Vitamin C... A Daily Dose of Creativity: tools

Showing posts with label tools. Show all posts

Super Trimmers and Dress Forms

by Kim

While I have never been super girlie, I am having a crush on dress forms. They seem to be available everywhere. Very trendy. I got this one at Michaels with a 50% discount, making it twice as much fun.

I love tools, don't you? For this project, I built my own tool. I wanted fringe cut with different paper edgers, but did not want the long process of using three pair of scissors. I hooked them all together so I could make three cuts at once.

To build my tool, you need:

3 pair of Paper Edgers, your choice
duct tape
craft wire
4 6mm beads of any kind
wire cutters

Try this:
1. wrap a piece of duct tape around scissors to hold them together.

2. Cut a 12" length of wire, fold in half. Place the fold at one outside edge of handles. Twist two wires together twice. String one bead. Twist wires twice again. Sandwich second handle between wires and repeat twisting and bead stringing between second and third pair. Sandwich last handle between wires and twist together on outside of handle. Trim wires.

Repeat on bottom handles. Remove tape.

Awesome. Super trimmer!

To dress the form, you need:

your super trimmer
scrapbookpaper: 3-4 12" x 12" pieces that coordinate
wire dress form
hot glue gun and glue
ruler
pencil
straight scissors

Try this:
1. Stack two pieces of paper together. Measure and cut strips 3 1/2" wide. Cut in from one edge with super trimmer, across the entire edge, as far in as paper edgers will reach.

2. Glue small folds or tucks, about an inch apart along straight edge of papers (still holding them together). This curves your strip slightly.

3. Glue paper fringe around dress form, lower than waist. This will be the bottom layer of three. It took two 12" lengths to go around my dress form.

4. Repeat steps 1-3, glueing each layer a little higher on the dress form. The third layer should be at the waist.

5. Fluff out the layers.

The different cuts gives your skirt fabulous visual texture. So cute!

6. Use two bracelets you already own, or take this excuse to string two new bracelets.

Place them around the waist of the dress form. They provide bling and a place to store a couple bracelets!

If your dress form has additional hooks at the top, use it to hold additional jewelry. I added another bracelet, also made of paper.

Adjust the process according to the design of your dress form, and the colors you like.

My super trimmer is still intact. Who knows when I might need it again??

Use your Vitamin C!

The Perfect Tool

by Kim

I am a proponent of using tools that are right for the task and that make the task easier.

This horrible looking thing is a tool I made myself. You can see that it is well used.

I use it all the time for fabric painting, and jewelry making. Yes, weird combo, but it works. Great.

When I lay the fabric on it to paint, the padding allows me to press the brush or sponge into the fibers of the fabric. And I can pin jewelry pieces to the foam. It works a lot better than trying to tape something to the table top to hold it still.

When it gets too bad looking, I change the cover or just lay another piece of fabric over the top while I am working.

It is just a piece of upholstery foam 12" x 16" and 2" thick.

I taped a piece of muslin around it, with a 12" x 16" canvas board on the back. You can make it any size. I have been thinking I would like a mini version for jewelry making on the road. It is not fancy, pretty, or expensive, and it does the trick. Best few pennies I ever spent.

Do you have any homemade tools that you can't live without?
Have you used your Tool Vitamin C?

Daisy Canvas Collage Tutorial

by Kim

I find it important to make time to create, just for fun...or therapy...or creative exercise. It's good for me and good for you too! So, last night, I had nothing pressing, a gentle rain was falling, the windows were open, and I sat at my table to create. It was relaxing.

You know I really like to collage. It combines some of the things that I love about designing and crafting: color, painting, layering, doodling, and tearing paper.

Here is what you need to make this project. But, you know you should substitute materials and colors if you want, to make it your own.

four 6"x6" canvases
acrylic paint: sky blue, turquoise blue, turquoise green, white, lime green
seasponge
Fiskars punches: XL oopsie daisy, XL cloud
Fiskars deckle Tear edger
Scrapbook paper: assorted green prints, 2 deep pink prints, brown print, aqua print
small piece of bubble wrap, about 4" x 6"
Mod Podge for paper
paintbrushes: large flat, small round
scraps of 140 lb watercolor paper
6 Pop Dots
white craft glue
small buttons: 6 turquoise, 1 lime green
fine point marker: black
tape
palette

I started with my favorite color palette, 3 shades of turquoise. Pour out a little puddle of each. Dip the flat brush into 2 or 3 colors at once.

Brush on to the canvas. Try to just apply the paint, not brush back and forth on it. This will give you visible striations of color.

Do all four canvases and let them dry. Arrange them in the way you want them to be in your design.

I love layered backgrounds on my collage. Clouds will be one layer. Using the cloud punch, make two strips of punched out clouds. Tape them together. Use this as a stencil. Save the punched out clouds for another project.

On your palette, pour out white and sky blue. I did not want the clouds to stand out too much, so I added blue to the white. Dip your damp (not wet) sponge into both colors. Dab on the palette to mix the colors on the sponge.

Dap the sponge over the stencil to print clouds wherever you want them.

Tear strips of green paper about 1" wide. I had three greens. Tear the strips into 1" square pieces.

Brush Mod Podge on canvas at bottom, Place paper squares over wet glue. Smooth with fingers.

Draw a vase shape on the back of brown paper. Cut out and Mod Podge on lower right canvas.

Brush turquoise blue paint on bubbles of bubble wrap.

Print randomly on left and right sides of canvases. The dots are another layer.

Also tear one 12" x 1" strip of aqua paper. Cut it in half and Mod Podge it to the left sides of canvases....about an inch from the left edge.

Put a dot of lime green paint where you want to build your three flowers. Brush lime green paint on the very edge of the tearing tool. Print a starburst of 12 spokes.

Make a starburst around each dot.

Using the daisy punch, punch out a total of 11 daisies, using both pink papers.

Wrap each petal around the skinny end of round brush. This makes the daisies dimensional.

Assemble daisies in vase with pop dots between layers. Use white glue to attach buttons as centers. Use the round bush and lime green paint to make stems on daisies that go down into the vase.

Mod Podge 5 remaining punched daisies on strip of aqua paper on left side. Glue on button centers.

Use marker to doodle a bit on your canvases. Small spirals at ends of starbursts.....