Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a project ( a small painted plaque ) that I did using my Silhouette cutting machine that I said was a test. Since I'm still learning how to use my cutting machine and everything that it can do, I did a smaller project to test out the methods that I was going to use to make this plaque. My mom gave me this wooden plaque from a craft store and requested that I make her a coffee themed sign.  I started by giving the plaque a good light sanding. These pine plaques often a bit rough straight from the store, so I prepped the surface a bit. Then I made a test design in the Silhouette design studio. I found a font I liked and welded the letters, then (after measuring my plaque a couple times) made two sets of words in two sizes that I thought might work. Then I found a cute steaming cup in a Google search that I pasted into the design in 3 different sizes. Then I sent the whole thing to the machine with a sheet of brown scrapbook paper s

Earlier this week I posted about making some inked switch plate covers . If you had an eagle eye, you may have noticed that one of the switch plates in some of the completed project photos looked a bit different than the others. There was a rogue stamped switch plate in with the batch. I've made stamped plates before , but I thought I'd share a few photos from making this stamped switch plate. I used four shades of Ranger's blue inks: Denim , Stonewashed , Sailboat , and Indigo . I used an applicator that I made (though you can purchase pretty much the same thing ). It's a little block of wood with a layer of craft foam and then two strips of the hook side of hook and loop tape (Velcro) glued on top. Then you can cut pieces of acrylic felt to size. I dripped a couple drops of each color of ink onto the felt and padded it around the switch plate until it was mostly covered. When the ink is first stamped, it will spread out. As the ink dries, the dots get sma

A Menard's opened up near our house, so we took a trip over during their opening week celebration to get a free coffee mug and buy a few things. At that trip, I picked up a bag of light switch plates. One of my early posts with alcohol ink was stamping switch plates , I figured it was long past time for a revisit. This time, instead of stamping, I figured I'd used the blown ink technique. I had a can of air that was just about empty, some rubbing alcohol to thin the ink (in the glass jar with the pipette ), some inks, and the switch plate. I got out my craft mats and got started. For this first switch plate, I wanted to do a mix of one color. So I grabbed all of my non-turquoise blues and got to work. I applied the lightest color-- Stonewashed --with some rubbing alcohol and blew it around the tile lightly with my canned air to get a base color. Then I added Denim on top of Stonewashed (apparently there's a jean-colored theme here). I thinned i

This project is actually a test for a larger plaque (which you will hopefully see on the blog in the next month). I'm still a novice at using my Silhouette , even though I've had the darn thing for quite a while and two newer versions of the machine have come out, so I wanted to make sure that using vinyl decals as a reverse stencil with craft paint would work. If you check out my Silhouette Projects you can follow my progress as I learn about using my cutting machine. As you can sort of make out on my computer screen, I cut a bunch of different designs when I cut my phrase for this plaque out. I have a bunch of little projects with vinyl in the works right now. I actually ended up cutting this phrase 3 times until I got it the right size for my plaque.  The plaque that I dug out of my craft stash was a cheap little pine board with beveled edges. It's not entirely square, which is why I had trouble with the size. I measured the plaque, but because it a

This project didn't go quite as expected in a couple of ways, but I wanted to share what I learned so you don't make the same mistakes I did. In the end, the project turned out ok, and I got to light alcohol ink on fire again (it had been a while), which is always fun.  I found this small metal serving tray at Dollar Tree while I was picking up a few things, and I knew instantly that I wanted to try flaming alcohol ink on it. I cleared off my kitchen table of anything potentially flammable and put down a couple of craft mats (they are Teflon and silicone, so they are heat resistant), then I topped that with a cork trivet, and then lined a small cookie sheet with tinfoil and then placed my metal tray inside the cookie sheet. This may seem like overkill, but I was very glad I had taken precautions. I squirted ink all over the tray. I started with Raspberry , Sunset Orange , and Purple Twilight inks. Then I used a pipette to add some rubbing alcohol