Today I want to share with you a quick, easy and colorful project, one that you could easily enlist the help of children for.

(I made these for my daughter’s room, but now I kind-of want to keep them for myself!)

Let’s get started!

Here are the supplies you will need:

•  Three (3) Studio 71 3×3 inch Mini Canvases (white) (These come in groups of three when you order them at ConsumerCrafts.)
• Victoria Lynn White Pearl Floral Spray
• Queen & Co. Bling Pearls (white)
• Core’dinations Cardstock (white)
• Glue Dots Craft Adhesive
• Studio 71 Wooden Mini Easel (optional)
• 24 Count Crayola Crayons
• EK Success Large Butterfly Punch
• Multi-Purpose Heat Tool
• Scissors

The first thing you need to decide is your color palette. I chose the whole rainbow! I split the spectrum into three sections: Red/Orange, Yellow/Green, and Blue/Purple. I found it worked well to use 3-4 colors per canvas to get a good variety of color.

Peel back and discard the paper on the crayons you wish to use.

Take off and discard the plastic coverings on your canvases.

Place a piece of scrap paper underneath your canvas, to keep your work space clean.

Here we go!

Hold your heat gun over the top of the tip of your crayon, and allow it to start to melt.

Let the drips from the crayon cover the canvas as desired.

Keep in mind, the heat from the heat gun will keep the crayon on the canvas liquid, and the drops on the canvas will spread.

Add additional colors as desired.

This is where it starts to get fun!

Keep adding color, and let the colors mix and swirl.

While the crayons are still molten on the canvas, you can tilt the canvas, and allow the crayons to mix and drip. I let mine drip right off the side of the canvas!

Look how cool the texture of the canvas is with the melted crayons!

Let the canvas dry, and the crayons harden.

Then you can add color splatters to the canvas.

Heat the crayon away from the finished canvas. This will keep the color already on the canvas from re-melting.

When the crayon starts dripping, hold the dripping crayon over the canvas, tap it, and allow it to splatter!

Are you having fun yet?

Repeat with your other canvases, and your selected colors.

Let the canvases dry. It doesn’t take long.

Using white Core’dinations cardstock, and a large butterfly punch, punch two butterflies per canvas.

Trim the antennas from the butterflies.

(I would like to thank my eight year old daughter Mikayla, for assisting me. She was my photographer, and the hand-model in the next photo.)

(We both clearly need manicures!)

Take a glue dot, and stretch it out to cover the body of the (bottom) butterfly.

(Designer note: make sure your working area is free from stray crayon residue, or you will be punching a bunch of extra white butterflies to replace the ones that inadvertently got colored while you worked on them. Just saying.)

Trim two strands of the pearl sprays from the bunch, and place them in the (stretched) glue dot.

With your second (top) butterfly, bend the wings upwards at the body section, and adhere it to the bottom butterfly, using the stretched glue dot.

Add a strip of adhesive Bling pearls down the center of the butterfly body.

Adhere the finished butterfly to your finished canvas using glue dots.

Trim those pearl spray antennas as desired.

That’s it!

You can choose to display your creative, artistic, FABULOUS canvases on easels:

Or on the wall:

Either way, you might have to sign the bottoms of those canvases, because people aren’t going to believe you actually made them yourself!

Completed Canvas

Artograph projector

Supplies:

• Artograph Projector
• Porcelain Paint Well
• Darice Short Handle Flats
• Darice 16×20″ Prestretched Canvas
• Studio 71 Acrylic Paint
• Pencil and Image of Your Choice

Image projected on canvas

 Use a pencil to trace the image.  If you want to get really creative, you can use watercolor pencils to trace the image.  Use colors that coordinate with the paint you intend to use.  The watercolor pencil lines will blend in with wet paint.

Image traced on canvas

First stroke on canvas

Partially painted canvas

 The Artograph is truly an awesome tool and the possibilities are endless!

We’ve posted many different organizational posts here on Crafts Unleashed, but this great “Studio Sneak Peek” post from Jenny at Craft Test Dummies remains a reader favorite.  Jenny has a lot of space, but she works with many different mediums so she has a lot of craft supplies to store. Here’s a look at just one corner in Jenny’s inspirational studio:

If you’re ready to make your own crafting space more organized and efficient, check out our Tips on Getting Started post from earlier this week… and make sure that you enter our GO Giveaway while you’re there!  (The $150 prize package would definitely help you begin to restore order to your personal craft stash!)

First, begin by tracing out your pattern on a scrap piece of paper.

Next, mark your pattern onto the Styrofoam with a blunt instrument, I used a metal chopstick but the tip of a paint brush would work well, also.

Begin by cutting the straight edges first.  To not damage your work surface-be sure to  use a cutting board or cutting mat.

To finish the design slowly cut the curves of the Styrofoam running your knife along the edge at an angle.

Several pieces of Styrofoam can be glued together or even stacked one on top of the other to form a design.

Last year, I made these cute placemats using my Cricut, some fusible webbing- then I stitched it down with my sewing machine.

Really, the key to this technique is preparing the fabric so that it’s stiff enough. The easiest way to do this is to fuse paper-backed fusible web to the fabric & set you machine up accurately. So here are my best tips for success!

• Use light-weight, cotton fabrics like quilter’s cottons. I don’t recommend felts, upholstery fabrics, or denims. Keep it light weight.
• Wash and iron your fabrics first. If you are making something that you’ll want to wash later, like a quilt or placemat, you certainly want to make sure that you’ve gotten the shrinking out of the way.
• I found that Heat-n-Bond was a great brand to use, but if you can’t find that, it’s OK to use other brands.
• Use a NO-STEAM iron to adhere the fabric to the fusible web. Make sure you adhere the bumpy side of the paper-backed web to the WRONG side of your fabric:
• Make sure you have NO BUBBLES- that ALL the fabric is securely adhered.
• Let the fusible-backed fabric cool completely, and then remove the paper backing.
• Make sure your mat is super-sticky. (You might need to hit it with a spray of basting spray.)
• Press the fabric securely onto the mat. Again, make sure there are NO BUBBLES that might cause the fabric to shift.
• 
• Use a fresh, new blade. The blade you use for paper is already too dull. (Just like paper scissors!)
• 
• Load the mat into your Cricut and set the PRESSURE at 4 and the SPEED at 2. It’s important that the pressure be high (you may need to even go to 5) and the speed is slow, so that you get a nice clean cut. (You may want to practice on scrap fabric first.)
• Carefully remove your fabric, and get ready to fuse to your project!

This is an great technique to learn- once you master cutting fabric with your Cricut, you can make quilts, baby onesies, fun pillowcases, wearables, totes, and even placemats! Stay tuned & I’ll have some great projects for you using this technique!

In the meanwhile, check out the great selection of Cricut machines, cartridges, and accessories available at ConsumerCrafts.com- go get inspired!

Armour's Deluxe Etching Kit

When I opened the kit, I was excited at the possibilities. It came with everything I would need to get started—minus the wedding glasses (Item V35922) that is. It came with step-by-step instructions, etching cream, small stencils, protective gloves, hobby knife, paintbrush, vinyl to create my own stencil, an applicator stick, gloves, and a practice glass.

After reading the instructions, I decided to give the practice glass a try.

Per the instructions, I put on the gloves then cleaned the practice glass and cut out a stencil.

Next, I cut out another stencil, positioned both of the stencils onto the practice glass, and used the applicator stick to rub the stencils onto the glass.

Once the stencil was secure, I used the paintbrush to dab some etching cream onto the stencil and set the timer.

When the timer went off, I took the glass to the kitchen sink (instructions suggest a stainless steel sink to avoid damage to the sink) and ran the glass under warm water as I gently rubbed the cream off the glass.

Some of the blue from the template remained so I had to gently—and lovingly—remove the remaining stencil. As I looked at my completed etched glass, I thought, “Hey, that wasn’t too difficult at all! I wonder if I can frost the wedding glasses?”

I read somewhere that if you wrote with puffy paint on the glass, let the paint dry, and then applied the etching cream, you could get a nice frost finish. And once you removed the puffy paint the words would appear clear.  I liked that idea as I wanted to use a few words from two songs my husband and I dedicated to each other.

And since I liked the idea of keeping the bride and groom emblems that were already on the glasses, I cut out a heart shaped template and put it over the emblems. Then I traced the edge with the puffy paint as an added protection as I didn’t want to take any chance that the etching cream would get under the template.

Once the paint dried, I used a sponge brush to dab the etching cream onto the glass. I put a thick layer, as suggested per the package instructions, and I followed the time specified on the package.

Unfortunately, when I removed the etching cream the frost was spotty—at best. It looked more like soap scum than frost. Needless to say, I was saddened.

Determined to give it another go, I applied a second coat to the glass that had just been etched and set the timer for 20 minutes. I then washed off the etching cream and cleaned the glass with regular dish soap.

Sorry, best shot I could get.

Surprisingly, the extra etching cream and time did not damage the glass—and the frost came out much better. The key is not the second application. The key, I believe, is the extra time as the second glass came out much better the first time around.

Did you know you can etch mirrored surfaces, too? For another wedding/housewarming idea, read Jenny’s  Etched Monogrammed Mirror Coasters post. (Those would make a great hostess gift, too, now that I think about it.)

What can YOU think of to etch and make into a personalized gift? Leave a comment and let us know!

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