Spicy!

For most of 2008 and 2009, I was unemployed.  That left me lots of time to do some cheap crafting.  Now, cheap crafting is great, but sometimes....great ideas end up not turning out so great afterall.  This is one of those times. 

When I got married in 2005, I was given a rotating spike rack.  I use it almost daily and do love it, but I have never used a lot of the spices that came in it.  It became apparent that a makeover was in order.  I threw out all the spices I had never used and probably never would use.  I then replaced them with the spices from the cabinet that could now be put in the rotating rack.  All my Penzey's Spices needed a home in my spice rack too!  This project was before I had my Silhouette....before I ever dreamed of having one.  My grand idea was to print out the spice names onto regular white sticky labels.  This was good in theory, but they started falling off pretty quickly.  Not sure if it was the surface or probably the heat coming from the stove/oven.  In fact, one of the jars in the picture has fallen victim.

Once, I did have my Silhouette, this was one of my first big projects to test it out.  I was sick and tired of always having to glue the labels back on all the time and they were getting dirty since they were just paper labels.  So, after I had gotten some nice red vinyl, I got on my Silhouette computer software and designed myself some new labels.

After cutting everything out and then cutting each individual label out, I was ready to apply them to the jars.  I don't have a picture of the process, but it took FOREVER.  ha ha!  After peeling the transfer paper off each label (leaving all the letters still intact), I applied each label to the lids.  I then took my craft tweezers and craft needle and carefully peeled up all of the letters (one itty bitty letter at a time) so that it revealed the black of the lids.

Here is the finished spice rack.  I LOVE how it turned out since it really "pops" in my kitchen now.

 

I am also a paper cardmaker and a digital invitation & announcement designer.  I hope to be posting some of those creations every soon!  Thanks for visiting!

Silhouette fun!

Hi everyone!  I'm Alicia and this is my very first post on our brand new blog!  I'm excited about having a place to post all of my projects.  This first project I am sharing is one that I completed a couple of months ago, but never did anything with the pictures that I took.  I have a pretty neglected personal family blog.  ha ha!  Anyways, I got a Silhouette earlier this year and I have been trying to find ways to put it to use and do that inexpensively.  I attending a painting event at my church earlier in the Summer and I was given a leftover blank canvas from it.  I am a Pinterest junkie and had seen this project on there and I knew that I could duplicate it.  I think the original probably came from one of those expensive catalogs.  Here we go...

The first step is to paint the entire canvas with a good couple of coats of acrylic paint.  I also painted the sides of my canvas, but didn't take a picture of it at that state. 

The 2nd step was to get in my Silhouette computer software and design the wording that I needed to cut out of vinyl.

Next, I chose a piece of vinyl and cut out the first word I was going to be using as a stencil.

Your eyes are not deceiving you....the vinyl color did change.  I screwed up the first one when I was removing the backing paper and had to cut it out again.  Once I had my vinyl stencil cut out and had removed all the letters and all I had left was my word stencil, I removed the backing paper and positioned it where I wanted it on my completely dry canvas.

I next applied a couple of coats of bright white acrylic paint and allowed it to set up.....didn't let it totally dry.

I carefully peeled back the stencil while the paint was just set up enough to not really be wet.  I then applied the other two stencils and painted them.  I could have just applied them all at the same time, but for some reason I didn't.....I make odd decisions when I craft.  ha ha!

Peel off your remaining stencils and call it done.  Now, it's a little bit crooked, but the perfectionist in me is trying really hard not to notice it. ha ha! 

I really hope that you'll see some great projects on here from us gals that will inspire you to look at the resourses around you and figure out how you can get your crafty on too!