First Attempt at Upcycling a Table

So I bought a cheap plain wood table from Dunelm, painted it, sanded it and varnished it. I like the way it turned out 🙂

First Attempt at Decorating a Baby Grow – Oh Dear!

So my friend gave me a baby grow to decorate for her. I used archival inks and hand-carved stamps, then used sharpies in my Blitzer.

I was quite pleased with the results…..then I washed it at 60 degrees 😦

Twit Twoo – Canvases for my friend’s new baby!

So, one of the projects I worked on a couple of months ago was for my friend’s baby’s nursery. She wanted something feminine, but not just the classic baby colours. Or maybe that was my influence, as I wanted to do something brighter! She chose grey for the walls so she could bring in colour with the accessories and she didn’t know the sex of the baby at that point.

As soon as I knew she had had a baby girl I could get going!

I decided I wanted to do owls, so I started sketching and looking at other owl designs for inspiration. I already had my owl stamp as a starting point, but I wanted two owls for this set of canvases to go side by side with a name canvas in between.

The first step was to use a stencil I had my Mum cut for me on her Silhouette machine and some coloured texture paste I made with Modge Podge and baby powder. Oddly it dried dark pink, which was a little disappointing as I’d wanted the same colour when it dried as it is in this picture.

So then I had to replace the stencil, mix in some white paint and redo it. I left a bit of bright pink showing through.

The next step was to add some contrasting blue. Sorry the photos aren’t the best quality, I took them on my phone!

Then I began cutting the canvas shapes I needed for each owl. Here is how I started positioning them:

Then I coloured the pieces and stitched around each eye and tummy piece with blanket stitch, before finally gluing them all on!

This is the final result:

A very good morning!

So I finally have Wi-Fi again! Wooohoooo! You never realise how much you rely on these things until you have to go without them.

I’ve decided that I need to go back to my hobbies in order to reduce my work stresses and I made a good start this morning.

I went to a local small town and I bought some Inktense blocks and some paints from the local craft shop (and the people were very lovely there!!) Then I popped into the local independent cafe and ended up having a chat with the owner about exhibiting a canvas there! I am brimming with ideas of what I’d like to do now!

So I’ve also been adding varnish to my latest upcycled table/Ikea hack. I will take some proper photos when it’s finished and put them up here.

I have done quite a few other little bits since I last properly posted (I’m always working on something I guess!) to I’ll have to have some proper photography taking at some point soon to bring my blog back to life!

I am also considering doing a printmaking and etching course. I am just a bit worried I wont have the strength to operate the machinery. I#d like to join a crafting group but I don’t really know where to find them!? Any one have any ideas on how to start?