{Tutorial} Kids' Artwork as Gifts

Do you remember the toddler artwork I featured earlier on this blog where my 2-year-old niece painted the background of four canvases and I added LOVE to them?  This is the same concept, except using both of my nieces!  They worked together to make a beautiful painting for my sister for Mother's Day - a very special gift that she will treasure.

I bought a pack of 16 x 20 canvases at Hobby Lobby (my favorite craft store) for super cheap.  Loaded up on acrylic paint, brushes, palettes, and water bowls. We were ready to rock.  The 2-year-old used three shades of blue for the background and went to town painting.  Once I convinced her painting her knees wasn't a good idea - to just stick with her hands - we got things moving.  Baby niece used a large craft paint brush and her hands to cover the canvas.  We flipped it around a few times to get all the white area covered (and helped just a little).

While baby niece was painting, teen niece used the back of wrapping paper to draw an artistic Palmetto Tree.  Next: cut it out, dry the massive amount of paint baby niece used on the canvas, and use the wrapping paper tree as a template, lightly tracing the tree onto the canvas in pencil. CAREFUL: you don't want to poke a hole in the canvas or make too dark of a mark.

Teen niece painted over the outline with dark blue...

Filled it in and then got crazy artsy with it. By mixing colors she had shades of blue for dots inside the tree.  She added a crescent moon in the corner, and gray "moonlights" to one side of the tree.  White/yellow dashes in the gray just to make it interesting.

She did such a good job, I love all the fun and unique things she added that created texture and movement to the piece.  Love it!

Since teen niece will be at her mom's house for Mother's Day, we celebrated a week early and surprised my sister with this coolness! She's a SC History teacher and she LOOOOOOOOVED it.  (For you non-South Carolinians, the Palmetto Tree is part of our state flag.  We are very proud of it!)
The best part is this gift is nice enough to be displayed in the living room; both girls feel a sense of pride and "ownership" in seeing their talents displayed in the house and for creating something so nice for their mom/stepmom; and my sister treasures a gift from her girls.

I really do encourage you to try it and share your experience with me! I'd love to see what you create.  Please don't think it has to be perfect - that's part of the special uniqueness of the artwork! Just let them go for it and see their pride when it's all complete. :)

Wanna pin it? Use this:

Beachy Scrapbook for Teen

Isn't life funny the way it works out?  One of my blog friends mentioned the other day she was helping out with an auction to help her local women's center purchase an ultrasound machine. This sounded pretty important to me and I had just uncovered a gender neutral baby scrapbook I had finished and never gifted/sold. I shipped it out to her to be a help to the auction - I figure every penny is one step closer!

Then, I visited my brother and sister-in-law this week for dinner one night.  Before I left, my SIL gave me this bag filled with stickers, paper and a scrapbook.  Her teen niece had bought all these supplies and never used them, so she asked my SIL to pass along to me if I would use them.  SCORE! Of course I don't turn down all this free scrapbook stuff! But as I went through it at home, I could easily see what she had wanted to do - make a beach themed scrapbook.

I haven't scrapped in a while (quite a while!!), but since I was home sick the next day anyway, I put together a beachy scrapbook that I'm going to send back to her.  There is a ton of stuff left over for me to use and I know starting your first scrapbook can be intimidating sometimes.  This will give her a place for the tons of beach photos I know she has (because I see them on instagram! haha).

There are most of the pages.  I hope they are teenish enough to catch her attention!  I do miss scrapbooking but became a bit overwhelmed with all the supplies and such.  And I have the attention span of a rabid squirrel so I'll move on to something else pretty quickly (lately it's been quilting and sewing).  

Isn't that funny?  I've been out of scrapbooking for ages and I get several reminders back to back like that.  It's like a secret message that I'm missing or something. :) 

Well, there you go - a beachy themed scrapbook for teens - enjoy!

Toddler Friendly Gift Tags

I don't know about ya'll, but to me it seems those who want to be most involved in all the excitement of holidays are also the ones who can't read yet.  Our toddlers.  They want to be part of giving out the gifts and watching people open them, but when you can't read the gift tags, it makes it a little difficult. Yes, you could have an adult crouched down at the tree on Christmas morning handing out gifts and telling them who to deliver them to, OR you could take this idea and run with it.

Toddler Friendly Gift Tags

I love it! This is the second time I've done it, but the first time I was much more fru-fru about it.  I found cute tie-on tags and printed everyone's pictures out and glued them to the tags so they looked framed.  This Christmas was total chaos and the cuteness didn't happen.  

But guess what.  The toddlers still knew who to give the gift to without the fru fru tags.  Yup.  So fire up the computer, pull up some photos, print, cut and tape to the gifts (I printed on plain copy paper).  Now ALL your family can get involved in the gift-giving excitement while you prop your feet up in the recliner. :) 

Enjoy!

DIY Gift Ideas

Ya'll know I started this blog as a play to show my scrapbooks for my Etsy company, Pressed Clovers.  But then I started doing other crafty things and putting pics up here, so it's turned into a crafty blog. 

When I started thinking of ideas for homemade gifts, I realized I had quite a few tutorials or ideas already posted on this website! Here are a few reminders and links to things I've posted in the past.

1)  The Christmas Scrapbook.  I make my mom one for her birthday on January 4th and print dozens of photos from Christmas for her to put into it immediately.  This way she hasn't forgotten any of the details and can have it ready for the next holiday season.  Don't forget to include the double sided stickers for the photos! (more photos in the link). Basically, each page has a place for a photo and is already decorated. All she needs to do is put in the pictures and write her memories.

2)  Photo Flower Pots.  While I made these for Mother's Day, I think it would be nice for Christmas, too. There are still flowers in the winter!  This isn't difficult at all and is completely personalized.  Print pictures on plain white copy paper and mod podge them to your flower pot. Easy Peasy!

3)  Monogram is all the rage! Many of us have tons of buttons laying about - buttons in jars, buttons in drawers, or in my case, buttons from a yard sale.  Tons of buttons. A quick run to my local craft store for a burlap canvas and some hot glue can turn buttons into beautiful monograms. Loved this gift idea! So quick, can finish it in an hour. 

4)  Teenagers! What about them? I wondered the same thing. Which started another one of my traditions - a scrapbook for my preteen niece.  With her, however, I buy lots of fun teenagerish stickers for to her decorate the book herself. I provided the book and basic layouts, tons of printed photos which all included her, and the double sided tape squares. She really impresses me with her creative ideas! This year, I'm giving her all the supplies pre-cut (mats for the photos and decorative strips of paper and tape, and stickers, of course) and letting her design the actual pages!

5) Toddler Artwork  This is my most favorite DIY project I've done to date.  Having my baby niece participate by "painting" four canvases and then I hand lettered the word LOVE on top. This is currently hanging in my bedroom.  Not keen on something that large? How about a small canvas or cardstock even, let them add a little paint and you add a monogram with a sticker!  Make it your own creation! :)

6) Baby on the Way.  New mothers or mothers-to-be... even grandmothers! love having these premade scrapbooks for the newborns most stellar moments.  The delivery day, the first day home, the first bath, baby sleeping - this provides a place for all those photos and will become a gift to the baby one day.  While baby boy is featured, just think pink for a girl.


I hope some of these ideas may inspire you to try a handmade gift this Christmas or into the New Year. Share your ideas with me, I'd love to hear them!

{Tutorial} Pinned It Did It - LOVE Canvas + Toddler Art

I have finally finished this project that I've been working on for a while now.  Here is a former post where I was in the middle of it - and it includes the inspiration pin where I got the initial idea.  I cannot possibly tell you how much I LOVE this artwork! It's so special to me and makes me glow every time I see it. I'd call that a serious #success!

Let's start from the beginning of the project and you can see how easy it is for you to do with your own toddler. :)

WHAT YOU NEED: 
4 cheap canvases - I used 8 x 10 that came in 2-pks
4 cheap acrylic paints (you can really use whatever number you'd like)
small paint brushes for the lettering
computer/printer to print letters
Scissors to cut letters out
pencil to trace letters onto canvas
1 enthusiastic toddler

As I tell you how I did it, I'll give you advice on what I'd do different.  The inspiration photo had the word LOVE taped out on one large canvas.  I wanted four individual ones AND I wanted more definition in the font than tape would allow, so I decided to come back after the toddler painting and paint on my letters.

I let Sweet Niece #2, who is barely 2-years-old, enjoy finger painting the canvases.  She would call out which color she'd want and I'd squeeze it directly on a canvas and she'd smear like crazy.  What happened, however, is she over smeared and I have large patches of brown/grey.  I think if I did a redo, I'd leave out the orange OR only use one color per canvas.  It didn't really matter to me, though, she had fun and it still turned out cute.

I pulled this picture above into a photo editing program to see what it would look like with letters painted on top, to get an idea of fonts and colors.  This is what I ended up with to work from:

Using this as a guide, I found a font that was very similar and printed single letters that would fit in the 8 x 10 canvas.  I cut them out and traced them very lightly onto the canvas.  Thankfully, I have smaller brushes and was able to do a decent job of keeping everything neat while painting the letters (see photos at the end for the actual letters on canvas.  Remember the one above is typed on with a computer program).  As I was doing this, I kept thinking Cricut letters would probably work just as well. I did measure the distance from the top of the canvas to keep everything even. I eyeballed to get them centered from the sides.

I used the original four colors of acrylic paint and thought by adding black, I could achieve this slightly darker color that would stand out from the background.  THAT DID NOT WORK.  Every time I would end up with a grey color that blocked all the pretty color out... not good. Like a Grey Pink, Grey Green - not a darker version of the original color.

This looks like DUSTY ROSE, not my favorite color! 

See what I mean about the grey colors in this pink and the green above it? It didn't really darken it like I was thinking it would do.  So instead I used a base that was darker than the original, then added some of the original color to it - like hunter green and added the lime color to it.  That seemed to work out perfectly!  In the photo below, I used the top green, and the bottom three colors of blue, pink/red, and orange.

By making them several shades darker than the background, you could really see the letters.  This pink below wasn't quite dark enough - I ended up going back over it with the darker pink/red and I liked it much better.

Original pink 

Darker pink  Don't you think it looks better?

So here are the side-by-side views.  The left I typed onto of the photo just to get an idea of what it would look like.  The right I painted on after tracing the letters to the canvas.  Not bad! 

And here is the finished product on my wall in my bedroom! LLLLLOOOOOVVVVEEEE it!!! Having my baby sweet niece's artwork as the background makes this so precious to me.  I think I may do another smaller version of this for Christmas gifts this year... what do you think?

I hope you'll try it and please share with me! You can email me at b_covington@yahoo.com. I'd love to see your own masterpiece! :)

{Tutorial} Buttons and Burlap Monogram

I found this huge box of buttons at a yard sale several years ago and have been wondering what to do with all these buttons?!  On Pintrest (of course) I found the button monogram idea and kept thinking this can't be rocket science, so surely I can do something like it. Finally, I sat down and did one this week and I like it! It isn't rocket science!

What do you need?  Well, here you go:

--Computer/Printer
--Pencil
--Scissors
--Canvas of some sort. I chose burlap, found at Wal-Mart
--Hot Glue Gun and Glue
--Buttons. Lots of Buttons

First thing I did was measure the canvas and head for the computer. In Word, I made a text box the size of the canvas so I knew how large I could go.  Pick a font and print. Cut out your letter so you have a stencil to work with - remember this part when you are choosing your font. :)

I took my cut out letter and my pencil and traced it lightly onto my canvas.

Look closely, you can see my stenciled letter H.

After that I eyeballed my buttons and tried to keep things mostly straight and level on the first layer.  Glue glue glue.

I cheated and filled in gaps as I went along in some cases.

Then begin looking where you need to fill in with buttons to cover up gaps. I noticed with burlap, even in the places I didn't cover up the pencil markings you can't see them on the darker backgroup of burlap.  I'm sure this wouldn't be the case for white canvas, so be careful!

I haven't added a ribbon yet, but that's next on my agenda. Although, you don't have to have it - this would sit in an easel just fine, as long as it was proped on the wooden border and not the empty canvas section in back.

My favorite part of this one? The bits of thread and cloth still in some of the buttons. Just imagine the stories it could tell!

Anyway, this took me less than 15 minutes to glue, but I wasn't overly picky about my buttons. If you are pickier, you might need to do some presorting by size, shades of colors, etc.

SO, what do you think?  Share your thoughts and any photos if you try your hand at it!

Felt Friends

I started going through some older photos and found a few that I never posted here! I wanted to share with you my FELT FRIENDS! You know I stareted by making felt hearts from a Pintrest pin I found (see the original post here). Actually, I started by making felt food for my sweet niece #2 - I'll find some photos I took of those items soon...

 Anyway, once I started with felt, I fell in love.

 After I made hearts, I had a request for clovers for St. Patrick's Day.

Then I made tons of hearts not in a Valentine's Day theme.  I'm still holding these, trying to think of a nonprofit or something that would like to use them for something?  Any ideas? 

I did some with stars, thinking boys might like hearts with stars instead of hearts with hearts or buttons? Just a thought, maybe I'm crazy. 

Then... I discovered FELT FRIENDS. I wish I could find the website where I printed out the best patterns for animals.  Don't you know, I have searched and searched with absolutely no luck. But anyway, here are several I made for my niece and for a friend of the family. 

It started with a rabbit for Easter.  Goodness gracious, everyone wanted a rabbit.  And rabbit ears aren't the easiest... but it's so darn cute.  It had to have a cow to play with as friends.  Then someone wanted a PIG.  And the pig was C.U.T.E.

So then I just made a farm of felt friends.  Cats, dogs, sheep, cows, pigs... fun fun fun.  Some I added the loops to and others I just left as random heads.  Which do you like better?  Loops or no loops?  I've thought about making sets of these as baby gifts.  There is nothing to harm them as they have no buttons.  Everything is handstitched.

You know that once the gates open up, someone else asks for a random something... which was an ADPi lion.  So, I made up an ADPi lion. 

And a penguin.  Because every child needs a felt penguin to play with, right? 

So there are my felt friends!! Feel free to copy any of the ideas - some were patterns and some I made up on my own (lion, penguin). And give me feedback, a good gift or no? Better for one-year-olds vs. babies? I don't have kids, to help me out! :)

The Perfect Gift for Weddings/Babies

Many years ago, my mom asked if I could find a registry book that a bride-to-be could take to every shower and just keep adding to the listings with each event.  Made sense, sounded like a great idea... but it was no where to be found. So, I created it. 

These have been improved over the years and are such a huge help to the bride or mom-to-be.  Each shower has its own title page to record all those details you'd want to remember many years from now.  Each shower has pages for recording the gift and giver, with a check box to mark off when Thank You notes are mailed.  There is even a section for the gifts received outside of a shower (by mail, those who missed showers, etc)  

It is really the perfect gift for anyone having a shower. Check it out! You can order a custom registry book at my store on Etsy: Pressed Clovers!