Stained by Sharpie Fabric Markers

I found these for only $15 in Big W the other day and had read about them, so thought I'd give them a shot. They have a 'brush tip' so the end is very fine - I was able to write words quite small and neatly - but if you press a bit harder you can get thicker lines.

It's definitely an ink, not a paint. I was imagining it as being more opaque and thick as if I was using a fabric paint, but it's not like that. It's the same effect as if you put ball point ink on fabric - although it is much smoother and easy to use than a ball point pen of course.

I think it will take a bit of practise to get really good and creating designs and using the markers effectively to get smooth lines etc, but they are easy enough to use that you can get right to something that looks half decent.

You need to pull the fabric slightly taut to make it easier, and not press too hard with the marker - if the fabric bunches up you end up leaving the marker on the fabric too long and it pools a little, meaning you get a little uneven splotch. This didn't happen too often though, and I wasn't trying that hard to keep my fabric flat.

For some reason the purple marker was far more prone to splotching than any of the other colours. I don't know why that is.

I also tried out painting the marker ink on to the surface of a stamp and stamping the fabric, which worked too. That would be an easy way to create words and designs if you weren't confident with hand drawing right away.

I think the colours could be slightly better - for example the yellow is a bit too fluorescent for my liking - it doesn't always suit the other colours you're using when one is fluoro and the others aren't. The pink was also slightly fluorescent too.

But over all I was happy with them, and the brush tip design definitely works. You'd need to make sure you look after them, though, so the tips don't get squashed. I.e. I wouldn't let kids use them. For that I'd get the cheaper Crayola brand.

I've only tried it the baby's T-shirt in the picture so far, and even though that is a stretchy fabric, it worked well, so I can't imagine having much trouble on most surfaces.

DIY Cork Board Painting

Super easy and super cheap art work & practical pin up boards.

It's really easy to paint your own cork boards for decoration, use as a pin up board or even as placemats and coasters.

All you need are some cork shapes, paint and tape. (Optional - white primer. You could probably just use white paint if you don't have primer.) Only takes a couple of hours including paint drying time. Probably just 20 minutes of actual doing-something time, and you can go away and do something else while the paint dries.

These are heat pads from the 2 dollar shop - cost me $4 in total. From there it was essentially free since I already had the paint and the duct tape. If you have to buy the supplies, it still won't cost you that much to buy a bit of acrylic paint and some masking tape or duct tape. 

1. Tape off cork boards in varying designs.

2. Paint with a coat of primer (or white paint.) You can skip this step if you want, but the colours won't be as vibrant at the end.

3. Once the primer is dry, paint with your choice of acrylic paint.

4. Once the paint is dry, peel off the tape and there you have it.

I stuck mine up on the wall as a decorative pin up board. Although they looked too pretty to stick pins in so I ended up using some mini craft pegs stuck on with blu-tack instead of pins. 

If you wanted to make these permanent you could even glue them on to clip on notes, photos, tickets, whatever on to your boards. (Obviously the positioning is permanent then, though.)

The possibilities are endless with these DIY arty cork boards - you could do this on a full size cork board, on a combination of round and square ones, on coasters or placemats.... use different thicknesses of tape or use stencils to create decorative designs or add initials or words.

The limit is your creativity! :)

Happy cork painting!

Easy DIY Engagement or Wedding Gift: Personalised Photo Frame

Just choose or paint a photo frame - I used a gold 8x10 frame - and jazz up the inside, personalising it for the couple you are giving it too.

In a word processing program I made my page size 8x10 (or you could just create an 8x10 sized text box).

I copied and pasted a Bible verse I liked - in this case Love is patient, love is kind etc - chose a font I liked, and then copied and pasted that repeatedly until it filled the whole page. The final "Love never fails", I cut and pasted into it's own text box and made it larger to stand out at the end.

Then I inserted a blank white shape the right size for a 6x4 photo graph, and laid that over the text.

After I printed that out, I cut out the white shape so there is a hole for the photo.

Then I chose a piece of card in a colour I wanted for the mat, and cut out a hole for the photo, slightly smaller than the hole in the printed paper, so that it creates a border. I stuck the whole printed sheet down on the cardboard, lining up the cut outs, to reinforce the whole thing, and trimmed the cardboard down to the right size.

Then I used letter stamps and red ink to stamp the couple's name over the text.

If you have a good photo of the couple, you could put it in for them, but since I didn't I just left a gap for them to choose their own photo to go in. Pop in it the frame, wrap it nicely and off you go.

The possibilities are endless with this simple engagement or wedding gift - buy, paint or decorate any sort of frame you like; choose whatever verse, poem or words you like to fill the back ground; stamp names, dates, or anything you want over the top... be creative!

A variation of this is to create an 'I love you because' message board. Follow pretty much the same process - you can still leave a space for a photo - and just have the text "I love you because" printed or stamped prominently. Then give the frame with a liquid chalk pen or dry erase marker so that the couple can write messages straight onto the glass.

Happy creating!

Download the Love is... frame mat free printable as an editable Word file. The page size is A4 for easy printing, and the text is in an 8x10 text box. Just trim to the right size after printing.

For it to show up properly, you'll also need to install the free font from here - Pea Stylist

Glass paints on jars

I recently bought a set of those glass 'stained glass window' type paints where you paint a design on to plastic and when it's dry you peel it off and stick on to a glass or window.

I discovered there was a reason this set only cost me $6 at the discount store. Most of the squeezy bottles didn't work - it too me a couple of paint explosions when the lids burst off to stop trying to force them into submission. I lost most of my black liner paint this way.

You can use a paint brush rather than the applicator lids on the bottles but it's not as easy and those designs turned out to be less than impressive. So I ended up just using the 4 colours out of the 10 in the set that worked properly and tried some abstract designs.

I stuck a few on a window but decided they looked too tacky like that. I don't have any kids around yet to blame them on either. So I was going to give up on my glass painting foray until I remembered all the glass jars I've been collecting for future projects.




Turns out what looked tacky on the window looks pretty cool on the jars.

Just shows you that nothing's ever a loss - if something doesn't turn out the way you expected, just change your expectations and use it for something different! That's the great thing about art & craft.