Washer necklaces

First of all, I would like to apologize for my long absence in the blogging world recently!  I have been preoccupied with school, but no more of that because I have GRADUATED!! So I fully intend to get back into the swing of things around here!

Awhile back I found this project on Pinterest, it is really easy and very affordable.  It's only washers, scrapbook paper and a special type of glue that dries with dimension. I was so excited that it really turned out as good as it looked online!  I ended up making them for all my friends for Christmas.

You can find the full tutorial that I used here.

Watercolor Pinterest Flop...

It happens to the best of us... Pinterest fails.  It's a fact of life for all Pinterest users.  A while back I came across this pin:

                                                                        Source: alisaburke.blogspot.com via Kristen on Pinterest

The caption was simply: "Watercolor over white crayon."  And I thought to myself, "That's brilliant!"  Don't you agree?  Well it didn't work out so well...

The root of my problem is that whoever originally pinned this pinned the blog homepage and not the blog post... big pet peeve of mine.  Well I searched for a while on the blog trying to find the tutorial, but I didn't have any luck.  The blog is AMAZING! But it has way too many posts for me to look through them all.

But I forged ahead anyway!  I thought it sounds simple and logical, I'll just give it a go anyway...

I taped down my watercolor paper so that it wouldn't wrinkle too badly, and then began drawing a cute twig/vine and leaf design.  I'm usually pretty bad at drawing these kinds of patterns, but I really liked how this one turned out.  I know you probably can't see it very well though... it's white crayon on white paper, there was only so much my camera could do, haha!

Then came the disappointment, I began doing a light wash on my paper and it was quickly obvious that this was not working the way the caption on Pinterest claimed it would.

This is not at all what I was expecting, you can hardly see the pattern at all!  The crayon did repel some of the paint, but not nearly enough.

I am not giving up on this one though.  I plan to try this again sometime because that original pin is just too cute, I want one too!  I think maybe part of my problem is I used watercolor paint from a tube, I think this might work better with the cheap kid's button watercolors.  I think I will try that next, and I will let you all know when I solve the mystery!  If you have any suggestions please share, I'd love to hear them!

A Girl and Her Glue: Part 2

Well as promised here is my second pinterest project that envolves making designs with glue! I think this one turned out a lot better than the first one, yay!

Here is the original pin that I recreated and added to:

Source: quirkability.blogspot.com via Kristen on Pinterest

And this is how my version turned out:

When I saw it with just the glue and no color at all, I was really discouraged with it, but the paint made all the difference and now I LOVE it!

Here's all that you will need:

• Canvas
• Liquid glue of any kind (again I used tacky glue)
• Paint and brush
• Optional: a design of some sort that you want to reproduce

If you want to know an easy way to transfer a printed design onto your canvas check out this post, which actually uses pictures from when I was doing this same project.

Once you have your design drawn or transfered onto your canvas, its time for glue!  Of course, if you want to skip the drawing and go straight for the glue, have at it! There is no wrong way to go about this.

However, after attempting this particular design I found that it is best to go for something with a lot less detail because as the glue dries and settles on the canvas it will spread out and parts of my design kind of became big blobs.  This ended up being okay, but I want to avoid this in the future.  I also noticed this as I was putting the glue on and ended up altering and simplifying the design a lot while I was glueing.

After the glue has completely dried, paint the entire canvas straight over the glue.  The glue will automatically make the paint look different on your design because of the different textures.  If you want, this can be your final step.  I think it looks really cute, but I was feeling adventurous and wanted to add more!

I blended in some light blue strips into my background color to give it more texture.  I love how this turned out on the canvas, but I didn't like how the stripes turned out on the tree.... So I took it yet another step further.

I painted over just the glue in a pearl colored metallic paint, and I love how it gave it a gentle silver look.

Hope you all have fun using glue in this excitingly creative way!

A Girl And Her Glue: Part 1

Lately I have seem several art projects on Pinterest that involve glue.  They all looked so cute and easy, so I had to give them a try myself!  Here is the first of two glue projects I have tried:

This is the original pin that I attempted to re-create:

Source: artclubblog.wordpress.com via Kristen on Pinterest

And here is how my version turned out:

I was not sure I liked it at first but it has really started to grow on me and now I am thinking about trying out a new design.

You will need:

• Liquid glue (I used tacky glue, but I'm sure even white school glue would work)
• A glue stick
• Cardboard or some other surface (I used the bottom of an empty case of ramen noodles)
• pen/marker
• Paint (black is what I would recommend after trying this out) and brush
• Paper towel
• Foil

First draw out a design on your cardboard.  I had to end up glueing a piece of paper over mine cause I messed up my drawing so many times.  But of course you can skip this step and go straight for the glue if you are confident in your free handing skills.

Next, cover your design in your liquid glue.  There is no need to be completely committed to your outlines, as you can see toward the top of my design I altered it a little as I was drawing with the glue.  Make sure that your glue is nice and thick so that it will still be prominent once you put the foil over the top of it.

Then, you have to wait for the glue to dry... and let me tell you it is just like watching a pot boil.  I ended up having to leave mine to dry over night for all of the glue to go clear.

Once it is dry, cover your whole surface with your glue stick and place your foil on top.  I found out the hard way that it is best to rest it on top and mold it around your design instead of laying it taunt and then trying to get it to fit around your glue.

Also, its best for your piece of foil to be larger than your cardboard so that you can fold over the sides and get a good finished look on the edges.

Finally, this was the part I had the hardest time with, painting it.  I found after a few times of messing it up, that it was best to add just a couple drops of water to your paint so its a bit runny.  Then paint one coat over the whole thing and let it sit a couple mins, enough time for some paint to dry but for it to still be very tacking.  Then wipe up the excess paint with a paper towel.  The paint should for the most part stay around the edges and in the creases of your design, otherwise letting the foil show through.

I hope this project inspires you to go get your glue on!  In the next couple days I will be posting another cool glue project to try as well.