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| Beginning to sand the table |
The last few weeks have been super busy with the move to Ghana, but if you know me, I always have a project brewing, even in the midst of everything else.
In between all of my other tasks, I had been working on a side table refurbish project for a few months. This project began with an old table given to me by a friend many years ago. It had a lot of water stains on the top, a loose leg and was generally bedraggled. I began by sanding it down using a power sander at the
Lansing Maker Network woodshop.
Once the table was smooth, I applied Minwax wood finish in Red Mahogany, and coated it with a couple of coats of polyurethane.
Now for the hard part. I wanted to decorate the top of the table with a lace pattern. I considered three techniques to achieve the lace design. I considered taking some (expensive) lace and dipping it in paint and trying to carefully lay it on the top of the table to create a kind of stamp. Ultimately, I decided that would create a unholy mess as well as ruin a perfectly beautiful piece of lace. Next, I tried to convert my
African Lace design to a raster file so I could create a stencil on vinyl cutter at the
Lansing Maker Network. Intricate lace designs do not transfer well to raster files. This would be a good technique for a reverse stencil if you wanted to paint it or to leave as is with a layer of polyurethane over it as long as your design uses simplified geometrically based shapes.
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| The tools for the job |
I was down to my last technique. In college, I learned how create a print from a photocopy. I had to go the copy store and get an extra large copy of my lace. Now for the image transfer. Wet the paper first to create a resist to the oil based printing ink which will adhere the photocopy toner. Next spread out the oil based ink on a palette with a brayer (it is the roller shown in the photo). Roll out the ink and spread evenly across the print. In my situation, I found that I was out of oil based ink and ended up using the oil paint seen below. This is what happens when you are finishing a project in the 11th hour.
The print worked fine. The only problem was the ink was largely transparent and did not show well against the wood. My solution was to dust the paint with fine white glitter. The glitter did indeed stick to the ink but stuck to the table surface as well. I could not just wipe it off without smearing the print. A can of compressed air solved that problem well. Tip: hold can of air 10-12 inches away from the table to avoid blowing the glitter off the print.
Lastly, seal the print with spray polyurethane.
And one last thing---get a free swatch of Spoonflower's new fabric, Poly Crepe de Chine until 12pm EST 9/4/15.
Get yours now!
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| The finished project in the wild! |
You can purchase almost the same thing in a pre-printed pattern from Sprout Patterns--the Jasper Pajamas and the Kids Recess Raglan or for a bigger sized top I would suggest the Lane Raglan. 
This one I call Protea pouch and it uses the patterns: Primary - Colour Maps by candyjoyce; Botanical Bloom by fizah_malik.
This week’s Spoonflower challenge theme is monkeys in honor
of Chinese New Year coming up on February 8th. Chinese temple decorative patterns
with their bright color palette were my inspiration for color and style. I also wanted incorporate a monkey from China. When I saw
the golden monkey I felt it had excellent graphic possibilities. They really have such unusual coloring. Please consider voting.
It has been a while since I worked on a doll of any size. Doll Street Dreamers is having a fairy swap for members. The deadline has not yet arrived so you still have time to join and participate.
In one week, Spoonflower will be offering free shipping worldwide for twenty four hours. If you have been thinking about making a purchase from my shop this may be a good time. All of the fine print can be found here.
Perhaps you would like an elegant scarf in cotton voile or silk crepe de chine in Trash Art Rose Leaves Multi on White.
Or maybe a beachy throw pillow made of faux suede or eco canvas made from my one my Sea Side Selections collection such as Barrier Reef Shell 3.
My daughter is getting bigger and I have been looking into purchasing some new items for her. While browsing the Internet I discovered some interesting children's boutique clothing. Some of the boutique children’s clothing designers like Servane Barrau and Matilda Jane have inspired me. My budget doesn't let me pay some of the prices I see listed for their items so I thought I would try to sew the look myself.
I purchased four fat quarters of organic cotton knits inspired by Japanese fabric design from Spoonflower and decided to design my own 'boutique' clothing for my young daughter. The four fabrics I purchased were the charcol grey Kotatsu Floral by toothpanda, the colorful VINTAGE KIMONO PATCHWORK - SWEET AND BRIGHT by lucypatterson, teal and peach Peach puffs by su_g and the peachy kimono - bubblegum pop by monmeehan.
As design inspiration for the pants I used the DIY Mommy blog entry on the double ruffle legging and modified it to widen the pant leg. I took the basic measurements from a pair of my daughter’s leggings and drew a line straight down from the crotch for the inseam and drafted a line from the hip out at an angle for the outside edge. I also added extra width to the back of pant leg and narrowed the front pant leg so I could get the wrap around effect.
I began with a sample of my daughters clothing for the shirt as well only this time I used two different shirts to integrate elements I liked from each one. I then added my own sleeve style and the pocket.
Fun stuff! I even made a label for my “clothing line;” Penney Candy.
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