LOVE LACED DESIGNS

Christmas Crafting: Wreaths

2011-12-02T12:55:00.001-05:00

These wreaths are full of texture and sparkle. A combination of Christmas ball ornaments, ribbons, and strips of fabric are attached to a wreath wire frame that can be found at any craft store. The wreath on the left is made using only plastic "shatter-proof" ball ornaments which work better for a wreath especially if it will be outside. The one on the right is made from a combination of glass and plastic ball ornaments.

Check out the new post on Love Laced Designs on paper!

2011-11-28T21:13:00.001-05:00

[just click the image above]

Check out the new post on Love Laced Designs on paper!

2011-11-26T13:10:00.001-05:00

[just click the image above]

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Art [Part 2]

2011-11-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

This is just an update to the last post. The whale [top] is Mikaela's wonderful print! On the bottom right is the giraffe from trafalgarssquare's shop on Etsy framed with a quote from Dr. Seuss's Oh, The Places You'll Go! that I thought complemented the drawing. On the bottom left is a close up of the framed children's book page and the bottom center photo is a close up of the R wrapped with fabric scraps.

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Art

2011-10-24T12:33:00.000-04:00

In celebration of Baby George's birth I want to talk about the art that decorates his nursery. I wanted to create a collage of art that could grow and change with him. I also wanted to bring in some yellow because it is one of Erin's favorite colors. So I decided to use a mix of frames that I had laying around and paint them using the teal sample paint and yellow spray paint. Now that I had the frames, I needed to come up with some art to go in them. I also loved the look of the fabric letter I saw on this site so I decided to make one.

I began with a photo of the family pet, Archie. I made a couple edits in Photoshop to make the image softer. I also used Photoshop to make an a which I cut out and placed on top of the photo. I could have just printed the photo with the a already in place but I wanted the slightly raised look of having it lay on top.

Next, I picked a page from an old children's book I had found at a local antique store for $6. I cut the page down to size and used colored pencils to add a little color to the black and white illustrations.

Finally, I had seen nursery art like this on Etsy and decided to make something similar. I scanned a piece of the fabric that lined the back of the quilt Erin's mom made. Then again using Photoshop put together the graphic shown to the left. Since this is all before George was born this was just a temporary piece and I will now be updating it with the correct information. My husband was kind enough to provide his "guesses" for this piece. Unfortunately for George, I think Flip may stick as his nickname.

As I said before, I wanted the collage to be able to grow and change with the baby so I decided not to fill the other frames. They may either stay empty as art themselves or provide for other photos and art over time. The cross-stitch that became part of the collage was a gift received at one of the baby showers.

I made the letter R, which is representative of the baby's last name, using a wooden letter, fabric, and glue/sealer. The wooden letter came from a local craft store for $2 and the fabric was part of the scraps that Erin's mom had provided from the quilt she made [also used on the switch plate]. I simply coated the letter with glue/sealer [Mod Podge], wrapped with strips of fabric, and covered with another coat of glue/sealer.

Now, this collage is not the only art on the wall - though it was at the time of the reveal so I still need to take pictures of the additions. But I still want to explain where the new art came from. I had a yellow frame that I didn't use in the collage because it was a little wobbly and I didn't want it in reach of the baby. I used this and the print from this Etsy shop shown to the left to create a piece for the wall next to the light switch. I also had asked Erin's friend Mikaela, who makes beautiful screen prints, to do a print for the nursery. It has arrived and just needs to be framed and hung above the changing table. The work she put into it is amazing and I can't wait to share photos of it.

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Changing Table

2011-10-17T21:47:00.000-04:00

The changing table was handed down to Mark and Erin and had seen better days. It was stained a cherry color and had some outdated brass colored hardware. It was time for an update.

There was a good bit of gray paint left from the walls so I decided to go ahead and paint it gray [MARK TWAIN OMBRA GRAY]. However, deciding what to do for the hardware was not so easy.

The tub I used for

toys was from

Target like this one

but light blue.

I shopped around for cute, cheap hardware but this was not to be found. So I began to look around for inspiration. I decided if the tub that I was using for toys had rope handles then this should also work for the drawers and would be really cute for a little boy's room. Now, I had a vision and it was time to carry it out.

Step 1: Paint

To paint the changing table I followed the steps I would use to paint any piece of furniture. First, I disassembled it into as many pieces as was easily possible. In this case this meant taking out the drawers and removing the door and rails. Next, I lightly sanded the pieces and cleaned them to remove any loose particles. Then I painted two light coats with a small smooth surface roller and a small brush - allowing about an hour dry time between coats. Finally, the next day I added a coat of glossy clear lacquer to make it easier to clean.

Step 2: Make Rope Pulls and Knob

I purchased a package of rope and began making the drawer pulls and knob. There was no real reason for my choice of rope - it was simply one that I thought had a nice thickness with out being too thick.

For the drawer pulls I:

... cut four pieces of rope about 24 inches long leaving plenty of room to tie knots on each end.

... melted the ends with a lighter to keep the rope from fraying.

... tied a knot on one end of each of the pieces.

... threaded the other end through one of the holes on the drawer from the old hardware.

Or at least I tried to thread the rope through. I quickly learned that I would have to widen the holes slightly if I was going to be able to thread the rope. So I broke out the power drill and used a bit just slightly larger than the existing holes to widen them so I could proceed.

... actually threaded the rope through the hole and then back through to the other side.

... tied a knot on the other end of the rope and slowly tightened it until I got a handle the length I wanted.

... trimmed the extra rope and melted the trimmed end with a lighter to prevent fraying.

For the door knob I:

... cut a piece of rope about 12 inches long.

... melted the ends with a lighter to keep the rope from fraying.

... tied a loop knot on one end.

... threaded the other end through the hole that I had widen when making the pulls.

... tied a knot on the other end of the rope and tightened as much as possible to secure.

... trimmed the extra rope and melted the trimmed end with a lighter to prevent fraying.

Thankfully, it turned out to be that simple. I was expecting to have to try different methods before getting one that worked. I also think they turned out better than anything I could have bought!

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Switch Plate

2011-10-10T15:50:00.001-04:00

The switch plate might not seem like a big deal but it's the details that help make a space. A pretty switch plate was already in the room but it didn't seem nursery-like. I decided it would need to move to a new room and be replaced. It didn't seem right to replace it with a plain white plate though. I would need to make a custom plate for the room.

I had an old plate from my house to use as the base and Erin's mother had sent me some scraps of fabric that were leftover from the beautiful quilt she made. Thus, I had an extremely budget friendly solution. I decided the grey fabric with a simple pattern would create just enough interest without being too much.

Now for the process...

Step 1: Decide how the fabric will be arranged on the switch plate. It is important to consider how any image will look when the holes are cut for the switch and screws.
Step 2: Coat the front of the switch plate with a glue [Mod Podge].
Step 3: Carefully place the fabric in desired position smoothing from the middle out.
Step 4: Brush glue around the edges of the back and fold fabric over edges like your wrapping a present.
Step 5: Cut a slit in the fabric at the hole for the switch. You need to have a flap to fold back in each direction so my cut looked a little like this: >-<.
Step 6: Brush glue around the edge of hole on back and fold fabric through.
Step 7: After allowing time for glue to dry trim any excess fabric from back of plate.
Step 8: Use a pushpin to make a small hole in fabric at location of holes for screws. This will make it easier to insert screws and attach the switch plate to the wall.

Be careful when making not to stretch the fabric too tightly around the switch plate. This will put unnecessary stress on the glue and may keep it from lasting. Just wrap lightly making sure everything is smooth. Also, don't worry about the appearance of the back and how neatly trimmed your fabric is this will not show. However, it is important that the fabric is well secured on the back. You may have to coat the edges with extra glue to help ensure adhesion.

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Bee Mobile

2011-10-06T23:05:00.000-04:00

First a side note: my favorite bee is on the right above - the HOKIE bee! Yes Mark, Erin, my husband, and I are all Va Tech grads.

The mobile was my FAVORITE project I tackled while doing the nursery. Ever since I saw this episode of Dear Genevieve on HGTV, I had wanted to use the idea of wrapping branches for a project. This combined with Erin's love for yarn and bumblebees led me to the idea of making the bee mobile. To make it extra special, I asked her to save scraps of yarn to use for "a project" - remember the whole nursery was a surprise so she was not allowed to know what I would be making.

So now that you know how I came up with the idea, I'll give you the details of how I accomplished the final product.

Step 1: Wrap Branches

I had plenty of branches from a tree I had trimmed. After picking two that looked interesting, I cut off all the small flimsy branches. Next, I determined how I wanted the branches to fit together and used the yarn that I was going to wrap them with to latch the two in place. Then, starting with the thickest part, I began wrapping the branches. I worked from thick to thin skipping pieces branching off until I reached the end. After completing a branch, I would then work on the pieces that I skipped. At the end of each branch, I wrapped the tip so that there were no sharp points exposed. The trick is to take your time and wrap tightly so that the yarn lies neatly. This step is tedious but the outcome is beautiful if done carefully.

Step 2: Make Bumblebees

When it came to the bumblebees, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to make them. I considered knitting but decided I probably wouldn't have the patience to accomplish this considering I am an amateur when it comes to knitting. I also considered felting but didn't know if I could do this with wool yarn or if it would have to be combed wool. So I did a small test with a bit of the yarn and discovered this wouldn't work. Finally, I decided to use wood beads as the base and wrap them with the yarn.

For Plan C, I needed two sizes of wood beads, black pipe cleaners, the yarn scraps, glue, and vellum. The two different sizes of wood beads would be the head and the body of the bees. The pipe cleaners would function to hold the beads together as well as make the antennae and stinger. A clear glue is best [I used MOD PODGE] because it can be used both as a glue and as a sealer. The vellum - this is a translucent paper - would be used for the wings. I will work on making a diagram of how these parts went together to make a bee but for now, here is a description of the steps:

[1] Cut antennas from black pipe cleaners. The pieces should be long enough to be bent in half to make both antennae for each bee.
[2] Thread one body-bead and one head-bead on a pipe cleaner, loop it over the antennae, and thread it back through the beads. This holds the antennae, head, and body together.
[3] Wind one end of the pipe cleaner around the other starting wide next to the bead and getting narrower to form the stinger. Any excess pipe cleaner can be trimmed.
[4] Pick two strings of yarn to wrap around the beads. Since I was using scraps of yarn, I used different combinations of two colors of yarn. Of course, you could use yellow and black but I enjoy the interest different color combinations add to the mobile.
[5] Tie your two strands around the base of the stinger near the body.
[6] Brush the body and head with glue and wrap carefully with yarn to create stripes. The antennae and stinger are helpful here because they give you something to hold on to that doesn't have glue on it. In some cases I ran out of one color before covering the head and just made the head a solid color where as others are striped. I want to point this out because I don't think it's important for all the bees to be "perfect" and be done exactly the same - after all nature doesn't produce two things exactly alike.
[7] Brush a layer of glue on the outside of the yarn to be sure the yarn doesn't unravel.
[8] Cut vellum to make wings. I cut a strip of vellum, folded it in half, and cut out the wings in pairs. If you want them to be exactly the same, I would recommend making a template and tracing it onto the vellum. I decided to wing it [yeah I know I couldn't resist].
[9] Lastly, attach the wings. I used a staple gun to staple them on because this gave me the staple to tie the bee to the branch and guaranteed that the wings would not fall off. This may be overkill but I didn't want wings falling into baby hands which I felt may be a possibility if I simply glued them on.

Step 3: Assemble Mobile

I did this step with the branches hanging from the ceiling fan - it was off - so that I could determine how I wanted the bees to hang. Then I simply used a thin wire to tie the bees to the branches. I threaded the wire through the staple on the bee and twisted the end around the wire to secure. Next, I looped it over the branch at the length I wanted it to hang, wrapped the wire around the branch a couple times, and twisted to secure. I chose points on the branches where there were little nubs so that the wire wouldn't slide. After attaching all the bees I made sure everything balanced like I wanted. I made a few adjustments and the mobile was complete!

So, now that I've written out the steps it seems a lot more complicated than it actually was. On top of that it is still my FAVORITE part of the nursery - hopefully the little one will like it as much as I do. The best part is I had most of the materials so it was an almost free project.

This is the what the baby's view of the mobile will be.

Mark and Erin's Nursery: Paint

2011-10-04T18:02:00.000-04:00

Step 1: Pick Wall Color

Picking wall colors is always a big decision and I knew that Mark is pretty conservative with color while Erin loves bright colors. My solution was to combine the two. I looked to the internet for inspiration as to how this may be accomplished and found an episode of Color Splash from HGTV where David Bromstad had used two colors mixed to create a gradient of stripes. I thought it created a nice almost watercolor sky effect and would be perfect in this situation.

I decided to keep with the gray [MARK TWAIN OMBRA GRAY] that was the existing wall color for the bottom stripe and so I just had to choose a second color. After having a little color discussion with Mark and Erin, I decided either a light blue or teal would be perfect. I picked one shade [ICE RINK BLUE and CINCINNATIAN HOTEL ABBEY] of each to sample.

Step 2: Sample Color

This was probably the most important step because though two colors may look good side by side, it does not guarantee they will mix well. The other part of this step was determining the ratio of each color to use for the different stripes. I began decided to use the following mixes:

0% gray - all blue/teal
13% gray - 1 tablespoon gray : 7 tablespoon blue/teal
25% gray - 2 tablespoon gray : 6 tablespoon blue/teal
50% gray - 4 tablespoon gray : 4 tablespoon blue/teal
100% gray - all gray

I used a small canvas that I first painted solid gray since this was the color on the walls and I wanted to test coverage of the mixes as well. I then painted stripes of each of the mixes in order of the gradient with the teal on one side of the canvas and the blue on the other. The result of which is shown. I - along with the help of my husband - decided that the blue mixed more successfully.

Step 3: Paint Walls

(aka Tape, Tape, and More Tape)

Okay, so this definitely wasn't easy and I'm not sure what is the "right way" to accomplish this task so I'll just tell you how I decided to tackle it. First, for ease of marking and to make the lines of the framing make sense, I used the top of the window and doors as the bottom of my top stripe and the bottom of the window as the top of my bottom stripe. From there I divided the area between into 3 equal thicknesses.

Laser level and measuring tape in hand, I began taping. This many stripes meant A LOT of taping. I started with taping so that I could paint the top stripe and middle stripe. Remember the wall was already the color I needed for the bottom stripe but if it hadn't been, I would have taped for this as well. Two coats of paint later and the tape came down and new tape went up for the stripes in between. This time the taping was a bit easier because the line was already there from the stripes just completed. Two coats of paint on these stripes and ta-dah, luckily it was exactly how I had imagined - sort of a hazy sky effect.

Now there are a couple things to note. There were a couple spots that needed touch up from paint that drip from an above stripe. This would have been easy if I had paint left over from the mix that needed touch up but I didn't and so I had to mix a little test it and mix a little more until I got a match. To avoid this I advise being sure to mix a little extra of each color. Also, I was careful to leave a day between painting and re-taping so as not to pull up any of the paint I just put on the wall. This may be slightly conservative depending on the quality/type of tape but I do recommend this because as I just said touching up the paint can be very difficult.

PAINT SPECS

Lowe's Valspar

Mark Twain Ombra Gray and Ice Rink Blue

COST BREAKDOWN

1 GAL GRAY $34

1 8OZ SAMPLE TEAL $ 3

1 8OZ SAMPLE BLUE $ 3

1 GAL BLUE $34

2 ROLLS PAINTER'S TAPE $11

_________________TOTAL $70

Mark and Erin's Nursery

2011-10-02T16:12:00.001-04:00

When I found out my cousins [Erin and Mark], were having their first child I knew I wanted to give them something special. They were going to need to transform one of their rooms into a nursery and I do love designing rooms, therefore I decided to ask if I could design their nursery as a surprise. Thankfully, they – or at least Erin – loved this idea. I commenced work in August and they have been living with the doorclosed – surprise inside – since. About a week ago I began gathering the baby items stowed around their house from baby showers to fill the room and yesterday, after a few months of work, I revealed the final result!

Okay, so now for the details of what I did and in some cases had help doing.

painted walls of room and closet; built shelves in closet; painted and changed hardware on changing table; sewed new shade, curtain, and cushion covers; painted frames and made "art" above crib; decorated switch plate; painted lamp; made bumble bee mobile

Over the next week or so I will blog about the details of these projects. I will outline the source of the ideas both inspired and imagined; the process of each task both well and not-so well planned; and the cost break-down of what was bought, repurposed, found and donated.