Painted Pottery

I had to wait to post until I gifted this new craft - it's a hand-painted over-sized mug! LOVE these types of things and the size is perfect for soup, cereal, whatever you wanna chow down on. A new paint pottery place opened up about 35-45 minutes from me and I had to try it out. And try it out. And try it out! This is the most recent piece I completed and gifted to my friend in Alabama when I went to go visit with her.

The cool thing about this place is they save the dried up paint from where people have squirted out too much paint for their object and turn it into paint chips. Then you can apply a layer of wet paint and "glue" the chips to your pottery.  When the paint is unfired, it looks NOTHING like what it does once it is fired, so you really don't know what colors the paint chips are - it's just a luck of a draw kinda thing.  So I knew I had to use that obnoxious yellow green, wanted it pair with blues and figured - heck, the paint chips can't make it any weirder looking so let's go for it!

I'm so glad I did because I LOVE IT! The paint chips melt down the curve of the mug and just makes such a cool effect.  My niece tried it on her pottery - one piece was a flat cross and one an owl figurine.  The cross paint chips melted but made colored spots where they were.  Only in the places with lots of chips in one small space did they mix together.  Her owl figurine had the colors melting together as they ran down the curve of the owl's back, so it was really cool.

On the outside I etched swirlies just to make it cute and girlie.  They aren't super noticeable but I'm still glad I didn't try to paint them on. That would have made  mess, I think.

Anyway, you can always use Pintrest for tons of ideas on what to paint on all types of pottery - from your child's handprints and feet prints, to just trying your hand at something that interests you.  If I find some more pics from our painting trips, I'll come back and post them here.  Until then - go try your hand at some creativity! :)

{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! :)

Pinned it... Working on it.

Ya'll know how much I love Pintrest and I actually attempt some of the things I pin.  I know, what a crazy idea, right?  Anyway - If you have seen the pin where the toddler finger paints on a canvas and then you turn that into the beautiful LOVE picture, I thought surely I could do that.

Here is the inspiration pin:

source

I wanted my letters separated with different canvases for each letter. So I bought my four canvases and four colors of paint.  I wanted to paint my letters on afterwards for a more defined letter with serifs. So I thought I'd just let Sweet Niece #2 go at it with some paint.

Um... unfortunately, four colors all mixed together by an energetic 2-year-old turns grey/brown.  No more pretty colors.  So yeah, I needed to do this project when she was younger.

Here is where I'm at today.  Hopefully over the weekend, I'll get the letters painted on and will have an update for you next week.

What do you think? Can I make this something worthy of hanging on my wall? Hmm... I'm not so sure. Will update you ASAP! :)

{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!

{Tutorial} Toddler Fishing Game + Template

My niece turned two this month.  I'll have another post with more pictures, but today I wanted to share this new toddler game we created.  (I'm sure it isn't NEW but it was new to us.) We wanted to have a fishing game - you know the one with the cardboard and someone hides behind it and the kids toss their lines over the cardboard to get a surprise. I was not wanting to figure out how to hide behind cardboard, etc etc. SO... This is what we came up with instead. 

Toddler Fishing Game

1 kiddie pool (ours is from Wal-Mart)

1 blue plastic table cloth from the dollar store

multiple colors of paper (construction paper, scrapbook paper, whatever)

scissors to cut out fish

round stickers for fish eyes

markers to decorate fish

paper clips 

a fishing pole of some sort

string

magnet - strong one

pipe cleaner

hot glue

We purchased a kiddie pool from Wal-Mart, a blue plastic tablecloth from the dollar store and made "water" in the bottom of the pool. Using multi-colored pack of scrapbook paper, we made fish (I'm including a fish pattern if you want it) and drew some fish details and round sticker (eye) on each one. Added a paper clip to each fish nose. 

For a fishing rod we happened to have an unopened toddler one.  Threaded some of that baker's twine or whatever string you got on hand.  Used a pipe cleaner for a "hook" and glued a super strong magnet to the very bottom of the hook.  There you go! Time for some FISHING! As each kid caught a fish, they received a prize, which became their goody bags. We had two, three and four year olds and they all enjoyed fishing, with or without prizes.  They just liked fishing!

To use these patterns, just print it out so it fits on one half size of paper. Fold your paper in half, and you can cut out two at once!   The plain one is if you want to jazz it up yourself. The decorated one is how we made ours look.  Somewhere near the smile is where we put our paper clips. 

So there you go! It was really easy and the kids loved it. Everyone caught fish with no problems thanks to a pretty strong magnet.  What do you think? If you try it, let me know how it works out for you, or how you tweaked it! I'd love to hear! :) 

Pinned It Did It - Felt Hearts!

When I saw this on Pintrest, I knew what I wanted to do with all this left over felt I had from the felt food I made for my niece this Christmas. I wanted to make felt hearts to share with those crafty people in my life that I love dearly.




I had another pin of all these brown felt hearts but it seems I deleted it.  Oh well.  WAIT! I found the website  it's actually on the same page as the red ones above:

check out the entire blog post here.  she rocks. 

So I picked up several colors of red, pink, cream, brown, and tan. And several shades of embroidery thread in all those colors, too.  I have tons of buttons - old buttons, new buttons, craft buttons, oh-la-la button - so I didn't need to buy those.  Then I sat down at got to work.

Basically, I took a piece of card stock, folded it in half, cut it into a half-heart and made myself a heart shaped template. It's about the size of my palm. I kept refolding and trimming until I was happy.

Then it was just a matter of holding the template on top of the felt and being still as I tried to cut. It was a hot mess to tell you the truth, but it's ok, I like the rustic look. Which is good because I can't sew all that great, either.  I looked up different stitches on You Tube to teach myself.

So I wanted to do three for each person, with each of the three different. Some had smaller hearts overlapping, or one larger contrasting heart - buttons or just one button, the stitching helped make some stand out a little more... I really looked at the example above and went with it.

I made one set for myself - black, gray and cream.  Here is mine on my vanity in my bedroom.  The photo is of my great-grandmother and me (I live in her old house).  My hearts are in a special place! :)

See some of the other groupings below! :)

I also made a set for my preteen niece, who is all about owls and mustaches - hers are larger. I found printed felt at Hobby Lobby.  The mustache I just made myself and stitched it on.  Please ignore the very wrinkled tshirt I'm using as a backdrop!

My boss liked them so much she's giving them to her friends this Valentine's and found these cute buckets to put them in!  What do you think?

Ok, just a few more before I sign off -

Hope this possibly inspires you to try your own! It's lots of fun and folks really enjoyed receiving them in the mail. Feel free to share your creations with me! I'd love to see them.  And join me on facebook at www.facebook.com/pressedclovers.


Easy to Pin!

Pinned It, Did It: Strawberry Torte

I found this when playing with my All Recipes Dinner Spinner (love this app!) and it just looked so easy and yummy!  One of those great for summer recipes because it doesn't require firing up the oven and it's a chilled dessert.  So when we were going to my brother and sis-in-laws for dinner, I thought this would be a great dessert!




I confess: I searched high and low for lady fingers in my local grocery store with no luck.  So that left me to substituting something else.  Well duh, if I would have thought about it a bit more, I wouldn't have used round cookies instead of long skinny ones, but oh well. It didn't cause any problems. My substitution were butter cookies by Keebler.

The cookies were a bit thick for this, I think, especially as a crust on the bottom. But the filling is very firm and as you can't see, didn't spill out of the sides.  The red is from the strawberry topping and I also put strawberry in the middle. You can kinda see it below.

I'm bad to read reviews and make the changes without trying the recipe without the changes first.  This time, I did add some almond extract to the filling and it was tasty, but I kinda wish I hadn't.  I also added the strawberry puree in the middle, and that was a good thing.  Again, the cookies were so thick in the middle. But it was tasty and I would definitely make it again! You should try it - it is SO EASY.  Even the people who don't like whipped cream liked it! :)

Pinned It, Did It - Party Pins

My sweet niece turned one this weekend and we, of course, used Pintrest for all kinds of ideas to help make thing easier and cuter!! :)   The theme was bunnies in pinks and greens and I gotta say, Pintrest did help us - and impressed some of our guests.

BALL PIT!!!!
What kid doesn't want their own ball pit? We took a sandbox (which was Sweet Niece's gift from her parents) and filled it with balls from Toys R Us.  We spread out a quilt to out to cover the grass and kept it down with "baby jail."  I think they call them play yards but whatever. It's baby jail. The kids loved this area and spent most of their time hanging in this area.

RABBIT FOOD!!!
Who wants Ranch dressing all over their bunny cookies? Not me. So these cups of ranch and rabbit food worked out great. All the yummy goodness is contained without any of the mess. Worked great!

ICE CREAM MUFFIN LINERS!!!
Another great idea.  No pictures, but it was very cool.  We let the ice cream soften, scooped and stored the night before.  When it was time to serve, we literally walked around with the muffin tins and let people pick them up.  Folks loved it.


CUPCAKE LINER WREATH!!!
Super cute idea and it was SO easy to make. You can check out the entire tutorial here.  We used it at the end of the cupcake table with bunnies around the base of the wreath holder. SO CUTE!


This is the one I created for the party and pinned. The wreath in use is pictured below!

GIFT GIVEAWAYS!!!
So I didn't totally copy this one, but it did give me ideas for what to do at our party. We found these tins at the dollar store and I used Sharpie markers to write everyone's names on a tin. We found bunny bags on clearance after Easter and put all kinds of small items in each one - age appropriate for the child, of course.  I thought they turned out cute!

So, what do you think? Was this one heck of a Pintrest inspired party or what? hahaha.  It was a great time and I'm really glad we used the ideas found here because it did make life easier for us at the actual event!  :)  I'm linking up today and heading to check out other's people's cool ideas!

{Tutorial} Baby's Feet Print - Priceless Treasures!

I usually cross-post items with my personal page, Whiskey Tango Hello, but this one didn't make it over here to Pressed Clovers.  So let me change that right now!

As you may know, Sweet Niece #2 is turning one tomorrow. So this Pintrest project involves her sweet little feet!

Here is the Inspiration Pin:


And here is my creation - a gift for my mom (the grandma of Sweet Niece):

This was so easy to do and turned out so stinkin' cute. My mom loved it! She still has it on display at her house.

Here is how to make your own -

Needed Items:
8 x 10 picture frame
1 piece of printed scrapbook paper (I used Susan Branch paper - click her name for a visit!)
1 red piece of paper
1 white piece of paper
Three buttons
adhesive (glue stick, double sided tape, whatever)
Ink/markers/paint - for the feet print
One adorable baby

I'm not going to write a step-by-step because it's pretty obvious what to do. But I will give you a few words of advice.

1) You'll need two people, one to hold the baby's foot and one to guide it into the V formation you need for this.  And be prepared because you'll have to deal with the icky foot before you move on to the next footprint because they will want to put the icky foot down on the paper again.

2) We used washable red marker instead of an ink pad or paint because that's what I had on hand.  I'm not so sure I'd do it again because you can really see the marker lines on the print. See how it looks a little streaky?  Not that my mom cared... but you know about wanting things perfect!

3) The buttons are glued to the outside of the picture frame, to the glass. :)  Just in case you didn't realize it.

So, what do you think?  It's not PERFECT but I was happy with it.  Now go visit other people's Pinned It Did It projects by clicking the button below! :)

{Tutorial} Photo Flower Pots

Pinned it, Did it!

Here is the pinned item:



And here is my item! :)

Ya'll know I don't usually do tutorials, but this project came out so stinkin' cute, I had to share it. I found the original idea on Pintrest (Pinned It, Did It!) but never found great directions. Here are the directions for an adorable photo flower pot.

What you will need (or what I used):
Newspaper or something to avoid a major mess
Terracotta Flower Pots
Mod Podge
White Acrylic Paint
Foam Brushes
Access to a laser printer or copier - NO INK JET
Flower

Optional:
Ribbon, Buttons - your choice of stuff for the lip
Oil Diffuser Ring
Hot Glue
Super Glue

Ok, I think that will get you ready for cuteness. I did this at work it's so easy, so pretend like you don't see my work desk in these pictures, ok?

I first painted the clay pots white. You don't have to, I just liked the look of it better.  I used a foam brush and wasn't careful because it will mostly be covered up with pictures and ribbon. It dried super quick. 

I didn't paint all the way inside because you'll be adding a flower later.  I chose to include the base of the flower pots, too, but that is optional. 

I used Publisher to make up plenty of pictures for the pots. I think my pots were 6" and it took 15 pictures to cover pretty well. I did use two different sizes - a smaller (2" x 2") and larger size (2.4" x 2.4"). I also learned to leave a bit of "dead space" in the pictures and not fill the frames up with faces BECAUSE you'll need to overlap a bit.

I printed on a laser printer with regular copy paper and worried they would streak when I applied the glue, but they didn't.  I do not believe an ink jet printer will work on this.

I also learned by the second one to lay out the design to see if you'll be covering up people's faces or not. Or to make sure the kids are scattered all the way around and not just in one spot.

Grab your Mod Podge and smear some on the pot with another foam brush. Take a photo and press it into the glue, smoothing it out as you go with your fingers. Keep doing this until everything is covered.  I did have some white gaps showing the painted pot at the top, no biggie. Just keep smoothing as you go. I did end up with a few wrinkles, but it wasn't very noticable. The copy paper is very thin, but I think anything thicker might not adhere as easily?? Thoughts on this - please share.

Once you are totally covered, smear Mod Podge all over the outside using your foam brush.  It dries clear so no worries! (I had never used it and it was SO EASY!) I do recommend keeping it going in one direction because you will see brush strokes in certain lights.

See, it's clear! I must have done 4 coats or more, letting each one dry before adding another to it. I wanted a good solid coating before I gifted it. 

After they dried I used super glue to adhere ribbon around the top lip for decor. Hot glue seems to leave ridges and super glue doesn't.  Understand, it will NOT lay flat all the way around because the edges are tapered. To get bubbles at the bottom edge of the ribbon out, I made a little snip with scissors right in the middle of the bubble, overlapped and glued down the two sides and it removed the bubbles. I hot glued buttons and bows to add some color to all this black/white scheme! And thankfully, I found flowers that fit perfect into the pots with liners!!

Optional addition:  because I was planning to use live flowers that would require water, I decided to add an oil diffuser ring to the bottom so the bottom of the pots wouldn't be standing in water.  I hot glue those on, too. Anything would work - like a shower ring, I would think. But those only added a dollar to the overall cost. I thought they turned out so cute - the diffusers are almost like a little pedestal for the pots. :)

Tell me what you think! I'm sharing this on Pintrest, too. And please share your pictures if you decide to do it!! I'd love to see how yours turn out. It's awesome to see everyone's take on it, you know? So please share!! :) 

Mom with her gift

My sister with her gift

Oops. after seeing everyone else's, I think I misunderstood. :) I'll do better next time!