Love Birds for Love Birds

Hello Crafters!!

I started an awesome new job at a craft store and it has given me some awesome ideas.  The first being painting.  I decided to take it up.  I love to draw and why not use paint to draw.  So my next project was inspired by my favorite couple in the world LT and Leiah!  Their 3 year anniversary was February 28th and I wanted to give them a special gift, since I was the maid of honor at their wedding.

Leiah's original picture

When I need inspiration on gift ideas, I like to turn to Pinterest.  Leiah is always talking about how she wants things for her house and pins the stuff she really likes.  I remember a certain picture she really liked and decided that would be perfect.  Hope you like it, Happy Anniversary guys!

Things I used:

• Canvas 24 in x 36 in
• Acrylic paint (green, blue, white, peach, black, brown, yellow, turquoise)
• Paint brushes (I bought a variety pack of brushes)
• sponges 

I started with a base layer of blue and turquoise.  This is relatively my first time painting so I mixed colors and just started to paint.  I knew I wasn't going to get the colors right since I was using acrylic paint, and I'm sure they used a different kind of paint.  I decided I wanted it to have more of a green feel to it, so I went over it with a layer of green.  I mixed in colors like white, peach and different shades of other colors to get the shade I wanted. After I had a base layer of green and blue, I took the brown, yellow and some green used a sponge and just went crazy.  After, I was satisfied with all the colors, I let it dry for the night, and the next day I painted the birds and wire.  It was surprisingly hard to paint a straight line across the painting, that part took a while.  The birds were relatively easy. 

I hope you enjoyed this post.  As I get some more experience, I can give a little more detail on how I create some of these paintings.  But most of the time I just wing-it and hope for the best.  Remember you can always make requests and I will be happy to help/create something for you!

Thanks for reading, Jess out!

Finished painting, Happy Anniversary LT and Leiah!

Winged Shirt

Hello Again Readers!!

Original Wing Sweater

I'm back with some more posts, sorry for the temporary hiatus.  This past weekend I went to Las Vegas to  celebrate and watch some awesome rugby.  I decided that I would make some new clothes for this special event.  I went to my local Buffalo exchange to find some cool stuff that I could alter and add some flare too.

Recently I found myself in this feather stage, I love everything that has feathers or wings.  That is very weird, because if you know me you know I hate birds!  I found this picture on Pintrest of a shirt I really like and thought to myself "I can do that".  The following is my interpretation of that very shirt!


Supplies I used:

Felt Sheets

• Grey shirt (any shirt/sweater will do, the color is also your preference)
• Felt sheets, Light green, yellow, gold, purple, and red (you can also use regular fabric, I already had felt sheets so I used those, they are also super cheap)
• paper/card board (this is used to cut a stencil of the feather)
• scissors
• hot glue gun, or fabric glue
• fabric marker, or any kind of permanent maker
• Optional: needle and thread (this is used to reinforce the feathers, I was afraid that when I washed the shirt the feathers would come off with just glue connecting them to the shirt)

Grey Shirt

Ok lets get started, first you will need to cut out all the feathers.  I used the cardboard to cut a stencil of a single feather.  I made it the size and shape that I wanted all the feathers to be.  Then I took the felt sheet and traced the stencil using the fabric marker.  I traced them side by side, so that I wouldn't have to cut them individually, creating rows of feathers.  I used the original picture as my guide to estimate about how many feathers I needed in each row and how many rows I needed of each color.  

After I had all my feathers cut, I started to glue them on row by row.  After the first row the others went under the row before.  Be sure to only glue the top of the row.  After all rows were on, I went back and glued the whole row down.  I also cut out single feathers to add where I saw some blank spaces between rows.  After everything was glued I reinforced the feathers with thread, because I was afraid that in the wash the glue would not be enough to hold.  This is completely optional.  Presto! A once plain shirt now has some cool flare.

My new Wing Shirt!

Please continue to read, I have more clothes to post. 

Thanks! Jess out.