Fine Craft Guild .com » Stencil Art

DIY Animal Stencil Mugs

Fine Craft Guild — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:57:11 +0000

: this fun and easy way to spruce up plain white mugs and to personalize them with the kids (or your) favorite animals and designs. Stencil your way to the farm ….

Country Living offers free stencils to download of cows, sheep and pigs.

French Pillows w Bird Collage & Bunny Portrait

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:14:48 +0000

Today I have for you beautiful & unique French Bird & Bunny pillows, spotted in hip-groovy Marait, Paris.

Bird Pillow

If you’ve made our ‘bird with umbrella’ pillow, you could make this French bird pillow as a companion.

Techniques: To make a pillow like this, however, you must first create the whole pillow design with all the various layers in Photoshop and then create transfers. The ‘bird with umbrella’ tutorial teaches you how to use transfers.

http://www.finecraftguild.com/how-to-make-a-pillow/

You might like to review our stenciling tutorials on how to use stencils on textiles. Overlapping mono-printing might give you a rougher, artsy version of this.

Personalized Portrait Pillow

This pillow is perfect as it is with that bowtied bunny portrait.

However, if you have previously made our bird pillows, I’d replace it with a bird portrait to continue your interior design theme.

Taking it further…

I also love this portrait idea for making personalized pillows, which would make great graduation, anniversary or birthday gifts.

More Pillow Designs

Crochet Pillow – free pattern

Pillow with Bird with Parasol Appliqué

Meditation Eye Pillow
Zafu Meditation Pillow

Bird Designs

Felted Birdhouses

Hand painted Birdhouse

Birdcage Stenciled Pillow

Cutest Bird Feeder Ever Seen

Bunny Designs

Burlap Bunny

Bunny Tassel

Fourth of July Clipart

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:51:20 +0000

Stars have to be the most versatile home decorating shape ever. All it takes is this printable Fourth of July clipart (star stencil) to make lots of stars for a fun & festive Fourth of July party.

Fourth of July Clipart Star Stencil

stencil

in blue, red & white as a corsage to your outfit
to ten and with a simple thread hang them from a straightened coat hanger to make a decorative Fourth of July party mobile
in alternating blue, red & white. Put them all onto a string to make a festive banner.
made from textile as an applique to your American bunting
to your happy Fourth of July party invitation
to napkin rings, to your tabletop runner and other party table decorations.

In other words, with just this simple star stencil you can make stars till it feels like a celebrity cocktail party.

Your Free Star Clipart

Here’s your free downloadable Fourth of July clipart aka star stencil.

CREATIVE HOME DECORATING TIP:
If you take red as your base and use white stars for contrast, you can double-duty your white stars for the holiday season. Can save a lot of time particularly if you are going to create lots of stars.

More Creative Ideas

Click here for more Fourth of July clipart: Downloadable template for fun crafts & home decorating.

Stamping :: Simple Painting Technique

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Once you start stamping, there is no stopping, is there? That’s what I found at least. Last night I was preparing for this weekend’s art demonstration. I was using some watercolor paintings in the category ‘misfits & unfinished works’ as the base for some fresh Spring artwork to bring along.

What did I do, besides bringing my white & other color acrylics out? I roamed through my ‘stencils & stamps’-box to find a gorgeous giant butterfly stamp. After softening the prior work with some pastel tints & layering color washes, I applied happy orange acrylic paint on the stamp and stamped the butterflies right on top of each artwork.

Instant Spring…. and almost Summer !

I’m not quite done yet, but you can see it shaping up.

Like it?

(Sorry, no ‘before’ picture of those ‘misfit/unfinished’ works of art.

I guess this is art article, rather than craft-post: when I do art, I do what I like;
no planning .)

Here’s my gem of a stamp:

Yes, just a kid toy stamp.

If you want your own, …

Get Your Butterfly Stamp Set here:

Butterfly Rubber Stamp Set By Cavallini & Co.
One of Many Stamp Sets Available Here

Fixing-up old artwork (misfitting/unfinished works) is not the only way to use stamps and stencils. Here are some more:

10 Quick Ways to Make Stamps Useful

Also see…

Upholstered Headboards: Make Your Own

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:25:00 +0000

Comfortable bed headboards are easy to make and transform ordinary bedroom furniture.

Actually good bed headboards have to follow certain design criteria:

1. Decorative items on (or above) the headboard should not be able to fall onto my head.

2. It should be high enough to support my back when having breakfast in bed.

3. My head should be able to lean back, i.e. the headboard should not be too high

4. It should be padded so that it will feel like a chair when leaning against it

5. it should be beautiful, and not too loud in color or design that it overpowers other design elements in the house

6. it should be large & attention grabbing enough that it makes a significant design statement.

I like to see all this in a headboard, please, if it’s not too much to ask.

While this seems like a long list of ‘must have’s, actually many headboards actually meet these criteria. Those that qualify, tend to be neutral-toned, with textures and patterns that accent other elements in the bedroom. Have a look at these examples that I picked as the best from the headboards currently on bhg.com:

Top 3 Bed Headboard Ideas / Designs

1. My favorite headboard is this shabby chic cottage headboard. Essentially it’s a padded pillow hung above the bed on hooks from a strip of molding. I like the cottage style. Plus, this can be an easy DIY project.

The base idea is also flexible: I can also see how this can be adapted into say a nautical theme when molding would be replaced with an old rowing ore with hooks.

2. Classy neutral-toned linen headboard that you might find in a 5 star hotel.

3. ‘Gorgeous’ is what came to mind when I saw this headboard. A professional seamstress could pull it off as a DIY project, but I ??!!

Fabric covered buttons, rounded corners lift this headboard from boring to sophisticated.

Pairing it with the ultra-modern mirrored night stand plus glass lampshade makes me want to crawl into this picture.

Upholstered Headboards

How to Make Your Own Upholstered Headboard

Headboard DIY

This DIY video shows how you can make this over-sized upholstered headboard.

It explains everything, from how to cut the wooden frame, how to make the headboard padded, and more.

The ‘DIY headboards’- video teaches you how to create this beautiful upholstered headboard.

The fabric pattern is made using the stencils out of this book: Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens.

DIY Stenciling for Your Headboard & Other Bedroom Furniture

By stenciling the fabric of your headboard you will be able to create a wonderful symmetrical design that might be more difficult & costly to achieve with ready-bought printed fabric.

Purchase simple calico, sturdy cotton or linen fabric .

Use the stencils from this project or buy the book here.

Use fabric paint to complete the project.

Other Bedroom Designs, Projects & Ideas

Child Bedroom Furniture w/ Stencils

Kids Furniture

Home Decor Kids Wall Painting Designs

Yellow-pink Color Combination/

Make Your Own Lampshade

Anthropologie for Less, Decorating Craft Ideas/

Italian Bedroom Furniture/

Build Your Own Birdhouse

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:53:00 +0000

This adorable birdhouse is the culmination of a few different craft techniques: creating floral wall art from toilet paper rolls, making a beaded accent charm, and painting, stenciling and decorating a birdhouse.

What makes this wall decoration work is repetition of color, shape and pattern.

The How-to

How to Make Toilet Paper Roll Flowers

1. Mix red and white tempura and paint the toilet paper rolls. Let it dry. Repeat as is needed to give a nice coverage.

2. Flatten 3 toilet paper rolls lengthwise, and cut them in 1/3 of an inch circular strips.

3. Staple 5 together for the medium sized flower; staple 8 together for a large flower and staple 1 onto the middle of a second ring for the lotus flower bud.

4. These three flowers were originally designed as a mobile where the flowers hang below each other, and the end piece is a grouping of a few beads to give it the weight required to hang straight down. (Note: toilet paper rolls are very light). I just used simple sewing thread and tied the beaded accent charm * on first, and then looped the thread through each toilet paper roll flower, allowing a bit of spacing in between each flower. I made a loop at the end of the thread to hang the flower mobile up.

For this wall vignette, I simply ‘draped’ the flowers mobile over the birdhouse.

* How to Make a Beaded Charm

Simple. String several beads of different sizes & materials with compatible colors onto a metal pin and with your jewelry supplies, create a loop at the end of the pin and clip of the excess metal. In this case, I’ve uses a glass bead at the bottom, then a hand-painted wooden bead, a midsized glass bead and a smaller glass bead.

How to Paint a Wooden Birdhouse

1. Decide on a color scheme and style for the house.
We wanted a whimsical, girly design and very pink approach to decorating here. But you might like to choose something more rustic, classic or romantic ! The actual decoration design is up to you.

2. First lightly sand the store-bought birdhouse form. Apply a coat of white as a grounding. We used simple tempura.

3. For the second coat of paint, mix your paint to achieve the right shade. Always remember that paint becomes lighter when dry.

4. We choose to accentuate the shape of the birdhouse with our decorations.

5. Our stencil: we chose the flat end of a pencil to be our stencil. It was lightly dipped in tempura paint to create our polka dots. To create smooth dots, roll your pencil lightly in your fingers when holding it against the surface of the object to be painted. This will create a smooth round edge.

If …

you are planning to hang your birdhouse outside, place it in a protected area so that the birds will be safe, plus use durable materials that are non-toxic for birds.

Craft Materials Needed

1. Toilet Paper rolls.

2. Tempura paint to paint the rolls.

3. Stapler

4. Beads & thread.

5. Unfinished wooden bird house (Click for 4 pack of quality birdhouses in which birds actually like to nest, but which you can also paint and use inside for decoration. ) For indoor use, you can also use a paper Mache birdhouse kit.

6. Stencils & Paint Brushes.

7. Sealer, acrylics paint & Varnish. Liquitex Acrylics Paint, or even folk art paint, will do the job just fine for a decorative birdhouse that’s mostly kept indoors or protected outside.

Indoor vs.. Outdoor Birdhouses

For a birdhouse you wish to enjoy outdoors, you’ll need completely different materials. Give your bird house a (white) base coat to seal the wood. Then paint over it using either an acrylics paint for detailed decoration, or an outdoor paint in case you do not want to embellish it too much. If you’ve painted your birdhouse with acrylic paint, you should really give your birdhouse one or two coats of protective varnish at the end.

Note that exterior house paint is much harder to work with than water-based tempura or acrylics. If you use that, you should keep your design simple and perhaps even leave your birdhouse plain after giving it one or two coats of color. Painting tip: choose painting products (base coat, paint and varnish) which are compatible with each other.

Protect your birdhouse and protect your birds: place the birdhouse where it is a bit protected from the elements and from predator animals.

Additional Resources

Making & Painting
Victorian Birdhouses

20 Upscale Homes
for Sophisticated Birds

Folk Art Acrylic-Paint

Liquitex Acrylics Paint Set

Birdhouse Construction

Birdhouses you can Paint & Decorate

Birdhouses You Can
Build in a Day

Build Your Own Birdhouse Kits

There are several styles of ‘Build your own birdhouse’-kits that you can buy.

Tip: If you buy the cheapy ‘build your birdhouse’-kits with the paint included, you are advised to also order an extra tube of white or your favorite color as these kits usually come with way to little paint to cover the whole birdhouse. Not a problem if you know this in advance and can make up for it.

Also see: Eco Friendly DIY garden projects Ideas & tutorials,

including a really cute eco-friendly Bird Feeder.

Create Cool Child Bedroom Furniture w Stencils (DIY Tutorial)

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:52:00 +0000

** How to Stencil Furniture. ** Lovely. Fun. Doable. Those are the three worlds … I mean words… that come to mind when I saw this dresser make-over. You love it also?

Image source: Lena Corwin, via Etsy.

Free Tutorial On Hand-Printing Your Cabinet

This design & tutorial for this contemporary, whimsical dresser is by talented artist Lena Corwin.

Materials Needed to Do this Dresser Stenciling Project

   * A piece of furniture to stencil, (old pieces should be sanded or stripped)
    * white latex primer paint
    * white semi-gloss paint
    * contact paper
    * a contrasting color of latex paint
    * roller paintbrush, pencil, craft, knife, scissors, painters tape
    * to download those lovely chubby moose and their animal chums

This free DIY tutorial comes with free downloadable flower designs and animal stencils. Easy to use: print, cut and apply.

Printing by Hand

Lena is also author of Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens. This furniture stenciling project is one of the projects featured in this already very popular book. This book would make a great gift, and I already ordered it for XMAS, yes, for myself.

Also see our prior article on KIDS FURNITURE with beautiful ideas!

Art in Paris

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

It’s not what you think. No art deco here, ma’am. Manhole mandalas, that’s art, instead.

Yesterday, I spotted this post by Laurie of Scene of the Grime (fun name) popping a manhole cover (roadside find) into her car. It was going to survive the junkyard and live as decoration in her backyard. A cool decorative vignette indeed.

It reminded me of ….

Last year, we rented an apartment in Paris, France, (oh la la) from a cash strapped musician. His artistic endeavors were everywhere in that funky apartment.

And at some point in his life he must have been manhole-obsessed, as several of his walls were covered with large manhole artworks. I dubbed the term ‘manhole mono-prints’. He must have taken huge sheets of art paper, (water-based?) paint or ink, and a big bush along and went to town. Covering manholes with ink and pressing his big sheets of aquarelle paper over them. You could tell he’d experimented with different papers and inks.

Here’s one of my photos. In my mind’s eye could see mono-prints in a range of bright colors, and of a range of designs. Like huge mandalas.

Just to entertain you, I’ve just hand tinted (thank you, Photoshop) one version, so you get a feel for what I’m on about..

(click image for larger version to print)

Like ‘m?

Wanna have a go at making these? ???!!

Something else to do in town,

besides summer sale shopping.

Original Easter Craft Ideas

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:06:00 +0000

No matter what your craft medium might be, here are 5 original ideas for you:

1. SEWING: Carrots for the Easter Bunny

Free Tutorial

These great looking carrots give a fun whimsical note to your Easter Brunch table.

You can fill them with chocolates and give them as gifts to guests.

Or you could enlarge them and make them into pillows.

Or, keep them just the size of the tutorial and they make nice place settings.

2. BAKING: 100% Cute : Bunny Cake Pops

(click on the title to go to the free craft tutorial)

Imagine that you could actually make these? Seems a daunting project to me,

but then again, I’m off sugar completely, so the incentive to go those extra 5 miles

for sugary sweeties is just not there with me. However, there’s no denying:

these Easter bunnies are 100% cute. Make great gifts.

3. HAND-SEWING PUPPETS: Burlap Easter Bunny in a Bucket

3. PAPER CRAFT & SCRAPBOOKING: Easy Bunny Easter Card

No tutorial is needed. Just copy the card design with the tools and embellishments that you have on hand. Create your own version of an Easter Bunny Greeting Card. Variation: make great Easter Brunch table place setting cards or menus with similar design.

4. MIXED MEDIA: DIY Easter Decor : Fun Easter Garland

This is a personal favorite. Very easy to make, and adds great whimsy to your Easter home decor. Simply follow a pattern of ribbons, embellished hand cut flower from craft paper, or recycled cardboard, eggs from recycled wrapping paper, and with a glue gun, add them to several strings of raffia.

These last 2 images were in my ‘inspiration’ file. This is a file of ‘I want to make my own versions of these, one day. Well, I didn’t yet, and now they are nameless. I nonetheless want to share their inspiration with you.

The garland was a project for sale. Not sure about the Easter bunny card. If you made these, email me and I’ll prominently put your name up there, with link.

Let’s Design a 3D Butterfly ‘Painting’

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:26:00 +0000

We all know the symbolic meaning of butterflies to be Spring and transformation. Well, I feel for me, Spring, as well as Transformation is in the air. When butterflies flutter in your belly, you’re in love. Such lovely symbolism…

I thought today to craft a lesson plan tutorial for classroom use. Needless to say, you can do this at home on your own with the kids also.

Let’s design a Butterfly picture.

Here is a sample of this craft idea.

(idea image: http://hobbycraft.co.uk)

Step-by-step Craft How-to

With a pencil, lightly draw a big circle on a large canvas using a large circular object. Tip: If you want to make this as a Valentine’s project, draw a large heart instead of a circle onto the canvas. For a heart design you could choose either a square or a rectangular canvas.
Cut 70-80 butterflies, either in many happy colors for a kids room or kitchen, or in pastel colors for a baby room, or in all white, for people like me, as I prefer monochromatic things. Don’t go too wild on the colors, and pick your colors by looking at the color wheel to create a proper color harmony.
Next, fold all butterflies so they appear to have wings.
If you made this monochromatic you could choose to detail one butterfly in a way that it is noticeably different from the rest, as seen from a distance.
Lay your canvas flat on the table. Throw all the butterflies on the circle in the canvas.
Look at it? Has nature done a perfect job? Tweak to create a balance composition / color scheme.
Now get your glue out and glue all the butterflies onto the canvas, approximately in the same way as they’d landed previously onto the canvas.
Work in a round manner so that the ‘painting’ develops evenly and in balance.
I can personally however see a few butterflies sneaking out of the circular arrangement, having a mind of their own…. dashing off… Note, however that the circle gives a ‘neatness’ to the randomness of the butterflies. So if you leave one or two escape from the circle, ensure that the overall composition is ‘tight’ and not messy looking.

And there you’ve got it: your own colorful butterflies art design!

If you use more than 1 butterfly design, be sure restrict yourself. Say 3 kinds of butterflies in a monochromatic artwork. If you you use 2, then keep your colors down to e.g. 2 shades of the same color. Besides being a fun project on the theme of transformation or spring, this is also an exercise is balancing control and randomness in the process of designing and making art.

Needed Craft Supplies for Butterfly Picture

Paper Craft Supplies	Supply Description
	Paper Shapers ‘Whale’- Punch – Butterfly This large puncher creates shapes that are a just under 2” in size.
	Sargent Art 90-3004 12-Inch by 12-Inch Canvas Panel, 100-Percentage Cotton This canvas is available in 9×9” 12×12” and 18×18”. Unless you’ll modify the project whereby the butterflies are shaped within a large heart on the canvas (as for a Valentine Project), you should get a square canvas.
	Paper Mod Podge-Matte Use classic decoupage glue for a children’s project or the matte, acid-free Mod Podge for fine paper art versions.
	Rainbow Super Value Construction Paper Ream, 9 inches x12 inches, 500 Sheets This is way more than you’ll need but this is such a good price, and a colorful stack that is both usable for many different kind of craft projects and will last you all year.

Tip: if you do not have a butterfly punch, and are not going to get one either, you could do two kind of things:

1. you could use a butterfly stencil to make a template or 2. you could sketch a butterfly to make a stencil. When you sketch one, erase all lines but the outline of the butterfly. Be sure to create easy to cut wings and details. Actually, for very small children you could simply use butterfly clipart as a base, however the designing and cutting is part of the fun for older children.

As a Classroom project for grade 3 and up. Equally fun for adults to make.

Several children could work together on a larger canvas, or each child can work with a smaller canvas of say 9×9”.

This craft activity would also be fun as a summer craft, and the resulting butterfly artwork makes a great gift.

Craft Project Duration

If you punch your butterflies, 45 minutes.

If you hand-cut your butterflies with scissors, 1 hr and 30 min minimum, dependent on paper thickness.

Additional time needed for the glue to dry.

Other Butterfly Art

How to Make a Simple Butterfly Mosaic

This article has been featured in a couple of link parties. Do check them out for other great craft & home decorating ideas.