Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

The last time I made bottle cap magnets , I sprayed them black. The finished product turned out well but a bit dark, so after my husband's urging, I decided to make another batch of magnets using white spray paint this time. I'm guessing it had something to do with the paper turning a bit transparent when the glue soaked in and the dark background absorbing light instead of reflecting it. At any rate, the white ones turned out even better. So I sprayed my bottle caps with some white spray paint (cue the riveting photo of spray painting). I like to use a cardboard box to catch the spray. My white spray paint turned out to be a rust corrosion variety (I'm guessing I didn't read the can closely when I bought it), but it turned out fine, a bit textured, but still did the job. Next I found a bunch of images on the internet that would shrink down to a one inch square or circle so that they could be punched out with a circle punch. Since these are for person

In my continued efforts to learn how to watercolor paint, I stumbled across The Frugal Crafter's youtube channel . She's a bit overly enthusiastic, but always makes the paintings seem easy, fun, and like anyone can do it (what are you waiting for, just paint, it'll be ok). The Frugal Crafter uses a variety of watercolor paints in her tutorials, but usually the cake variety. I used my Reeves set of creme paints. The first of her tutorials that I tried was this one of some lupines .  As I stated in last week's post, I don't watch the videos while I'm painting, so I get my own interpretation of the painting. She used more water and paint on her flower petals than I did. But I liked the sort of uniformity of my little petal blotches as I was painting them. I didn't even realize how different the paintings were until I rewatched the video to post it to the blog. After watching several of the Frugal Crafter tutorials, I realized that some of the diffe

After dividing up my grandmother's jewelry, there were several pins and broaches that no one claimed.  This one was left over, and I thought it was kind of cute, but it had a dark spot on the leaf. I figured I could fix it or color over it, so I snagged it and gave it a new home. I rolled out my craft mat and dug out my alcohol inks. I figured I'd try covering the spot with gold alcohol ink  and if that didn't work, I could cover the leaf with a color and no one would notice the dark spot. I dotted some gold ink onto the leaf and smoothed it out as best as I could with a makeup sponge. I noticed that it made the gold finish a little duller/less shiny. So I covered the whole leaf with a thin layer of the gold alcohol ink (a few drops worth) for a uniform look. I let it dry and the dark spot is completely gone. If you're around a lot of alcohol based liquids, you may want to seal the jewelry with a clear acrylic sealer (or something similar). I left it

I stumbled across this metal frame in a box in my basement. It had a little ding in the side from falling off of the shelf it was on, and some scuffs and scratches from general wear and tear, so I decided to decorate it with some alcohol ink. The last time I decorated a photo frame with alcohol ink, it was painted , so I thought this would be nice to try a metal one. Especially since this one was destined for the thrift pile.  I took apart my frame and set aside the glass and the backing and rolled out my craft mat . I grabbed some bright shades of alcohol ink and dripped the ink onto my applicator . I made one solid pass around the frame and dripped a little more ink on to make another pass.  When I was satisfied with the texture of the ink, I pulled the felt off of the applicator block and used my finger to push it into the rounded corners. You will get ink on your fingers if you chose to do this. Getting ink on my hands doesn't bother me much as you can usual

I was unphased after last week's mediocre watercolor paintings , and decided to move forward with my online tutelage. I found a youtube channel, Mr. Otter's Art Studio ,  run by a couple of art teachers with some great videos. Most of these videos are geared towards all ages, which means they are good for all skill levels, especially a beginner like me. They also make a point to use inexpensive supplies so anyone can do the projects. Their watercolor projects all use Prang paint sets . Which can be bought for under $5 a set. I painted using my grandma's Reeves paint set that you can pick up at Michael's or online. As you're looking at my photos and the videos, you may notice some differences between the paintings in the videos and the paintings I create, this is because I watch the videos and then paint without looking at them hours, sometimes days, later. I figured it was a good way to put my own twist on the painting (perhaps I'm deluding myself, but hey

If you read last week's post, you know that my grandma recently passed away and that she had taken up drawing and painting in her retirement years. When the family was all together, my mom gave me and my sister what was left of my Grandma's art supplies. So I acquired a bunch of supplies for painting with watercolors. I must admit that I haven't really painted with watercolors much since using those dry Crayola palettes when I was a kid. I never had much luck painting anything with those watercolors beyond stick figures and shapes, so I knew it would be a challenge. In junior high and high school art class, we learned about painting with acrylics and didn't spend any time at all with watercolors, so I was in uncharted territory. So what do people do when they want to learn how to do something these days? They look on youtube. So the very first watercolor tutorial that came up when I did my google search was the one below of the "Smoky Mountains." After w