Harry Potter Quilt of Scraps

 

I have been cleaning out some fabric cupboards and noticed I had some small pieces of Harry Potter fabric I had collected over the years. I meant to make a scrap quilt out of the scraps, except I didn't really know how to make quilts very well at the time. 

I decided to make a Harry Potter quilt to be gifted to a Harry Potter fan I know. I gathered up all my fabric and cut out 10 1/2 in squares. For the smaller scraps I sewed peices together to make 10 1/2 squares of smaller pieces. I didn't plan or organize anything as I wanted it to look like it came together by "magic". ha-ha. 

It's a collage quilt for sure, kind of gobby, but I think it will be cherished by the recipient. I sent it off to be machine quilted. It probably won't be back for several months. 

I had fun making this quilt and enjoyed the process of finding the fabric and fitting all the little pieces together. 

The final size is about 66" X 76". Can't wait to see it all finished. 

The Highland Cow Quilt - Pattern by Art East

 I bought this adorable highland coo quilt pattern from Art East Quilting. I think I bought my pattern from a seller on etsy.

I ordered all the same fabrics and cut out all the pieces. I soon found out I needed great organization to keep all the pieces in order, so I used my long marking pins I made from long pins and glued on letters. I used up all my pins, and I have 10 of each letter A-Z. 

I made my own quilt marking pins using flower pins, and alphabet beads. I glued the beads on using glossy accents from Ranger. 

 

I only made one highland cow block with the optional star design. I decided to put borders on to make the quilt into a larger lap-sized quilt. I am sending it to Missouri Star quilt to be quilted with a shamrock design, and tan minky cuddle fabric backing. It will be so cozy and soft. Here is the quilt top ready to be sent off to be machine quilted.

 

This lovely quilt is going to my son as a gift. One day about a month ago, he mentioned that he almost bought some artwork of a highland cow, but put it back and didn't buy it. I laughed and showed him the beginnings of my highland cow quilt block. We were on the same wavelength that day for sure. We both laughed. It was a pretty strange coincidence, to both have Highland cows on the mind the same day. 

I told him I could make the quilt for him, as I wasn't aware he liked highland cows. So I finished the quilt top and instead of a wall hanging, made it into a full-sized quilt. 

I will post the finished quilt in a few months when it comes back from being machine quilted. 

Just a note on making this quilt. I realized I cut a few pieces wrong as I was making the block, and I had to go back and recut some shapes, so half the battle is organizing the cuts as it becomes very confusing in a hurry. Make sure before you sew each piece that is measures the correct size before sewing it. Label everything. The pattern is easy to follow, and is adorable, but don't cut it out at midnight like I do when I'm tired, and make sure to label each piece as instructed in the pattern. The pattern tells you which colors they used and kona cotton, and I did the same as I loved their color choices.

 Fleur Meadow C9873 Dark Blue - Riley Blake Designs - Floral Flower Leaves White Flowers - Quilting Cotton Fabric

 

Meadow Trinkets AGF PREMIUM COTTON Rust Fall Floral Art Gallery Fabrics 100% Premium Cotton Quilting Fabric Mask Fabric Rusty Brown Blue

Blue Meadow 0785-0121 Blue Laura Berringer Fabrics for Marcus Fabrics

For the borders, I found some fabric on etsy that matched as I couldn't find any fabric in the stores with the right colors. Local fabric stores are getting harder to find right now, so I often have to order fabrics that will match or to find the fabric collection I'm looking for. 

I love this pattern, and will eventually make another similar quilt for me. 

I selected this quilting pattern (shamrocks)

Some day I will travel to Scotland again and enjoy seeing the highland cows in person. On a trip to Scotland once, I was on a train and saw some highland cows living a great life near the sea. Their fur was blowing in the breeze and they  looked very content. What a life! Highland cows on a green pasture hill overlooking the sea!

Kona Amber

Kona Cedar

 

 

Kona Butterscotch

Kona Wheat

Kona Khaki

Kona Pool

Kona Black

Kona Baby Pink

Kona Snow

Mermaid Shoes! DIY Encrusted Reebok Sneakers with pearls and rhinestones!

 I decided to bling some new shoes, and try all different baubles and rhinestones to make some "mermaid shoes". The shoes are spectacular!!!

 Here's how I did it: 

Supplies:

Amazon: Briskbloom 60g Mix Pearls and Rhinestones, 3620PCS 2mm-10mm Flatback Rhinestones and Half Pearls for Crafts

 Amazon: Beadsland 2880pcs Flat Back Crystal Rhinestones Round Gems for Nail Art and Craft Glue Fix,Aquamarine AB,SS10,2.7-2.9mm

Aleene's Liquid Fusion Clear Urethane Adhesive, 4-Ounce

Amazon: Mixed Size 2/3/4/5mm 1000Pcs Imitation Pearls Bead Half Round Flatback Pearl Rhinestones Beads Nail Art Crafts DIY Gem Decoration (01 Pure White AB)

Amazon: 4000pcs 3mm Resin Rhinestone Multi-Color Flatback Jelly Resin Rhinestones Bling Glitter Diamond Sparkly Stone for Makeup, Mugs, Tumblers, Craft Decoration (AB White)

Amazon: MARFOREVER 120 Pcs Summer Ocean Themed Sea Charms for Jewelry Making, Assorted Gold Enamel Charm Starfish Seashell Marine Pendants for Necklace Earring Bracelet Jewelry Crafting Gifts for Women Mom

 

 

I put down a line of glue and picked up the beads with either a wax tool, or tweezers that came with some of the gems. I did a small section at a time. I first did the aqua stripes and let them dry for 24 hours. Then I did the large blue pearl mix sections. That was the fun part. Next I did the clear crystal side section. Let it dry for 24 hours. Last I did the chunky pearl heel. I mixed the pearls with a plastic clear gem that made it sparkle! The heel was hardest because of the curve. I did the heel in smaller sections, letting it dry between. After the shoe was done on one side, I did the same thing on the other side, letting each section dry for 24 hours. When the entire shoe was finished, I added some charms to the shoelaces with large white jump rings. 

The shoes turned out so cute and the gems are so much more sparkling than the photos show.

I ended up having to buy one extra pack of the white pearl mix, and another pack of the blue pearl mix as well as I was running out. 

 

Other tools: 

 

Wax rhinestone tool and tweezers

Creative Hobbies Glue Applicator Syringe for Flatback Rhinestones & Hobby Crafts

This is not inexpensive, but it is very fun and the shoes turn out spectacular! If you want to walk around in Mermaid Sneakers, you have to make some sacrifices! ha-ha. 

I probably spent around $70 on glue and gems. I wanted to try many different kinds of gems, so this shoe is a "sampler" of many gems mixed together in sections. I could have used one kind, but I wanted to try lots. I have some extras to bling a few other shoes!

Playing with Decoart Media Antiquing Creams

I had some cheap plastic mini Christmas ornaments I got at Walmart last year I meant to do something with but they were still sitting on my table in February pushed behind some other stuff.

Well, then last weekend I had a sick grandbaby that had to go to the hospital with RSV and she’s only 3 months old so I was helping them out during the presidents day weekend. They kept her at the hospital overnight to monitor her breathing and she’s now home and she is getting better and everything is ok.

So what does all this have to do with crafting? I will tell you. After everything was ok and I was cleaning up germs and disinfecting things after tending sick people, I found myself stressed out after the fact. Stressed out and restless. Even though everything is ok, I was still worried.

I saw the ornaments while cleaning and decided that I just needed to paint something for stress relief. I needed to paint some cheap plastic things and make them look like timeworn metal treasure. Something creative was just what I needed to calm down and do what I do.

The decoart media paints are my favorites for creating treasures because they have so much pigment. The antiquing creams are my most favorite! They are so easy to work with. You just paint them on, let them dry, and wipe off what you don’t want with water. If you goof up, you can wash it off and start over. There is no pressure. If you add a layer and get it just right, you can seal it so it won’t wash off any more, then add more layers.

So I will now share some photos of my stress relief treasures.

These owl ornaments started out as gold plastic cheap looking lightweight small ornaments for a mini christmas tree. I used decoart antiquing cream color English Red Oxide, with a little Raw Umber for shading in areas. After painting the entire ornament and letting it dry, I wiped off some to allow the gold to shine. Now they look like old world brass ornaments. I sealed them with a matte clear coat to seal the antiquing cream so it won't wash off. Fun!

Here are the red plastic owls with the light gray antiquing cream. They look better in real life as the photo isn't showing the matte gray with the shining red.

There were some gold plastic dumb ornaments, that turned into old world scroll work with the patina antiquing cream.

These stars look very dramatic in real life with the dark gray antiquing cream. They look like a "Dracula" medallion. Before the antiquing cream, they looked like 10 cent plastic trinkets.

I used the white antiquing cream on these green stars, plus a little glitter with the raw umber antiquing cream around the edges. The texture is interesting and you can see it now after antiquing.

The stars were a little damaged, and were gold plastic, and now look link vintage time-worn ornaments from yesteryear.

So I hope you will get to try out all the colors of antiquing creams. I use them to de-stress as I turn cheap plastic stuff into time-worn treasures. It is fun, and will lower your blood pressure because you can't goof up when you are testing it out on random plastic stuff that doesn't matter.

Love the decoart products, especially the media line!

I ran out of the carbon black antiquing cream so I need to get some more.
I just buy it on amazon.com. Search for Decoart Antinquing Cream.
I have all the colors and I love them!
 
You can see all the antiquing cream colors on the Decoart website

Rusty Steampunk Santa Star

I was browsing the decoart blog and saw this mixed media project by Elly Pirally and recognized the Santa as I have the mold already. Here is a link to the project tutorial on the Decoart blog and you should check it out! Decoart Christmas Star mixed media project by Elly Pirally.

I made my Steampunk Santa Star using the same colors. Instead of using eggshells, I used a wooden star and covered it with some rusty looking scrapbook paper using matte medium. I used turquoise sculpey clay in the Santa Mold. The big gear in the middle is a plaster gear from a gear mold I have that you can get here. I painted it with Modern Masters Iron paint and used the rust solution on it afterwards. The large gear has real rust now because the paint has iron in it. The Santa has the faux patina created with decoart products. (See the tutorial by Elly Pirally to see how to create the Santa!) The only thing I did different on the santa was to use sculpey bake clay.

The smaller gears were cut out of craft foam sheets with the Tim Holtz "gearhead" set of dies.

The snowflake is a wooden snowflake I painted and antiqued with English Red Oxide antiquing cream from decoart.

The project is pretty large, more than 1 foot wide. It will be great for hanging on my front door instead of a wreath at Christmas time. Too bad I finished it after Christmas! So many projects...so little time!

The Santa mold is available on Amazon here.
The gear mold is available on Amazon as well.
The modern masters rust kit is available here.
The decoart supplies can be found here.
Tim Holtz gearhead dies. 

Thanks to Elly Pirally for her great tutorial and inspiration and for the decoart blog and a shout out to Andy Skinner Techniques as well!

Making simple plaster cast embellishments look like old vintage treasure!

I made some plaster cast objects to use as embellishments for some Christmas projects. I tried out some DecoArt products and Andy Skinner techniques to make them look old. I also used some Modern Masters patina products that I like to use on little embellishments. I wanted some vintage treasure!

The plaster casts are inexpensive and are a fun way to try out various painting techniques on a 3-D surface. I've had these inexpensive plastic molds for a long time. They can be used to mold chocolate, but I use them with plaster.

I love Modern Masters patina products. I hadn't tried them on plaster objects before. I have tried it out on little plastic toys and the results were awesome!

I painted a few of the objects with a base coat of the Modern Masters copper paint and let it dry. Then I painted a second coat, and while it was still wet, I sponged on some of the green and blue patina solution. The paint must be wet or the reaction won't take place. It will start to react right away but will take some time before the reaction is complete. You can see a spot where the copper paint was dry so the reaction wasn't happening. I had to put on more wet copper paint and drip the solution on again.

Here they are after the reaction solution has completely worked it's patina magic. It turns out differently every time,  just like natural patina.

Who would ever guess this isn't real metal. Looks like something very old from an old world Christmas celebration long ago.

I noticed the other day in Hobby Lobby, they are selling a small Modern Masters "kit" with the copper paint and 2 patina solutions for $19.95. I have larger bottles I ordered online, but the kits would have been perfect!

Here's the whole bunch all together. They look great! Ignore the rusty Santa in the corner for now. I will show you how I created him later in this post. 

So now that I experimented with the patina effect on my plaster embellishments, I decided to use Decoart products to make some more objects look old.

I decided to seal my plaster santa with some Americana gloss enamel before I started the aging process. I thought I could make this color look like a patina eventually. It looks like plastic now, but it will look better soon.

I love the Deco Art Media line of paints. They have so much pigment and are awesome to work with. My favorite! I watered down some Phthalo Green Blue and brushed it over the top and wiped some of it off.

After that dried, I covered the whole thing with Deco Art Media Antiquing Cream, English Red Oxide that I just got and was excited to try out. I let it air dry completely. After it was dry I wiped some of it away with a damp paper towel. I only used a tiny amount of water because I didn't want to remove too much. The Deco Art Antiquing Creams are another favorite! Thanks Andy Skinner for all the demo's in how to use it! Check out his tutorials on youtube or the Deco Art website.

Starting to look cool, but a little too colorful to be old. I added a little watered down yellow iron oxide and let it dry. I made the Andy Skinner "dirty wash" with Ultra-matte Varnish, paynes grey, and quin-gold. It toned down and unified the colors, and made it look a little rusty. Look up Andy Skinner and his tutorials on using Deco-Art media products! They are so fun!

Then I dry-brushed on a very tiny amount of gold metallic paint to make it look more like metal. Mr. Santa is looking good! I love how all the layers make Santa look interesting and old.

I was happy with Mr. Santa so I decided to try the same type of technique on 2 other objects.

I decided to add a little clear glitter to the Christmas Tree to see what would happen. 

I decided there was too much rust on this santa, so I dry brushed on metallic gold instead so it matches the other Santa.

This is kind of fun because there is no wrong answer. You can just paint over the top and change your mind. No pressure! Just playing with mediums and techniques! 

So for my skinny santa,  I decided to try some color as I wanted these to look more like wood.

So I just painted with cream, a metallic red, and a yellow, and mixed the cream with a little of the red for the face. The acrylic paint seals the plaster so the next steps won't sink in to the plaster. I like painting plaster as it doesn't have to be perfect, we're talking grade-school fun.

After the paint was dry, I covered the entire object with some fragile crackle medium. I just used some that I had, but any type of fine crackle medium will work. I let the crackle medium air dry for a long time, the jar says 12 hours, I think I let it dry overnight. Then I used the Media Antiquing Cream again, English Red Oxide, again, letting it dry completely before wiping most of it off. I LOVE how it seeps into the crackle and makes Santa look like carved wood with old varnish! I love crackle.

I couldn't see Santa eyes, so I used a little watered down paynes gray to dot his eyes, and shade under his nose and mouth. Don't water the paint down too much, more like the consistency of ink. I use my fingers a lot to dab off the paint if I get too much.

Trust me on this next Santa. He looks pretty bad right now with my grade-school paint job. It's ok, I promise, although I wasn't so sure at the time. But since I'm just playing with cheap-o plaster objects it doesn't matter, just having fun!

Time for the crackle medium. I had to let it dry a long time. Patience....

Whoa, look at him now! I forgot to take photos of all the steps on my colorful Santa, but after the crackle, I used the Antiquing Cream again the same as before. Then used the "Andy Skinner" dirty wash to tone down the colors to make them look old. I wiped it off in places so there was more color in some places. I used a little watered down paynes gray to shade around various areas, I always end up tapping the shading with my fingers so it's not so harsh. Then I dry brushed some metallic gold on the ribbon, and hat, and the fluff on the gloves. Then the wreath looked boring, so I added some red, green, and yellow dots. When it was all dry, I used some Tim Holtz glossy accents on the wreath and sprinkled on some clear glitter, just on the wreath.

So my santa went from grade-school craft project to respectable vintage santa. I thought he was a goner, but is now looking all vintage and cool! The antiquing medium hides the "can't color in the lines" areas.

I couldn't leave my patina objects alone while I was waiting fo another object to dry, so I dry brushed on some metallic gold. I just used my finger with paint, then I wipe most of it onto the counter, then lightly buff it over my objects where I want it. You could dry brush with a paint brush but then you would have to get up and wash brushes, and all that. It works.

I think this little star santa is my favorite of the bunch. I'm going to use him on a project. He looks very metal like he was a little copper santa up on a roof for years!

I added a little metallic dry-brushing to the leaves. I crackled a few of them to see what happened.

So here's my whole group of faux metallic, patina's, wood cut, rusty objects made from cheap plaster molds using Modern Master paint effects, and Deco Art media acrylics, and some random crackle medium.

I enjoy trying out techniques and mediums with these little dimensional objects just for fun. I've had the santa mold since probably the 1980's. The trees and leaves I got more recently so they might be available online somewhere. I get molds at the craft store where they sell chocolate molds, or online from amazon or ebay. They are usually around $3.00 or so. Plaster is cheap too.

So I hope you have enjoyed my play time, even though it was a long post, I think it's helpful to see the steps to realize that it just takes a lot of little tiny steps to produce these fun results and if you goof up, you can pour some more and try again. It's pretty fun.

What hasn't been fun, is I've been stuck all weekend with a broken heater in my house, so I've had no heat for a week now! It's been 55 degrees inside the house for a week. Sometimes it's warmer outside than inside the house. I put a space heater near the kitchen table and have been having some fun painting in my coat.

The part to repair the heater has been ordered but won't be in until tomorrow, with the delay over the Thanksgiving Holiday. I hope the part comes tomorrow. Don't know how much more of this freezing I can take.

Anyway, I have enjoyed being distracted by my little paint project in the cold!

I will use all of my items on some fun Christmas projects but haven't decided what they will be yet. I don't plan out too much in advance but just like to see what happens. I hope to post my projects as they happen!

I use the same techniques on steampunk projects so this is good practice for trying things out!