Watercolor Valentines

Today we finished our Valentine's Day cards. I recently saw this tutorial for watercolor resist cards on Grow Creative that shows how to make homemade Valentine's Day cards. My kids loved it, even my little guy who isn't usually that interested in the creative projects I plan for him and his sister. Now we have another way to make homemade Valentines for my kids to give their friends, teachers, and loved ones!

I usually do involved projects like this in stages with my kids. So, on Friday the kids used white crayons and stencils to create a variety of designs. Today, Saturday, we pulled out the paints and they added beautiful colors to the cards.

After painting the first few Valentines, we started to wonder why the crayons weren't resisting the paint as much as they should. We could barely see the hearts on the one above...or the sun and kitten in the other. At first I thought our crayons weren't quality enough, but then we tried using the crayon on a new card and painting it right after.

This worked much better! So I strained to see the shapes and designs on the unpainted-but-already-designed-cards and traced over the work my children had done the day before.

I love the effect. I love that my kids didn't stick with only the traditional hearts for their Valentine's Day cards, but used a variety of shapes from our stencils...circles, stars, squiggles, even a Christmas holly leaf to make a shooting star!

They did some Valentine hearts, too. This one looks like a bleeding heart...unintentional, of course.

My kids really enjoyed watching the colors mix, watching the shapes emerge, and making the Valentines special for each person!

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I'm linking up to these fabulous parties!

Transfer Tutorial

If you've seen my blog in the last week, you've probably seen my surfboard sign tutorial for this...

and these...

Well, now I have a moment to show you how to transfer a picture onto the surface of the surfboard. You can also use this method to transfer pictures onto all sorts of other surfaces for endless crafts and projects. Here's how I did it...

 First, I sketched a picture. Then I turned the paper over and used the side of the pencil to cover the entire paper (or at least the area of the paper that the drawing was on).

 Next, I decided where I wanted to place the picture on the surfboard and then taped it in place.

 Then I firmly traced over the original drawing.

When I peeled off the tape and lifted the paper, my picture was now on the surfboard and ready to paint! An easy peasy way to eliminate dark pencil and/or eraser marks on a surface that you'd like to be clean. :-)

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Guest Post at Sumo's Sweet Stuff

I'm excited to be guest posting at Sumo's Sweet Stuff today. I'd absolutely love it if you head on over and take a look!

I'm sharing how I made these Olympic Rings T-shirts...

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Surfboard Signs Tutorial

Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how, come and make a sign with me...

I am back in England now as you may have seen from my last post. I am missing the beach already but am loving the weather that followed us from California! And we have surfboard signs to remind us of our great sunny summer...and a tutorial on how to make surfboard signs for you.

I must say that although I'm writing this tutorial, I had help making these from my mom and dad. They're the ones in the pictures below and have their own blog, Jerry & Kay. They'd love for you to visit it if you haven't already. :-)

Now, here's how you can make your own surfboard sign...

What you need:

1. Surfboard Template and Wood (we used craft wood from Lowes)

2. Primer, Outdoor Paint, Spray Fixative, Foam Paintbrushes 

3. Saw or even better...Someone to cut the wood

4. Alphabet Stickers and Stencils

5. Acrylic Craft Paint & Palette

6. Small Paintbrushes (we used sizes 0, 3/0, 5/0, and 10/0)

Trace the template onto the wood. Cut the wood. Sand the wood. It was perfect to be staying with my Dad because he's great at this part of the process and I don't have any of the tools at my house in England.

 After the wood is smooth, prime it and paint it a colour of your choice. We used outdoor paint for the signs that will be in the garden and craft acrylic paint for the indoor signs. We painted two or three coats, depending on the colour and how it looked after the second coat of paint.

After the paint dries, spell out your names/words with the alphabet stickers. Then embellish with your fabulous artwork. For ours, the kids had special requests... 

Evangelyn: a Hawaiian girl and lots of flowers.

Corey: a palette on the left with all the paint colours, some paintbrushes next to it & an easel on the right.

Henry & Canaan weren't as specific with their request of turtles and fish.

Lily's was a gift, so she didn't put in a special request. :-)

We sketched some pictures and found some others on Google, then transferred the images onto the surfboards (you can see how here). Then we painted them carefully with our tiny paintbrushes. We started with larger (but not very large) paintbrushes but immediately realised that we needed ones that were much, much smaller in order to get the detail that we wanted. So, once you have your tiny paintbrushes, you can paint with acrylic craft paint. You're almost done!

Time out for this little guy...maybe not so little is a better description. He was really attracted to our painting palette...and we were a little loony from the paint fumes & skinny girl, so I had to get a good picture of him...but then he flew away.

Okay, back to the tutorial. We painted our garden signs slightly differently. My dad suggested painting a line down the centre, which was an idea that we loved! You can use some masking tape to create a thin line down the centre of the board. I suggest about a 1/4 inch space between the two pieces of tape. Then, use a stencil brush to paint on the colour of choice.

Next, choose what you want your sign to say and arrange the alphabet stencils in the correct order. Tape them down so they don't slide around while you're painting...and paint! I used the top edge of the bottom piece of tape to make sure my letters were in a straight line and then used smaller pieces of tape to secure the bottom of the stencils. After the paint is slightly dry, peel the tape off very carefully.

After the paint is completely dry, you can attach a hanger (I don't know the real name for these) to the back of the boards so they can be hung on a wall. We did this for the name boards.

Or

Attach a post to the board with a hammer and nails. I kind of wish I had done this before painting and stencilling so that the paint would cover the nails. Oh, well...next time!

Lastly, spray the boards with a protective spray.

 

Done! 

'Pray 4 Surf' is for our garden in England. 'Surf's Up' is for my mom, my brother's family, and my mom's neighbour. 

The pictures on the boards met all the expectations of the kids and they loved them!

Best of all, my mom, dad and I made some great memories throughout the saga of making the surfboards...

...and I get to think about those memories every time we glance at the signs in our gardens & on our walls! 

If you make a surfboard sign from my tutorial, I'd love to see it! You can post a pic at my Share with Sunny Stitching flickr group.

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Surfboard Signs and Train Piñata

Finally finished! 

My mom and I spent one more day last week finishing our surfboard name signs. 

These surfboard signs felt like a never-ending project and at times our eyes went a little cross-eyed, but they were well worth the effort and we loved the result. My kids, niece and nephew loved them, too...which is most important since the signs are for them! They were all very specific about what they wanted on their signs and I think my mom and I did a great job at personalising them to perfection!

I also completed another homemade piñata. This one's a train piñata for my nephew. 

He asked me to make him a piñata for his birthday and I could not say no to his big puppy eyes and sweet smile. So, I made it on one of my last days in California. I kept wondering why I waited to the last minute to make it, but surprisingly finished it in one afternoon/evening. It took about 8 hours to make inclucing a few interruptions like dinner and bedtime for the kids...much less time than the donkey piñata and star piñata! I was very careful to keep it small...but also made sure to fill it with loads of candy! My nephew was so excited when he saw it the next day. He jumped up and down about ten times, saying "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

I'll have tutorials for both of these up soon, so stay tuned if you'd like to make either one for yourself! 

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