Butterfly Wall Art

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief as I am finally unpacked, with internet connected and my craft supplies all ready to go! I had some requests for Spring and Summer DIY art projects, so I thought I'd start out with something pretty easy and highly customizable!

To make a paper butterfly collage of your own you need a few supplies:

Decorative paper
Scissors or Xacto blade
Butterfly images to trace and cut out (I have provided some at the bottom of this post which can be made to any size you like, but feel free to make some of your own or image search around the internet)
Pins for mounting butterflies to the wall, or a canvas to mount butterflies to before wall mounting.

You can use any paper you like, but for butterflies you want to stand alone and mount to your wall individually, I would recommend card stock as other papers do not hold their shape as well (wings may get a little droopy, especially on larger sized cut outs). All you need to do is trace your butterfly image onto your paper, cut it out and position any way you like. For something you want to be able to move (or if you aren't allowed to make a bunch of holes in your wall in a rental) You can get a canvas to secure your butterflies to, or a magnet board (then attach magnets to your butterflies).

I also recommend thinking outside the box a little with your paper. I have some wonderful photo realistic scrap booking paper, and I think my favorite butterfly is the one with an image of a sparkler on it. Never would you find this in nature, but it sure reminds me of 4th of July cookouts and all of the other Summer activities that I just can't wait for :)

Using a more decorative paper also makes your butterflies much more interesting without having to cut out extra details. If you use a plain colored paper, you may find yourself wanting to cut out some designs in the wings to add extra visual interest (this is great but can be time consuming). The sky is really the limit on a project like this, so have fun with it!

Here are some scalable templates for butterflies. Some hand drawn, the other found on an image search at Butterfly Utopia.

Halloween Cards

Here is a quick and easy way to make customizable jack-o-lantern cards this Halloween! All you will need to do this project is:


a printer
Cardstock in your preferred color (I used Orange, how traditional of me)
scissors
black permanent marker

I started with this clip art image from abcteach.com. You could very easily do something other than a pumpkin/jack-o-lantern by searching for other clip art images online.

Next, I stretched my pumpkin out a little in photoshop and I wanted something shorter and fatter (to match my envelope). Then I used my print preview to position it on the page so that when I print it out, I will have enough excess paper to have a fold on the left side. Print and cut out and you will have something like this (note that I folded so the left side of my pumpkin was on the fold line and I did not cut on the fold):

Add your desired jack-o-lantern face and now it is more like this:

You can easily make these with a different face for each jack-o-lantern and use them as greeting cards or party invitations. :)


Happy Halloween!

DIY: Dye It Yourself!

After a very busy week (having two jobs isn't all it's cracked up to be) I am back at it crafting for you all! Today's project was inspired by a link I saw on Pinterest. There is a tutorial on the Rit Dye website for dyeing your own buttons to custom colors. I have to admit I was intrigued, so I decided to test it out for all of you and here are my results:

First off, I found it next to impossible to find buttons that actually stated what they were made from, so I had to assume that the ones I found were nylon based and would take the dye. The package I bought was from Favorite Findings, and is purchasable at most craft and hobby stores I have been to. The package contains 130 buttons and is a mixture of white and clear buttons in a few different sizes. The white buttons took the dye just fine, the clear ones didn't take it at all ::sad trombone:: I was really hoping the clear ones would take the dye, as I am sure they would have made more vibrant colors. I will be on the look out for clear nylon buttons again soon and let you all know if I find some.

Next, my conclusion on their recipe itself: They recommend using your hottest tap water. I recommend boiling some. My buttons were sitting in their solution WAY longer than the recommended time (again, maybe my buttons are at fault) but you want to make sure you have boiling water to fully dissolve your dye (I used the powdered dye) and you want your water to stay hot for the majority of your dyeing process.

As for the time, the site recommended 2-5 minutes with constant stirring and observation. I will agree that you want to agitate your buttons fairly often for even coverage (though the splotchiness that can occur if you just leave them to sit on their own can be kinda neat on its own). However, my buttons all sat in their solution for at least 30 minutes and I still think some of the colors could have been more vibrant. For the curious, I bought three colors of dye, all powdered: Golden Yellow, Fuschia, and Teal. I mixed my fuschia and yellow to get a pretty orange, and the yellow and teal to get a nice green. I will probably try again with other buttons later on to make a purple out of my teal and fuschia.

So, for those of you wanting to know my final recipe for dyeing your own buttons here you go:

1 large disposable container for each color of dye you are using
1 pair rubber gloves (I used some cheapies I got at the dollar store)
1 cup boiling water (per dye solution)
2-3 teaspoons powdered dye (none of my colors were as vibrant as I wanted so I ended up using closer to 3 teaspoons)
Nylon buttons
Spoon for stirring (I used a plastic one)
Trash bag

I covered my work area with a plastic trash bag because it was handy, I recommend you do the same unless you happen to have a plastic tablecloth type thing handy. You definitely don't want to get dye on your nice counter tops or tables.

Next measure your water, boil, and use it to mix your dyes. You can test on a piece of scrap fabric or paper towel to see how dark your dye is and adjust accordingly (more dye if too light, more water if too dark).

Stir your buttons occasionally and check them to see if they have reached your desired color.

Once the desired color is reached, fish out your buttons and wash them with soap and warm water. Rinse well and lay on a paper towel to dry.




This is the image from the Rit website. As you can see, their colors seem to have turned out much nicer than mine. However, if you have some patience you can really make some nice colors of buttons for your projects. Speaking of, look for some cute projects using these newly dyed buttons next week!

Magical Mason Jars

Portland has finally gotten a small taste or two of Spring this year, and with that I have my renewed love of gardening and putting everything into a mason jar. They aren't just for preserves to me, once Spring and Summer hit, I want all of my drinks, gifts, desserts(spoiler alert for Friday Food Craft!) and more to be packed in a mason jar.

As you can see, I like to doll them up on occasion and using scrapbook paper on the lid inserts is a great easy way to start your own love for mason jar decorating. I also like to make sticker labels, use a ribbon tie, etc. This is one you can really personalize and go nuts with, and the containers are reusable so you and your friends can pass them around forever if you want!

For the lids you see here, all I did was trace around the circle insert for my lids, cut out the circle inside the lines (you don't want it to end up bigger than the insert). The best part of this is your circle doesn't need to be absolutely perfect around the edges because your jar ring will cover the edges when you close the jar. If you don't have scrap booking paper, or another colored paper, scraps of fabric would also be lovely.

I will be sharing a few more Spring inspired crafts this week and next! What are some of your favorite Spring time crafts?

A Crafty Contest: Derby Pillows!

You read that right! I am having a giveaway and you could be the winner!

Details:
The prize is a custom made Roller Derby Pin Up Pillow Case! That's right, custom! The winner will get to choose the color palette of their pillow case. Favorite derby team colors? Want it to match your home decor? You get to pick!  The Pillow case will measure 20"x20" (approx. 60cm x 60cm), and have a standard envelope closure on the back.  It fits a throw pillow form size 20" x 20".


To Win:
There are 3 ways to win:
1)You may enter here on The Craftinomicon blog simply by commenting on this post. Just answer the question: What was your favorite February craft?
2) and retweet my contest post!
3)Like me on Facebook and post a comment on my wall.
You may enter all 3 ways, but please limit your entries to once per method.

All entries must be submitted by 12am(midnight)Pacific Time Friday, March 11th.

A winner will be drawn at random on Saturday, March 12th. I will announce the winner that afternoon and they will have 48 hours to contact me with their custom colors.

This contest is sponsored fully by The Craftinomicon.