Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful fathers out there, and especially to my own father. To show him just how much I appreciate him, as you already know, I decided to get my craft on and make him three, fairly simple projects. Like I stated in my last blog, I found them on Pinterest from a 100 gifts list that was compiled from many different blogs. I made a mustache mug, a vinyl record bowl, and a necktie eyeglasses case. I'll start with the necktie eyeglasses case, or as I like to call it...

Now you've gotta bear with me for this blog, because I seem to have lost my camera, so I've been using my phone for all of these pictures, which honestly sucks, BUT I promised to document and post all of the father's day crafts, and I was not going to break it. So here we go...

First I took a tie that I found at TJ Maxx for pretty cheap, and I cut it 17" from the point:

Like my pretty floral bed sheets. :P

Don't mind the casual atmosphere, I had to hide out in my room to do this, and oh hey, there's my kindle on the blog where I found the idea for the necktie eyeglasses case! :P So anyway, I cut the tie, and then needed to remove some stitching that would have got in the way of the project, like that label you can see in the picture. After doing this, it just so happened to open up the whole tie, so I needed to close it back up using a wonderfully ingenious tool:

Liquid Stitch for "Seamless Sewing"

How awesome is that?! So I stitched it back together using my new best friend, and let it dry for a few minutes before moving on (the bottle says half an hour, but I got impatient, and it worked out just fine). After this, I folded the top part over just a few inched and sewed that in place (with needle and thread):

I am not a great sewer (I feel like that's the wrong term... hmm...), so I probably should have used the Liquid Stitch, but I wasn't sure if it would hold all the folds once the project was done, since all of the layers became thicker and thicker as I went. So once I finished sewing over the fold, I then folded over the rest of the tie until the bottom reached the bottom of the   long seam running down the back of the tie. Hmm... hopefully the next picture will help with that awful explanation:

Helpful?

After I found where I wanted it to sit, I started to sew the sides, while being careful not to sew the pouch where the glasses/anything else will go. Again, my sewing job is NOT pretty. After I finished and showed my little sister (who took a couple fashion classes in high school), she looked horrified, and then told me I should have sewn it to hid the stitching, and then she tried to explain to me how to do that, while my face reflected more and more confusion. OH WELL, next time she can do the sewing if I can't use my Liquid Stitch. After my horrendous sewing was done, I added Velcro:

I added the softer side to the top, so not to scratch the glasses/anything else that goes in, and after lining up where that would fold over, I added the rougher side to the bottom.

TA DA!

NEXT!

This was SUPER simple, and oh so rewarding. First you take a record that will not be missed (because it will not be playable once all is said and done, I must put this for people out there who are not very bright - like my sister who, YES, did as that question). I asked my dad for one of his that he doesn't mind me ruining and he gave me:

Rod Stewart Foot Loose & Fancy Free

This worked out quite well for me, because I wanted something with a cool middle design on the record to add to the bowl. This one had a nice palm tree scene on it, so I was pleased. So, to start you must preheat your oven to 200 degrees F. Preheating is very necessary for this project. After that go fetch a cookie sheet and a metal bowl (that it about the size that you wanna end up with for your bowl).

Set them up like so. Wait for your oven to heat up, then place the items into your oven for about 8 to 10 min. You want the vinyl to get nice and soft so that it'll be easy to work with. 

Now, because I suck I didn't take a picture of what the record looks like on the bowl after the 8 to 10 min. have passed, because the next step needs to happen almost immediately, so I was kind of in a rush. Whoops. So use your imagination and imagine the record looks a bit warped on top of the bowl, and then follow the next direction. 

After the 8 to 10 min. are up, check the record (using an oven mit) to make sure it is flimsy enough to mold. If it is, take everything out (the bowl and cookie sheet are also hot, along with the record, so be careful). Here is where things get a bit tricky, and where I thank goodness Joshua was with me this day, or else I would've been in a bind while trying to do this alone. Take the flimsy record off the bowl, and have a friend flip the bowl, then put the record in the bowl so you can really get it to take shape and make cool ripples, like this:

cool right?!

This needs to happen pretty quickly, because the record will harden quickly. If it does to the point where it isn't molding without possibly breakage, then place it back in the oven for a few minutes, and try again. I had to do this at least twice, hence the lack of picture.

Now we've got a cool new bowl!

NEXT!

THIS was my all time favorite father's day craft. I had so much fun with this, and I'm not even all that artistically talented. 

To start I found a mug at Walmart for about $3. It is porcelain or ceramic, I'm not really sure to be quite honest. Anyway, I found the mug at Walmart, and I went online to find a mustache stencil (because I can't draw free hand to save my life) and found one I really liked and taped it to the mug:

I then traced this with a fine tip, black Sharpie marker/pen.

I then traced over this with a pebeo porcelain gel pen (which I found a Michael's).

After doing this, I opened up my pebeo porcelain gel (also found at Michael's) in the same exact color as the pen, and started to color in the mustache (which I had a super, awesome, fun time with!).

This is just one coat. Keep going until you get it how you like it.

It took a little while to get it completely covered, and Joshua kept me company, but I feel he may have gotten bored at times, because while I wasn't paying attention he decided to get camera happy and snap candid shots of me. And a 3 minute video, while I was obliviously having a conversation with him and my brother, which I am not posting.

I only liked this one, and I'm still not sure if I do. And yet here it is.

Now after you've scolded your boyfriend, and completed the painting to your liking read the directions on your bottle of gel stain. Mine said to let it air dry for 24 hours before baking at 300 degrees F for 35 min.

Done painting! Now you might see a slight different in size from the print-out to the painting. That is because I was slowly becoming a perfectionist during that time, so when I would accidentally paint outside my tracing, I would try and even it out on both sides. So instead of long and thin, we have short and thick. Oh well, I am still very proud if it for my first mug painting. 

So, since I had to wait 24 hours until baking, that meant I had to hide it somewhere, and since my room is a disaster area, Joshua and I brought it to his house. After the 24 hours were up, and after we both got out of work and back to his house, we whipped out his toaster oven, set it to 300 degrees F, let it warm up a bit, and set the microwave timer for 35 min.

Almost there!

After it was done, I took it out (with an oven mit!) and set it down on a pot holder on the counter to cool. After it was cool I checked the mug over and it was perfect, and while doing so I found a neat little piece of information that could have been quite terrible, if the directions on my bottle of pebeo required a higer level of heat for cooking. It said "OVEN SAFE UP TO 450 DEGREES". Well thank goodness I only needed it to be 300 degrees. I guess yesterday was my lucky day.

Now that my dad has received all of his wonderful new gifts, I am thrilled to say that he loves them! I had taken pictures of him with all three items, but my phone SUCKS and never saved the pictures. I would take new ones, but he's outside working on the house. He's repainting our shutters! The color is "Cherry Tart" by Behr. I'm pretty excited for the new change. 

That's all for today! 

Happy Father's Day!

xo,

Chelsea