Links and Things

Valentine Craft Roundup

Three great projects for Valentine's Day - faux watercolor, typographic heart garlands and a polka dot gift card holder | SuzerSpace.com

I’ve realized that every year I say I don’t decorate for Valentine’s Day, and then every year some craft comes around that I just have to try, and sure enough, I’ve decorated for the holiday.

This year, three projects made their way into my crafterday afternoons:

Faux watercolor cards. While technically not a Valentine’s Craft, I combined this technique with my favorite thing – a pun – to make a cheery card. This also let me work on my brush lettering and doodling challenges that I’m doing this year.

Faux watercolor and doodling create a punny Valentine's Card! | suzerspace.comThis super cute garland tugged at my tyopography heart strings. The original post features a different technique; I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the large letter “U” to make my hearts. (It’s Helvetica Neu Bold Condensed if you are keeping score at home). Strung with red and white baker’s twine, it looks happy over my fireplace.

This polka dot technique is more popular as a Sharpie craft on mugs, but I used it to make a gift card holder.

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February 12, 2018 by I made this In the Craft Room Links and Things To Celebrate To Remember Using my Silhouette Cameo

Tiny Tip: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

a photo of paint names and numbers makes it easier to remember

We spent the better part of a year trying to decide on a paint color for the house. And once we finally settled on one, I really didn’t want to lose the paint chip swatch for fear of needing to start over.

I stuck it on my bulletin board in the kitchen, but that was a little useless when I was anywhere else. Like when the paint contractor called to confirm my color choice and I wasn’t at home. I was 99.999 percent I knew the number and name, but he was going to order buckets and buckets of paint, so I needed to know for sure.

To not have that happen again, I snapped a photo of that and now it’s in my phone forever. I’m not using it to match colors (the photo isn’t really color correct) – I just need to be able to clearly see the name and numbers. I’ve done the same with specialty light bulbs (make sure to turn the bulb so that numbers and letters are visible in the photo).

July 11, 2017 by I made this Links and Things To Remember

Web Wednesday: June 28, 2017

  • As a person who has good intentions but often ends up with odd results on DIY home improvement projects, this made me laugh.
  • On my adulting list last week was meeting with a loan officer about the best time to refinance our mortgage, and while the web is full of information, I really liked this calculator which stepped you through the messy math needed to make a decision.
  • I can already hear them at night. It’s getting to be Cicada Season (don’t click if you don’t like pictures of bugs).

None of these links are affiliate; they are just items that caught my eye in the last week.

June 28, 2017 by Links and Things To Remember

Tiny Tip: Make Matching Art Accessories

Create matching artwork from a shower curtain to complete your bathroom decoration

I’m not really a decorator. In fact, I’d have to describe my decorating “style” as eccentric. No, that’s not a typo for eclectic. I mean eccentric.

Case in point – I have this super cute shower curtain that I purchased at Ikea (sorry – no link, it’s no longer being offered).

Shower curtain for matching art

They had matching towels, but no matching bathroom wall artwork was available.

So I made my own.

I took a good, clear closeup photo of two of the fish on the curtain. And then I cleaned them up in Adobe Photoshop and auto traced the result in Adobe Illustrator. I changed the colors to be more vibrant, added a border and border background color and printed it as an oversize color print.

I have the luxury of working where I have access to an oversize color printer, but Staples/Kinkos/etc. will print these in the $1.99 to $9.99 range depending on size and paper stock.

I dropped it into a inexpensive frame (from Ikea, of course) and now  my bathroom wall artwork fits the category of “one of a kind masterpiece.”

Pro-tip – always create your artwork to be a standard size so you don’t have to have it custom framed. Standard size frames are readily available and can be inexpensive if you shop at the right store (or have a good coupon).

One other great thing about this trick – when I change my mind about the shower curtain (or it gets really dirty – does anyone actually wash shower curtains?)  I can make new matching artwork.

I’m only suggesting this for personal use, of course. I’m not a lawyer, but I’d guess that if you tried to sell an item created this way, you’d likely be violating every copyright law there is.

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June 27, 2017 by I made this In the Craft Room Links and Things To Remember Using a Computer or iPad
I'm a Pre-Press Super Hero by Day. A mild-mannered nerd at night. The SuzerSpace is my place to showcase all that I enjoy and want to share.

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