Sawyer's Gallery Wall

This is the current view on Sawyer's gallery wall. I have one more giant chipboard S, but it needs to be painted, and I think I may put it on another wall.
Everything on this wall is handmade, thrifted, or purchased on major sale.

The Imagine canvas came from the thrift store in brand new condition, but it was originally from Hobby Lobby. I think I paid $4.99 for it.

The moose and elephant were likewise from the thrift store, but originally from Target. I think they were $2.99 each.

The letters spelling his name were half off at Michael's and I added the scrapbook paper.

The wood slice S, the burlap S, the blue foam S, and the little orange S with the arrow were all clearanced at Hobby Lobby. All were between $1 and $2.

The owl painting I think came from Hobby Lobby on clearance, but I've had it for several years so I can't be sure.

The scratch art at the top was a VBS project this year with materials from Michael's. I laminated the scratch board before adhering it to the frame to preserve the picture.

The pinwheel I made with my We R Memory Keepers Pinwheel Punch Board. I just pinned it straight to the wall with a ball push pin. The paper was from the same stack I used to cover his name.

The woodburned pieces are all made by me. They were all wood blanks purchased at either Walmart or Hobby Lobby &1.47-$2.99 for 6-8 pieces. The very center round piece with father and son hunters was the part of a wooden spool that originally held the twine and clothes pins in Lily's room. The image was a stamp that I stamped in brown ink and then went over with my wood burning tool.

The truck on the Sawyer's Salvage Yard was also a stamped image that I burned over, although I did add the FORD to the tailgate.

The Sawyer the Brave piece is clay art made by me.

The Oh Darling Let's Be Adventurers is my version of one done by Addicted to DIY.

The white rectangle is impossible to photograph, but looks awesome in person and is a Heidi Swapp cardstock piece that says Be True and was foiled in silver using my Minc. It was part of a set I got on clearance at Joann.

The bear oval and fox oval were drawn by Nick from artwork available at Hobby Lobby. I burned over his drawings and painted the accents.

All of the other wood pieces were original pieces free handed by me. I'm so not an artist, but Sawyer loves that I made them for him.

Lily's Gallery Wall

In the old house Taylor and Lily shared a bedroom for sleeping. Lily and Sawyer shared a bedroom for clothes and toy storage. So none of them really had a space that belonged completely to them. I knew that in the new house I wanted to do some personalized decor for each of them, especially since for the year we were on the market the house had to be very neutral and generic. Taylor has decorated and redecorated her room a dozen times, and I'm happy to let her do that. At 15 she's old enough to know her own style. But in Lily and Sawyer's room I've done gallery walls. Sawyer's is pretty much done, and I'll show you his in another post, but this post is about Lily's. 

It's still very much a work in progress. I need to spread it out a little more and raise her art display twine some. The roll of twine with mini clothes pins came from Target via Bargain Hunt, but it would obviously be very easy to DIY. She is very artistic and constantly drawing, painting, and crafting, and I wanted her to have a place to display her creations. She also has some of her school awards up there. 

The Be Kind banner was made by me. Semi-tutorial here.

Taylor did the pineapple painting, and the flamingo and party dress artwork are my very tentative forays into the world of watercolor. The dress is my very poorly executed version of a gorgeous free printable offered by Lisa at Mabey She Made It. If you have mad watercolor skillz like me, well, you should probably go get hers. But I wanted a pink dress, plus our printer is still buried somewhere in a box, and Lily is ridiculously affectionate toward things that I make just for her, so for now anyway she gets my version. 

The little orange L with arrows was a clearance find at Hobby Lobby that I painted. The floral pieces are all clay flowers Lily and I made using oven bake Sculpy and (mostly) Martha Stewart molds. I just hot glued them onto wood plaques and hung them with adhesive Velcro dots. The woodburned pieces are all made by me. The Lily the Lovely piece is clay art made by me. 

Scroll Saw Bowl

Last month Nick's cousin Katelyn got married, and we made this cool wood bowl for her wedding gift. The was our first time using a scroll saw, and we followed the tutorial over at The Kim Six Fix. I think it turned out so awesome, and we got tons of compliments on it! Nick did the sawing and gluing and I did the sanding and glue cleanup. I can't wait to make another one for us!

Custom Creighton Tumbler

My brother-in-law Scott's birthday was last month. He's a proud Creighton University alumnus, so Nick and I sandblasted the Creighton logo along with his initials onto a 30 oz Rtic tumbler for his gift. I cut a vinyl stencil of the logo and monogram, and we masked off the rest of the cup with painter's tape. Nick did the etching in his blasting cabinet. I hope he likes it!

I Got A Heat Press!!

Okay guys, I have big news! I got a heat press!!! I'm so excited! My mom and dad got it for me as a birthday/Christmas gift, and this has been such a game changer for me with shirt making! This is the one I got:

It came with attachments to also do hats, 2 sizes of plates, and 2 sizes of mugs. This thing is so awesome! Not only is it crazy faster than applying heat transfer vinyl with an iron, the quality of the finished product is miles better! What really surprised me though was the fact that you can re-press old projects that have maybe started to peel a bit and fix them! I've been playing with htv for about a year now, and I've loved working with it, but I've always been a little disappointed that it didn't seem to hold up very well in the wash. Well this has been the answer to that for sure. My new projects as well as old ones that I repaired are now holding up perfectly in the washing machine! And I have LOVED being able to rescue some ragged favorites that seemed destined for the trash. I had just assumed that once an item had gone through the laundry there would be no way to make the htv stick. Not that every single project I did with an iron started to peel, but well, a good percentage of them eventually did. So if I've made you a gift with htv in the past and it's starting to come off, bring it back and I'll fix it right up!

My nephew Levi's birthday party is this Saturday. He's going to be four, and he looooves superheros, Batman especially. I made him this t-shirt, as well as a pillow with Superman fabric on one side and Batman fabric on the other. I also added his name to the pillow in htv. The Batman decal below is actually a 3D rubber applique that I found at Walmart for $3.97. The instructions included were for a household iron, but I took a chance and applied it with the heat press, and it turned out amazing!

Lily wanted a superhero shirt for her birthday to wear to Levi's party. She originally wanted a Wonder Woman shirt, but then she saw a pink and black Batman shirt online and wanted it instead. So what's a mama with a brand new heat press supposed to do besides make them both? The Batman shirt she saw had a matching bow, so I made one to match each shirt. I even used the heat press for the bows! I don't know why the Wonder Woman set looks pink in the picture below, but as you can see in the shot with her wearing them they are red. Both shirts were the basic $2.97 boys tees from Walmart, and I had the ribbon and htv on hand, so this was a really inexpensive gift.

The gold HTV on this shirt was in an Expressions Vinyl grab bag that arrived on her birthday, and it was perfect for this project. I mentioned when I shared this picture on Instagram, isn't it neat how God loves on us in little ways as well as big ways?

Sawyer wants a superhero shirt too, but he keeps going back and forth on what kind, so I will be making one or two for him as well. 

I plan on offering some items in my shop soon too.

Heat press for the win!

Teachers of Good Things Craft Meeting: Fall Blocks

Our quarterly Ladies Craft Meeting at Church was last month, and we made these fun wood blocks with scrapbook paper and vinyl decals. We painted the blocks first and then added scrapbook paper to the front if we wanted. I precut the vinyl on my Cameo. The cut files for the decals were purchased from Etsy shop Lilly Ashley. 

There are 8 different designs in the set, and it comes with a commercial license! I also created a fun name block for one of the kids' teachers, and it was a big hit.

A Birthday Banner for the Birthday Girl

So this girl turned SEVEN on Wednesday! I can't even handle this. She just got out of diapers, I swear.

We had a simple family get together at the house on Tuesday, and I made this Happy Birthday Banner to hang in the dining room. I used 4 sheets of kraft cardstock and 2 sheets of scrapbook paper. I cut the cardstock in fourths (I had 3 extra fourths), and cut the scrapbook paper into 3"x 5" pieces to use in my Alphabet Punch Board. I ran the letters through my Xyron Creative Station to adhere them to the cardstock and strung it all on baker's twine. I think I'm going to take the BIRTH off now that we're done so that it just says Happy Day and hang it in her room.

Man, I love banners! This is one I made a couple of weeks ago for a baby shower at church. I cut the flags using my paper cutter, the letters using my Alphabet Punch Board, and the deer using a paper punch. I ran all the letters and the deer through my Xyron Creative Station to turn them into stickers which made the assembly super quick. Colton's mom is doing his nursery in an outdoorsy theme, so hopefully she can use it in there too.