The Incredible Stamped Shirt

Another one of those "I want to make this now" ideas. I saw this idea on Make and Takes website one night and thought "What a great idea, and I even have the stuff I could make it right now!" 

Well, that was 11pm and since I hadn't had a full night's sleep in awhile, I figured I'd make it later (i.e. the next morning). I immediately dug through my rubber and acrylic stamps to see what I could work with. Here are my finished products. It's just a repeated pattern stamped in acrylic paint. This first was a red ladybug on my daughter's onesie. The second was just a cluster of two flower stamps around the word (letter stamps). This is my favorite. I think smaller stamps look better than big ones.

The last was a multi-sided stamp done in four different colors. My son helped stamp this one and decided he wanted to wear it before we could do the back. We washed it (instead of heat setting it first) and it gave it a kind of vintage look. Check out Make and Take's tutorial for the how-to. It's great because you can take an old shirt and disguise the stains among the stamps!

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Joy (and sadness)

This was the last craft I made in our church creativity group. I love how it turned out (I'll tell you how in a second) but I'm sad that our creativity group will not go on as is (per new policy). I hope that Cameo will continue to get us together as a group of friends, occasionally for a craft night. If not, I just might have to do it, to appease the need to craft. We will see...

Cameo got this idea from someone else, and did most of the pre-work for us. The base is a circular wooden plaque glued to the bottom of a wooden candlestick. (The "o" is a different size.) The candlestick is then glued to a wooden block (about 4" by 6" if I remember right) cut from a 1"by 4". Then we screwed in a wooden finial at the top (again the "o" is a different size). I painted mine a brown-black (kind of a coffee color). I mixed a black acrylic with a brown gloss acrylic, which gives it the slightly shiny appearance. While that dried, we cut our fabric squares to 3" by 5" (I think) and frayed the edges. I used a cream-colored muslin. Then, using a homemade stencil, I painted the "JOY" letters on with black paint. After, everything was dry, we sprayed the front of the block with spray adhesive and attached the fabric squares. Then, we secured the corners of the fabric with decorative black nails. Most everyone used Christmas colors on theirs. I did my in neutral colors so I can keep it up all year if I want. I love it!