Wit & Wistle DIY: Hand Painted Mug

Amanda at Wit & Whistle came up with this creative hand painted porcelain coffee mug. I love this idea, and love the design she went with. It would make a cute gift either full of coffee beans, cocoa, or cacao(organic, direct trade, shade grown-of course).

Supplies are two things: Cute mug, and Porcelain paint(links).

Check out her link here for the complete tutorial.

DIY Bat Banner and Halloween Bunting.

My mother e-mailed me asking for a Halloween Banner. She said she would pay me.. But what kind of child accepts money from their mama when they do things with love. It's a festive gift. I downloaded the font from fontsy called "Blood of Dracula". Fontsy has thousands of free fonts to download. Maybe I will share the best of sometime? Where was I? Oh.. So I hand drew all of the letters, cut them to size. Cut the scrapbook paper into four pieces, and cut the bunting triangles out evenly. I grabbed some orange construction paper and outlined each letter, and glued them together. Then grabbed some of my burlap, again cut out around the letters. Layed out the bunting, and put them in order to be sewn. I sewed the letters to the burlap to the bunting paper. Once still in order to be sewn, I grabbed my black fabric ribbon and made a bow then started sewing the bunting pieces to the ribbon.
As far as the bats go. I cut a piece of construction paper, folded it in half so the bat would be even on both sides. I started with cutting out the head, cut an ear, made the shoulders, then straight out to the tip of the wing, made three curves on the bottom side of the wing to the center of the paper. Open- and tada! A bat. I folded the wings on both sides so when shipping to my mama they will lay flat. I did this till I was out of paper, then sewed them together with my stitch width and length as high as it will go. That makes the tension less so you can space the bats apart, Otherwise the machine will automatically cinch them close together. You must also pull the bats through when spacing them.

Twig and Thistle DIY Project

Today's inspiration is a DIY project from Twig & Thistle Blog. She created a picnic blanket out of a poly-coated canvas drop cloth. It is brilliant because the bottom has a layer of plastic coating. She created a consistant zig zag using a foam core/foam board cut out. Once completely drawn, she then used painters tape to seal off the paintable areas. And then the easy part- Use a small paint roller, and let it dry over night. How simple!  Wouldn't this be perfect for that kids picnic I was just writing about in my last post? I Love the color too. Wouldn't this be fun for a wedding? Cloths for people to grab and lay in the grass with custom couples monograms painted on them. Here are some monogram ideas from The Wedding Chicks. (Kristy.. This is a really cute idea. There could be a basket of cloths just for kids- they could have games painted on them. Think: Personalised Twister Board!)

You can purchase a 5'x5' Poly-coated Canvas Drop Cloth at Home Depot for $7.98.