made into a magnet and put on the fridge and the larger one is on the kids bedroom door. You can't see it in the picture but there us a stick of chalk attached to the string that holds the sign up.

The plaques were bought from the same seller on ebay - I negotiated the price for buying them in bulk and with the holes pre-drilled. They were painted using my Kobra spray paint. The Mickey Mouse head shape was bought from my trusty LaserSmith and painted with chalk paint bought from hobbycraft. They were glued on using Gorilla superglue and the writing and decorating was completed using my uni posca paint pens.

It took about 30 minutes to make both of them and that included paint drying time. Simples!!

Princess Crown Wooden Sign

A fellow cleft mum has been having a hard time of things lately and her little girl recently went through her palate repair operation. Through all the difficulties she is facing she continues to work for clapa in her fundraising efforts and has applied to become a contact parent for clapa, which means she will act as a point of contact for new/ other cleft parents that may need help with their babies. I thought she could do with a few bits to cheer her up so I made this little Crown Wooden Sign for her daughter.

Both the Crown shape and letters were bought from my favourite craft shape supplier LaserSmith. The heart was bought off ebay as bulk buy of 50, and the small stars were bought as a mixed box of embellishments from hobbycraft.

I started by placing my bits on the plaque to check they fit and see how they looked best. I planned to paint it with my Kobra spray paint in pink.

I always spray both sides of the plaque-even when the back is unlikely to be seen. I think it looks more professional. I ordered some items from some established crafty pages off facebook and was really disappointed when they arrived and were only painted on the embellished side. Especially as it was an item where the back could be seen, I.e. on a freestanding shape! You MUST make sure it is thoroughly dry before attempting to paint the other side though. If you have sprayed a thick coat (as I always end up doing because I'm too inpatient) I recommend waiting a good few hours before turning around to spray the back. However, it is a better recommendation to use the spray paint as instructed on the tin and just do several thin coats as it dries much quicker this way.

I glued the embellishments in place using superglue (I have found this gives a much better finish that a hot glue gun as it doesn't ooze out of the sides and it sticks well without the need to clamp it together for half an hour after gluing - can you tell I am impatient?)And those of you with eagle eyes may have noticed that there have been holes drilled into 2 of the crowns peaks. To do this I used my Dremel 3000 (see, it was an essential buy afterall :o)!)

So that my lovely CLAPA friend knew why the devil she was receiving this gift I also made her a card...

I would like to enter this card into the One Stop Craft Challenge Challenge #238 - Pastel Colours

It was a pig to try to photograph this card. I love the design, but again I am disappointed with the stamped sentiment, which reads 'THINKING OF YOU'..... YOU NEED NEW INK PADS :o)

Current work in progress...

I ordered some decorative mdf shapes and letters from Lasersmith which arrived super fast-often there's a 7-10 day dispatch time on wooden craft items, but these were dispatched the very next day. Whilst they don't offer a massive range of shapes, I have found their prices very reasonable for letters. 

Anyway, it was my intention to create a personalised gift for my niece and nephew for their new bedrooms in their dad's house. I planned to decorate a large letter with cute embellishments and then frame it in a shadow box. When I received the letters they were sent in the wood that they had been cut out from. My eyes instantly lit up as I realised I would be able to use this as a stencil.

I dug out a canvas board I'd bought from a stationary shop in Llandudno which only cost a couple of pounds. I wanted to make a girly one first as I already had lots of lovely embellishments to use. However in my eagerness to get cracking I was really haphazard and it ended up a bit of a dogs dinner. Rather than waste the canvas I just needed to respray it with a darker colour. So I decided to spray the canvas in a dark blue and stencil on the letter in a lighter blue. Again, it was a bit of a rush job and I had to touch it up in places where the colour had leaked but I was really pleased with how it turned out. 

Now I just need to wait for my embellishment to arrive to further decorate it. I'm considering putting the rest of the name in 3cm letters going across the bottom with either a whale or an elephant wooden shape. What do you think? Letters in blue and shape in white? Or all in light blue? Decisions, decisions!

Where the colour leaked I simply sprayed a household sponge with the spray paint and dabbed at it with the correct colour. Next time I do this I'll take the time to cover areas I don't want paint getting onto with masking tape and spray into the stencil from straight above rather than at an angle so the paint doesn't leak.