Decorating wooden plaques using Decal Paper

So, I've said in a previous blog that my writing on wooden plaques isn't brilliant and that I would be trying different methods to be able to offer a more professional finish.

Cue the decal paper method...

I love my quotes, but I want to be able to present them in an eye catching style. Decal paper is bascially an image transfer paper. It works a little bit like those tattoos you used as a kid. It is perfect for decorating wooden plaques, especially as I would be able to include a picture.... I just needed to master its use...........!

I searched my quotes board on Pinterest and decided to use a quote by Marilyn Monroe. I then search for a black and white image of her on google images. I decided to use my 100mm x 100mm square plaque so using Microsoft publisher I drew a box 100mm x100mm (this was simply to use as a guide for positioning my image and text - I deleted it before printing as I didn't want it to appear on my printed image). I positioned my image, wrote my text, altered the font and size and faffed and fiddled with the layout. When I was happy with how it looked I copied the entire image and pasted it into Paint where I flipped the image so It was back to front (otherwise when the image was transferred the writing would be the wrong way round). Then I printed it according the instructions that came with the decal paper (different brands of decal paper work differently so I won't attempt to give instructions on this). I am reliably informed that I could have just changed my printer settings to print  "mirrored", but my IT skills are a little basic and this was the easiest way for me to do it.

I painted my plaque with my Kobra spray paint in a very pale pink and set about transferring the image. Really I should have photographed the process to explain exactly how the decal transfer worked, but a) I didn't know I'd get it to work, and b) I would rather say I use "x" brand of decal paper and this is how it works.

Incidententally I used dry rub decal paper here. There is also waterslife decal paper which involves wetting the transfer image. I tried the water slide decal paper first (as its cheaper) and failed miserably. It seems like the easier option as you simply print, spray with an acrylic varnish a couple of times, wet, then apply the image. However, when I tried I mustn't have sprayed the image with enough varnish as the ink ran when I placed it in water and it was unusable. It might be worth trying laserjet printed images rather than inkjet-something else to try!

Dry rub decal paper involved a series and sticking and peeling films and rubbing out air bubbles. I found a few bubbles in the final product-but I'm sure ill get better at it and figure out how to avoid the bubbles. I was disappointed in this method as I'd hoped for a flawless transfer, whereby it looked like the image/text had been painted directly on to the wooden plaque, but when you look closely it looks a giant sticker. The other image I have ready to try doesn't go right the edge so it may be that I just need to be more clever about the design.

Anyway, here is the final product. I plan to put my dremel to good use and drill holes to make this a hanging plaque...

Car boot crafty finds

I have just placed a fairly big order with crafty capers for wooden items to decorate. They have a great range of products suitable for painting and decorating and their prices are some of the best I've found so far.

However I found a couple of cracking items at the car boot sale this weekend. I very nearly bought a wooden wine box, but thought I'd leave it until closer to Xmas as I've splurged a fair but lately on crafty bits. However I found a gorgeous box for 50p! I had to use all my energy to stop myself from fist-pumping the air with delight at my find!!

I also rather strangely found that there seemed to be a box a children's wooden dominoes for sale on practically every stall. For any fellow followers of itsallfiddlefart, you'll know she uses these to create fabulous gift tags. I limited myself to two boxes so that I could try this too, but I am hoping to find some of my own inspiration and find something else to do with them too.

Birthday Cards, Body Shop and Cystic Fibrosis

I attended a Mad Hatters Tea Party event today in aid of a little girl called Anya Bentham who is suffering from Neuroblastoma, an awful, very aggressive childhood cancer. Anya is a local girl and the community has pulled together brilliantly to raise money for her treatment. I heard yesterday that £200,000 of the £250,000 target has been raised. This is fantastic but its so sad to know such fundraising is necessary. If you would like more information about her and this terrible illness you can read about it on her just giving page.

I was attending the event as a Body Shop Consultant and have offered to donate all my commission for sales achieved at Anya events. I am a sucker for children and always do what I can for charities. If you are fundraising and would like info on. How I could help please get in touch.

I always over-pack my stall. Today I tried to limit what I put out and I was quite pleased with the final look. Still, room for improvement!

I met a remarkable woman there too. Her little girl had cystic fibrosis and was treated at the same hospital where Joseph had his lip repair, Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital. If I'm honest I was pretty ignorant about the condition and what it entailed, but she was able to explain how it affected her daughter and the implications for daily life. It made me feel pretty silly having been so concerned about a cleft in Joseph. Despite what she had to deal with, this particular mum had awe and respect for Anya's parents and what they had to go through with their daughter. A couple of days ago I posted a picture of some sentiment plaques I'd made and one of them seemed particularly potent...

I have since been quote hunting and really appreciate these words by Albert Clarke:
“In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy."
On a lighter note, I returned from the event to my creation station :o) It is my partner's sisters' 16th birthday this weekend so I needed to make some cards. Being a beginner my materials are only cheap. I love the linen effect cards used by itsallfiddlefart, but I've got a bulk pack of plain white cards from hobbycraft which need to be used first. 

I used glitter and silver card from a bulk pack bought from home bargains or B&M-I bought them a while back so I can't remember where exactly I bought them from or how much they were but I can't imagine it was much more than a couple of pounds for a 20 sheet pack. I cut the squares by hand but this took forever and I wasn't very accurate, which shows in the quality of the finished product I think. I really need to invest in a guillotine-any recommendations?  The little star embellishment was from The Works-I think it was £1.50 for a pack of 6.

I do like this card (I surprise myself sometimes). I always start with one idea in mind and end up with something that looks completely different which I kind of like. I'm really disappointed with how the sentiment stamp turned out. I had to improvise and use my promarker to colour the stamp as I only had dark coloured ink pads.....more thinks to buy!! :o)

I can't help but think this looks better in the photo than it does in real life. I've printed two  monkeys to represent her two cheeky monkey nephews as she likes to call them. I didn't stamp them very well and some of the finer details bled. I also used the wrong sort of ink pad to colour the stamped image. I'm told I need to use Acid based ink....the shopping list gets bigger and bigger!

Body Shopping and crafting was just about complete when my partner arrived home and I was able to have an amazing snuggle with my big, little boy! :oD

 

Sentiment wooden hearts

Here's a few sentiment hearts I made from 7cm plywood hearts bought from Daisymoon Designs Daisymoon Designs. 

I love meaningful quotes and I'm forever looking through Pinterest's quotes section. My background in Religious Education means I'm a particular sucker for the religious ones. 

My all time favourite is not biblical, but from an inspiration Christian figure. Do you know who said:

 "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

I just can't decided whether to make them into hangers or magnets?!

Light box tutorial for photographing jewellery and the like

I've just been blog networking and I came across this AMAZING tutorial for creating a light box to take great snaps. I've fussed and faffed loads in the past trying to take pics of my makes and wears using my own makeshift light boxes, but this looks perfect!

make your own light box

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.

Playroom Door Hanger

Nap time = mummy time. I should be doing the dishes, or washing or one of the many other  household chores that await me, but the lure of crafting has distracted me. I've just been sharing a few of my makes on MSE so thought I ought to share on here too.

This a door hanger I made and auctioned off on my facebook page JJ Jewellery and Crafts. The auction was for CLAPA - Cleft Lip and Palate Association. My little boy was born with a cleft lip and palate which was diagnosed at our 20week scan. CLAPA were a fantastic support - I will undoubtedly talk more about them in later posts.

It was made by spray painting an MDF hanger (bought from ebay) in red, and decorating using my white uni posca paint pen. I used a broad nib for the 'warning' writing and some of the dots, and a medium nib for the rest of the writing. The monkey embellishment was bought from hobbycraft for about 80p (if I remember rightly).