Button Crafts

See this?  Yeah, I made that!

 I love crafting, and I especially love making crafty things to give as gifts. So, when I found out my friends Abby and Cody were expecting a baby I knew what I wanted to do.  I made up a little gift basket of things a new mommy and daddy should probably have but rarely get at baby showers, and threw in some fun little extras for mom, and then got to work on this little crafty bit.  It took me almost 6 months to get it finished, but only because other things kept getting in the way.

 I gathered my supplies of canvas(I previously painted the background and letter), tacky glue, and buttons.  LOTS of buttons! Oh, and a pair of tweezers to pick up/place buttons with glue, and a paper towel for wiping off excess glue on the tweezers every so often.

 Next I separated buttons into glass bowls by color groups and started arranging them on the canvas to see what looked good.  BEFORE gluing, and after talking to my husband(his opinion is very important in all color decisions), we decided the green/blue combo wasn't going to pop enough, and we knew Abby really likes bright colors.

So, I started playing with pinks, oranges and yellows.  It was looking pretty good, and I decided to add the other colors to the background for something extra.  We liked the look of the greens, blues, and purples against the bright orange, pink, and yellow. 

Then came the gluing....lots and lots of gluing! It took about 2-3 hours probably but those were distracted hours of tv watching and baby chasing too. I glued each button individually, grabbing it with the tweezer, putting a drop of glue on the back and carefully placing them each back on the canvas.  The glue seeps through the holes, and sometimes squishes out the sides, but it dries clear so it's not a big deal. Just let it dry flat or you'll be seeing some droopy buttons and drippy bits.

The initial trial gave us an idea of what it would look like color wise, but I decided we needed to build the letter up a bit more so I just kept layering and building out around the letter.

And this was the final product.  I see where I could have added/built up a little more in some areas, but it turned out really cute regardless.  We were so excited to give it to our friends to decorate their nursery for their little one, and they loved it too.  I've done another one recently on a picture frame, but I think I like the canvas better.  So, go out and try it!  It's fun, and cute, especially if you have colorful buttons like these. Also, you could do a shape instead of a letter.  I outlined my letter so I had a basic guide to follow, but if you don't want to you can just eyeball it.

Materials; 

8"x8" canvas

craft paint and brush for background

Buttons:about 200, all different sizes and colors

(got mine at Wal-Mart in color coordinated packages)

Tacky Glue

Tweezers

Small cloth to wipe excess glue from tweezers

Time: Roughly 2 hours start to finish

Dry time: Overnight 

(Lay flat to dry or you will have droopy letters and drippy bits)

Happy crafting!!

Baseball and ....Cake?

You know that cake ball craze that's been going on for a few years? 

No?

 Well, head on over to Pinterest, or Google Images, and type in cakeballs, or cake balls, and you will be inundated with images of overly cute edible goodness.

I've made cake balls on several occasions and most people really like them because they are small, generally cute, and semi-portable. I decided this would be a great option for my husband's 30th birthday celebration which was outside.  I stuck a lollipop stick for extra portability so we wouldn't need plates and forks.  We had a baseball themed party and this is what I came up with;

Now, I'll be the first to admit they aren't perfect, but aren't they adorable!?!

This is on the wax paper while we decorated them. See the end for a final look!

My homemade baseball Happy Birthday Banner. Click the picture to zoom in and see the detail. Oh, and note the extra brown grass...welcome to Texas in July! 

 Mom grilling hot dogs. Quintessential baseball food.

My husband admiring trying to decide which flavor he wants. 

His sister helped me decorate them, and we put printed baseball lollipop signs to let everyone know what flavors we had. The baseball design was lemon cake and we made a chocolate drizzled design that was pineapple cake.

It was so much fun, and even though the 'stitching' took some time I'd still do it again. 

Everyone loved it and we had a great party. 

New Art

I totally made this!
*Note: I just found this post and apparently never published it. Oops.  It should have been posted around this time last year, but hey...better late than never right? Right.  So, check it out.*

Saw the idea on Pinterest...and decided we'd try it for the nursery.  It was actually messier than I anticipated, but relatively easy to do and we are really thrilled with the results.  It now has a home in the nursery :)

If you decide to try this be aware; 1. lining up the crayons so they are straight is more difficult than you'd think. 2. Make sure you use a hair dryer that blows perfectly straight out (see all the crazy splatters going diagonally across the canvas?...yeah, they also went on the walls) 3. Cover the area you are working in REALLY well (see note 2.)  The hair dryer I used had a tendency to blow multiple directions causing hot wax to fly off the canvas and on the bathroom wall, floor, counter, mirror, my hand and foot, the rug...Most of it cleaned up pretty easily except for the textured wall.  Fortunately I was able to do a quick touch up with craft paint over those spots so you can't see it.  We will end up painting the bathroom again at some point because it needed a second coat anyway.  But, be warned...hot wax is HOT. :) 

I used an old canvas I had laying around and had to paint over something, but taking time to paint the canvas, pick out colors, line them up, glue the crayons down and melt the wax it probably only took me 1-2 hours which is pretty good.  Cleanup took a little bit, but would have been much better if I'd thought ahead a little more.

So, Happy Crafting!