DIY Artwork with Sparkle!

I am in the process of making a few special gifts for some family and friends this holiday season, so I wanted to share one of my projects with you all!  This project is not as complicated as you might think, and it produces a beautiful and gift-giving worthy result :)

Supplies:

-Sheet of watercolor paper

-Computer & printer

-Mod Podge or glue

-Glitter

If you are painting the letters (like I did), you'll want these additional supplies:

-Watercolor paint

-Paintbrush

-Container of water

-Tray for paint

To start out, you'll want to create a template for your print.  Decide what words/saying you want to include on your paper.  I went with the saying "Never Let Anyone Dull Your Sparkle" on this print.  You can create your template on word, photoshop, or whatever software program you would like to use.  I typed out the words using Chalkline font, but feel free to use whatever font suits you!  I made the font large enough to fill the whole paper, and I changed the font from black to a golden color to reflect how I am decorating it.  Here is what it looked like on my computer:

Once I created my template, all I had to do was print it out.  Since I have a heavy duty printer, I was able to print the words on a nice sheet of thick watercolor paper measuring 12" x 9."  If you don't have a printer that will print on watercolor paper, you can take your template to a printing store and they will print it for you.  If you aren't painting or doing much decorating to your print, regular printing paper should work just fine :)

Looks pretty good so far, right?!  

Next I wanted to spruce up my print by filling in the letters with watercolor paint.  I (obviously) like the effect of watercolor paint,  as it creates a lovely, hand-painted quality to the work.   But you can use whatever art medium you would like to spruce up your print.

Once all the letters have been painted, let the paper dry. 

Once dry, you can add glitter or whatever fun decorations you would like.  If you would like to add glitter around the letters like I did, just paint some mod podge around the letters and then throw a hefty amount of glitter on top of the glue.  

Let your lovely sparkly print dry, and then place it in a mat and frame for the lucky recipient :)

Are you making any handmade gifts for others this holiday season?  If so, feel free to share some of your awesome DIY gifts ideas here!

Jennifer

Birds of a Feather Decor

Just in case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m really like birds.  And that obsession also transfers to feathers.  So I recently made some DIY decorations for the house using feathers and thought I would bring you a little tutorial showing you what I did. J

          1.  Feather Shadow Box

      A quick little aside before I begin- there is a group of wild turkeys that live in my neighborhood; they are awesome and one of them even has his own Facebook page!  I’m sure many of you live in more rural areas where you see wildlife regularly.  However, I live in the middle of Milwaukee, so having a pack of wild turkeys live in our neighborhood is pretty cool.  Here's a picture of Bailey trying to chase them last winter:

      Anyways, I’ve started collecting their feathers as they lose them, and I wanted to make something fun with them to hang in my studio.  Here's a few of the wild turkey feathers I've found:

I decided to make a simple shadow box using the largest feather, and here’s all you would need to make your own:

Supplies:

Feather(s) (obviously!)

Shadow Box (I got mine at Michaels)

Hot Glue Gun

 

And this is all you have to do to make your own:  Take your feather and put a few dots of glue on the back of it.  Can you see the glue on mine? Hopefully you can barely see it because you hardly need any glue on the feather to make it stick!

Place the feather where you want it to go in the shadow box.  Hold it down for a few seconds so that the feather sticks.  Repeat with as many feathers as you'd like.  Close the shadow box and, viola, you have a pretty art display to hang in your house!  So simple and pretty!

 2.  Gold-Dipped Feathers in a Vase

This decor idea is also super easy to make.  And I think that it makes really lovely and festive holiday décor!  Here are all the supplies you’ll need:

Supplies:

-A variety of feathers (I bought these from Michaels, so they are fake but they still look pretty nice!)

-Glitter

-Gold paint

-A paintbrush or sponge

-A container to pour glitter into (so the glitter doesn't make a colossal mess)

-Newspaper

-A lovely vase/container

Start out by setting up your workspace.  I put newspaper down where I was painting so not to make a huge mess of paint.  Then I started to paint the top of my feather.  If you want to put glitter on both sides of the feather, be sure to flip the feather over and paint both sides.

Next, while the paint is still wet, cover your feather with lots of glitter!  I would recommend placing your feather in a tray and then pouring the glitter over the feather.  This way, the glitter stays contained in the tray and does not get all over the place.

Place your feather aside to dry.  Then repeat the above steps until you've made as many pretty glitter feathers as you'd like!

Once your feathers have dried, put them somewhere on display!  I put mine in a mason jar!

So there you have it- two super easy and fun DIY projects with feathers.  I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and feel free to share your thoughts on it with me!

-Jennifer