Printing on burlap, or I love my UK stuff !

As promised to a friend, here's how I printed on burlap last weekend.  I cannot take credit for coming up with this idea.  However, every tutorial, DIY or YouTube video I found were all on ink jet printers.  We only have a laser printer.  You see, the problem with a laser printer is the use of toner and the heat it creates to apply the toner.  And I was afraid running anything that had to be heated and bond to the burlap would come off in the printer.

But I decided to give it a whirl.  We bought the printer for fairly cheap, wouldn't hurt if I killed it right?  Plus the hubby was out of town.....

Anyways, lets begin!

First, assemble your supplies!

Freezer paper or some lightweight fusible webbing, rotary cutter or scissors, straight edge for trimming, and of course your burlap!

In addition to these items you will need an iron that you can use with NO STEAM.  The paper you see in the picture above was just a regular sheet of printer paper.  To me it was easier to just trim around that sheet instead of cutting the freezer paper before ironing it on.  Freezer paper can be found in the aisle at the grocery store with the plastic wrap and aluminum foil and such.  There is a lot on each roll.  But it can be used for all kinds of stuff!

Next, iron on your stabilizer of choice.  The great thing about this is if you use the fusible webbing, there is no right or wrong side to iron it on to.  So if you're using it just read the package directions and apply to your burlap.  Same goes for the freezer paper.  I just tear off a big piece and stick it on.

Next, trim to size!  You can fudge a little here.  Of course you can only print as wide as your printer will go, but just play with your margins and paper size.  I just used standard size.  Also, burlap is a woven fabric, and not a tight weave either.  Unless you have found some awesome burlap and if so please comment and let me know where you found it!  So you're going to want to either darken your image, or increase the amount of ink your printer settings are on to apply more ink to your burlap.

I found a piece of color card stock so that you could see better what I was talking about with trimming your paper to size.

Now here's where you can tell the difference between the two types of stabilizers.  Keep in mind you are not peeling anything off until AFTER you print.  But I just wanted to show you the differences.

  

The left side if the fusible webbing, the right half is what you would get when you used the freezer paper.  

Now that you have your paper trimmed to size, run it through your printer.  Make sure you know which way your paper needs to go in so that the burlap size is what gets printed on.  I used the Kentucky outline for my pillows.

And that's it!  You have a printed image!  I would run a hot dry iron over it to help set the ink, and I wouldn't suggest putting this on something that needs to be laundered.  Not only would I be afraid the ink would wash out, but burlap isn't the best fabric to run through your washer.  Now it's up to you to figure out what to do with your creation.  

This first image I am probably not going to use.  I have taken the image and inverted the colors and going to try again so that you can see the words better, and then frame it.It's some really cool UK subway art.  Just hard to read when there's not a light background behind it.  This also has the fusible webbing on the back, hence why it's cut so close on the left edge and not unraveling.  The fusible webbing would be great too if you were going to attach it to another piece of fabric, or just wanted to keep it from fuzzing out on the ends, as burlap so tends to do.  

And here's my pillows!  The smaller one on the left was my first try.  As you can see, i just did basic print settings, and it was stretched to fit a standard sheet of printer paper.  And you can also see that loose weave i was talking about because you can see the fabric behind both of them.  On the polka dot pillow I enlarged my paper to be legal size, and darkened the lines by adjusting the toner setting on the printer set up.

So there you have it.  You can use the same methods for printing on fabric in a laser printer as an ink jet! *

*(Disclaimer) I used my printer for this and took the chance of it not working.  Luckily it did but I make no guarantees about any other printer.  Be craft smart.

Have fun crafting and C-A-T-S, CATS CATS CATS!  ~A

Sneek peek

Here's a quick look at what I'm working on now. Stoli is such a good model.  Sorry for the poor picture quality as I took it with my phone last night.  I was too excited that it actually turned out to worry about finding my actual camera.

 

 

E-I-E-I-O, or Our little barnyard

I promised you critter pics!  And since then we have a new critter too.  But let me start from the beginning.  We have Shelby.  Our wonderful little Jack Beagle, adopted 9 years ago.  And then we got Zephyr so that she had a playmate.  Zephyr is deaf, and about 6 months younger than Shelby.

Then we got Stoli.  She is totally my baby.  Hubby got a new car so I got a new dog.  Makes sense right?  And you've seen Fanny on her.  She's pretty awesome so only makes it fair that I get an equally awesome dog.  Here she is!

 

She's a minature doxie, long haired and fluffy.

 

 

Then we moved to the farm and got the "Girls"  or as most people would call them chickens.

 

I don't have a picture of all of them seperate but here they are together.

 

Shelldon the little black rooster and the Beatles.  Evan named them....

These are the older girls, named after my favorite musical "Wicked"

Here are Elphaba, Nessa, Glinda, Dorothy, and Boq.  They were my first chickens given to me by my friend.  They are older so may not lay every day but it's what got me hooked.  I wanted more!!  That's what led to me getting the chicks in the above picture.  Had hoped they were all pullets (girls) but turned out Shelldon was a rooster.  But he's so cute and fluffy and little I am keeping him anyways.  The four white ones are named after the Beatles.  John, Paul, Ringo, and George.  Just don't ask me to tell you who is who cause they all look the same.  Hoping they will start laying wihin a month or so.  Then I adopted Johnny and June (not pictured) when a friend had to rehome hers.  They haven't quite messed with the others yet and just kind of do thier own thing when they are all out pecking around the yard.

 

But let me tell you there is nothing better than fresh eggs!

 

 

And just this week we adopted a cat.  Or really I should just say I.  Hubby is not a cat person.  But we live out in the country.  There are mice and such.  And they need to be kept under control right?  So introducing to the blog for I'm sure not the last time...

 

 

 

Cecil!

 

 

 

I leave you with some random pictures of when the chickens were being more photogenic.  If that's possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Until next time!

~A

 

Busy busy busy

Alright, I honestly have no excuse for being as crappy at posting on this blog as I have been.  I mean it's been January since I last posted and that had NO content to it at all.  Sheesh.

BUT I can make an excuse for at least a little bit of time.  Here's what happened.....

 

You remember this cute little house right?  The one that I've written about several times in this blog, kinda why I started it?

 

Well we sold it.  He he he.  We loved our house, it was our first house.  But not our forever home.

 

Sooooo there was the offer, we accepted, and then of course it was a week before we left for

 

Yep, seriously.  1 week to the day of leaving for vacation we get an offer on our house.  Which means we had 2 days to find a new one in order to get everything going to be able to close in time for our current home.

 

 

I DO NOT recommend this.  Seriously though, both our realtor, the buyers realtor, and our bank were AWESOME about keeping us informed, we had hubby's laptop with us so we would still check email and what not, sign agreements, and handle negotiations.  But boy was it stressful.

 

 

So Presenting!!!

 

 

Isn't it awesome?  See the lack of NEIGHBORS?  Well, they are there but not really close.  We both grew up on farms and city life was just not for us.  Yes we moved a county over.  Yes it increased commute time.  Yes we barely have internet and cell service.  But it's wonderful.

 

So while this blog will still be about making this new (most likely forever) house into a home, I hope to start adding more info, like homesteading tips, recipies, and the like.

 

I can't wait for you to meet my chickens!  I took some great pictures of them the other day.  But of course it was cloudy so the internet wasn't working.  Sigh.... the life of a country girl.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm back! Or, Pinterest made me mad...

I'm so sorry I haven't been around!  Darn holidays and such getting in the way of crafting.  And we're trying to sell the house so for a while I didn't even use my craft room cause I didn't want to drag stuff out, get halfway through a project, and then have to clean it all up.  Ugh.

But the other day I came across one of my pet peeves.  Links on Pinterest to something SUPER CUTE that I REALLY wanted.  Only to find it links to some bogus website.  Don't you hate that?  You get all excited about a new recipe you found, or a craft.  Click on the pic and bam!  Dead link, or even worse, just a larger picture of the food.  And don't get me started on those Polyvore outfits and thier $400 pair of pants.  Double ugh.

So let me start with the picture of the cute shoes I found....

Super cute right??  I did not inlude the link to them because it goes to a fake Toms website and I don't want anyone getting scammed.

And I LOVE Disney.  Plus we are going there for vacation this year.  So I thought perfect!  I could wear them while we are there!!  No such luck.

So I thought surely I could make my own!  And I did!!!!

A trip to Kmart and a few hours later....

 

 

 

Yeah I know these are not Toms.  But we don't have a store around here that sells them and I wasn't going to shell out the bucks for them.  But aren't they cute!!  I think I will still need to add a little more detail to the bow for Minnie but other than that I am perfectly happy with the way they turned out.

 

These will soon be listed on my Etsy shop.  Enjoy!

 

 

M-i-c-k-e-y   M-o-u-s-e!

 

~A

MIA

Wow I’ve been horrible at this whole blogging thing haven’t I?  I should have known not to start anything right before summer.  It seems we haven’t been home but a handful of weekends this summer. 

 

Car shows, visiting friends, mini vacation, and just general running around.  All filled up our schedule this summer.  I have all my hobbies, and hubby has his.  And since I haven’t really been all that crafty lately I’m going to share his.

 

Meet Fanny.  This is his (and my mom’s) 1962 Ford Falcon.  I got to name her because all cars need a name, and Hubs refused to name her.  Isn’t she pretty?

 

Hubby bought her at the Frog Follies in Evansville 2 yrs ago.  I wasn’t crazy about the idea but I have to admit I do like cruising around in her.  Old cars are different.  Now days, if you want to drive around with the windows rolled down, you need to shout to hear each other, and if you have the radio on forget it.  Girls, you have to pack your pony tail holders or be prepared to eat your hair for the whole trip.  Not in Fanny.  Since there is no AC you HAVE to roll the windows down or die.  But you can still talk at a normal level, and your hair isn’t a birdnest afterwards either.

 

I have to admit I haven’t really done much myself in the way of fixing Fanny up.  While she looks pretty nice, she has had to have some work.  I mostly stick to helping clean her up.  So far she has been to the NSRA show in Louisville twice, the Good Guys show in Nashville, we went to the BBQ festival in Nashville with her, and we go to all the little cruise ins around town with her.  The pic above I took of her when we went to one in the town over.  We’ve driven her to Patti’s for dinner, and to see the fall leaves.  However there weren’t many of those last year since it was so dry.  Maybe we can repeat that this summer since we’ve had more rain.  (HINT HINT)  :-)
 

So that’s all for now.  I promise to start doing better, especially since the holidays will be starting up soon!  I’ll also try to get a picture of the kitchen posted now that it is painted and decorated.  I am currently working on repainting the ENTIRE house since we are thinking of selling it towards the first of the year.  Any takers????

 

Later!

~A

Easy Peasy Dresser re-do, or, "it's new to me!"

Just a side note, you may notice I like to give things two titles.  It's kinda a nod to one of my favorite TV shows when I was younger.  Still like it too. Rocky and Bullwinkle!  I especially liked the Fractured Fairy Tales.

 

But I digress

 

This is a quickie project I did last month or so.  Did it in one afternoon so it's something anyone can do it.

Let's start with a before picture.  My lovely little MDF, buy in a box, put together yourself with a screwdriver and a hex key, had since college dresser.  Ignore the oddities in the knobs because I had removed some of them for a little dresser we had in the closet for hubby that I was selling online.  Nothing fancy here.

 

 

Lovely huh?  I also took this time of taking apart to tighten some screws, and apply some wood glue to anything else that was loose.

 

While I was taking pictures, and taking stuff apart, I left hubby to drill holes for the new handles.  And since I was covering the fronts I didn't even have to worry about filling the old holes!

 

This was the trickiest part.  However if you were to use a less strictly patterned paper if would be easier. I was using a roll of paper I had left over from another project (that blog yet to come) and I wanted this to be a cheap-o project.  I used my cutting mat, ruler, and rotary cutter to cut the paper to exact size.  On my drawers they did have a rounded edge so my measurements were just for the flat part of the drawer.  I first cut the correct length of paper.  From there I started at the bottom and cut the correct height. 

 

MAKE SURE YOU LABEL THE STRIPS.  I designated them right and left of the drawers, and then bottom middle top.  So on the backs of the paper I wrote BL, ML, TL,  to designate Bottom Left, Middle Left, etc.

 

And break out the Mod Podge!!  Now you can see why I had to label them.  That way my pattern lined up correctly.  I put the Mod Podge on the drawer front, then applied the paper.  Starting from the center, I used an old gift card to squeeze out and air bubbles and extra Mod Podge.  I think applied one coat of Mod Podge on the top and around the edges to seal everything in.  I happened to have a Matte finish on hand but that worked out anyways and I didn't really want a shiny finish.  The while part of the paper was shiny already and I didn't want it to loose it's pizazz.  I then used a skewer to poke out the holes when the handles would then go.

 

These handles I got at Hobby Lobby.  Man I love that place.  And it seems like they are always 50% off on their handles.  So getting 6 of these were only $15.  And that's all I had to buy for this project.  They have a kind of white, marble like center, and then a silver/nickel finish. 

 

And now for the BIG reveal.  Ta Da!



 

 



 

It's nothing crazy, but it makes me happy and has a more classy, adult feel to it instead of the college furniture look.

 

A few tips:

 

1) make sure you label the paper you are using if it has a pattern like mine where you want it to line up.

 

2) This was pre-pasted wallpaper but I used the Mod Podge to adhere it because I didn't want to deal with all the extra glue.  But you could do it that way too.

 

3) If you are changing the location of your hardware, I would suggest using a drill bit size larger than what the screws are.  That way you have a little bit of wiggle room if the holes aren't quite straight.

 

 

So what do you think?  Leave me a comment, let me know!  Think you'd try this for yourself?

Thanks for stopping by! ~A