I can do stuff, too!

I'm going to clarify something-- I'm not a fan of crafts. I am not a fan of obnoxious DIY home decor. This is one reason I think Pinterest is super annoying, unless used for repinning Harry Potter quotes. So when you look through this blog, don't think I perused Pinterest for hours, because I most certainly did not.


T-Shirt Screen Printing

I saw Taylor's blog post about freezer paper stenciling and I immediately wanted to make a million shirts for myself. I instead had to wait until the end of the semester to make them for Mary for Christmas.

First thing, get materials.

• Tulip brand fabric paint. Use matte, not glossy. I had matte black and glossy white and the matte was so much better.
• Uh, a shirt. I got two for $5 at Jo-Ann's.
• Freezer paper. I found it at Walmart for $6-ish, but if you want some, I've got like 99 ft. left. Please use mine.
• Sponge brushes.
• X-acto knife, or in my case, a small box cutter blade. 

I made two shirts simultaneously, so don't get confused by the pictures.

First things first, find or make a pattern. Trace it onto the non-glossy side of the freezer paper.

Cut it out. Be precise and take your time.
My stupid pattern took forever.

PS, I made this pattern. 

Save all the pieces! Depending on your pattern, they might be crucial.

Iron it on the shirt with a low heat setting.
Make sure it's in the exact spot you want it-- a lot of people design shirts and place the pattern too high. I put the shirts on, held the pattern up and marked the top and bottom of the paper with masking tape.
Also, make sure it's straight.

Paint 'em up. Put a piece of cardboard in between the shirt layers just in case it seeps through.
And like Taylor said: don't use wet brushes.

Painting tip: light colors need multiple coats. I believe the white I used required 5 coats.

Another fabulous tip: start with light colors! I already knew this, but ignored it anyway. It made it much more difficult when I painted the 9 3/4 shirt. So if you don't want to go insane, start with light colors and then dark colors.

Lay flat to dry for about 4 hours.

To finish up, put a cloth over your finished product and iron over the design on low heat. This helps the paint to seal to the shirt so your hard work won't go down the drain (pun intended. Mwhaha).

Recap:

• Iron all your edges down. It makes life easier.
• Use multiple coats of paint.
• Be patient and don't peel it off too soon. It takes a long time to dry.
• Iron the finished product (make sure there's a cloth in between the paint and the iron)!

Tea Cup Candles

I did not take any pictures of actually making the candles, but it was super easy.

Materials:

• Tea cups. Go to DI, seriously. I got three for less than $1.50. I saw a lot of matching cups, but I chose to do an eclectic mix instead.
• Candle wax. I know you can buy chunks of candle wax, but I found mine at DI. They have a whole section of candles, so either buy one or two big candles that smell good or buy a pack of tea candles. I bought a pack of 12 cinnamon apple tea candles (unused!) for $1.50. It was a great deal.
• Wicks. Either buy wick material or use the wicks in the candle you bought. We couldn't use 12 little wicks, so we had to make wicks out of an old, unused mop we had. This is more difficult because you have to make sure the wick is made out of the right stuff.

The steps? Just melt the wax, place the wick in the candle and pour the hot wax into the cups. We used our outside grill stove and an old, crappy pot to melt the wax in. We dipped the wicks in the wax, wrapped them around sticks and placed them across the tops of the cups. This makes the wicks stand up straight while the wax dries. 

Recycled Vinyl Wall Decor:
(or Record Bowls)


This project was my favorite. But it was also the hardest and most time-consuming.
Jenna taught me how to make record bowls. They're super easy.
You can make a simple record bowl, but I wanted to try something new. I ventured into the land of recycled vinyl wall decor and it was much harder than it looked.

Materials:

• Records/vinyl. DI has a section of these. Don't get 45's (the small records) because you can't do anything with them.
• Scissors. Thick, sturdy kitchen shears were what worked. Regular scissors, big box cutters and small box cutters wouldn't do the job.
• Cookie sheet.
• Rubber gloves. The thicker the better. Jenna had some nice, thick yellow gloves that resisted heat well. You can use oven mitts, but your accuracy and control goes way, way down.
   

Turn on the oven to 200 degrees. Anything higher and you're going to get toxic fumes. Even at 200 degrees the melting vinyl smells... interesting, and it can give you a headache.

Using a big piece of roll paper, I laid it over the records and traced the size. I did this so I could plan out my design and make sure I had enough room for all the letters. You don't want to start spelling something and run out of room. How embarrassing. 

Set the cookie sheet in the oven. To speed up the process, I just left the cookie sheet face down so it would stay hot constantly. 

Once it starts to look sad and floppy, pull it out. Make sure you're wearing your rubber gloves because vinyl gets hot (actually, it technically has more latent heat, but that's just a nerdy clarification). Vinyl hardens in less than a minute, so  you only have a limited time before you have to throw it back in the oven.

The first letter is the hardest to cut out. I had to use a large box cutter and reheat the record multiple times in order to cut through. Once I cut through a little bit, I used the kitchen shears. This process takes a long time. It's easy to get impatient, but I promise that if you get the record hot (and not warm) it's much easier to cut letters/shapes.

 If you're cutting and you feel the vinyl start to harden, don't try to keep going. Just throw it back in the oven and wait for it to heat up again. Not only can you break pieces off, but it's slower and choppier when you try to cut cool pieces of vinyl.
















Keep going. The "Wilkerson" record took about 2 hours to cut out because of how many letters there were. The "Giles" one probably took about an hour.

Your record will warp each time you put it in the oven, so don't expect a flat record at all.

Make sure your windows are open. I started going insane because of the fumes. I would recommend taking frequent air breaks.

I left the edges of the letters rough because I was too lazy to sand them. I'm assuming you can gently sand the edges if it really bothers you.

You're done!

If this task sounds daunting, start with record bowls. I used the basic design of a record bowl and created a makeup holder for Mary using scraps to shape compartments. Perhaps I'll show that another time.
Also, we used scraps to make fake mustaches.


Reindeer Bottles:
(aka Reinbeer)


The original idea I saw was to decorate beer/root beer bottles as reindeer, but I decorated latte bottles instead. It's a really simple, cute present idea.

Use hot glue. Believe me.

You can use googly eyes or just draw them on with Sharpie.

Voila! Super easy.


So there you go. There's some stuff to occupy your time and make you look like you don't just watch movies for a living.