Celia's Crafting Tips

Tip #1:  Avoid crafting alone.
I have found that when I craft by myself I have less motivation to finish what I have started.  When you have others around working on the same or similar projects, it is much easier to stay focused on the task at hand.  (And when you finish, there is already someone there to admire your handiwork :).

Luckily, I have a few sisters who love crafting as much, if not more, than I do.  My sister Brigitte and I were able to do a project together before I left Utah and it was lots of fun! 

Tip #2:  When in doubt, use scrapbook paper.
Scrapbook paper is an invaluable tool in a wide variety of projects.  Half of the crafts I have pinned on Pinterest seem to involve scrapbook paper.  Here are a couple of things I have made in the last few months that use this wonderful product.
JOY Letters

Use your wood letters to trace the outline onto the scrapbook paper.

Cut a little bit inside the lines that you've drawn.  (You do this so that you'll have a white wood border on each letter.)  Then use EXTREMELY watered down brown paint to apply VERY THINLY (with a paintbrush) along the edges of your cut-out letters.  This gives them a nice aged feel.

Paint your wood letters white.

Sand the edges so that the wood shows through.

With a paintbrush, use watered down glue to apply the scrapbook paper to the letters.  Then use your paintbrush to apply the rest of your watered down glue over the top of the letters.

After everything is dry, dress your letters up with buttons, ribbons, etc using a hot glue gun.  The finished product!

Flower on Canvas

This was my inspiration.  You can find instructions on how to achieve this awesomeness if you follow this link: http://itsdoable.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/23/its-doablethe-flower-wall-art.html/

Here is the one I made.  I didn't really follow the instructions to be honest; I just looked at the picture and made my own interpretation.

Tip #3: If you don't want to use a stencil but you also want to have good-looking letters on your project, try this:  http://pureandposy.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-paint-near-perfect-letters.html
This is a link to my sister's blog.  I used this technique on one of my projects and it allowed me to pick out the fonts and sizes of letters I wanted.

The only thing I did differently was use transfer paper.  If you like making crafts, transfer paper will be a good thing to get.

 

Just place the transfer paper between your design and the surface you want the design to be transferred to.  You might want to tape it in place.  Then, using a pencil or a ball-point pen, trace the outline of your design.  Your design should be transferred to the wood/fabric/whatever other surface you're using.

Then all you have to do is paint inside the lines.  It's really awesome to see your own designs come to life!

Tip #4: Use Google to search for design ideas.  It's amazing!
While working on my most recent project, I found that I had left a little too much empty space in one of the corners.  So I typed "corner designs for pages" into Google and looked at the images that popped up.  So many good ideas!

For a Christmas present, I painted the lyrics to my sister and brother-in-law's song on wood...but I left a little too much empty space in that one corner.

So after typing "corner designs for pages" into Google, I picked this design from the large number of designs that came up with my search.

Using that design as a guide, I was able to draw my own design to fill in the empty space.  The finished product!

I'm no expert by any means but maybe these tips will help you out in some of your crafting endeavors.  Happy Crafting!