Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

Our 3D printer has been a bit unreliable lately, so I haven't been making too many projects. One of the last things I printed was this great puzzle box lid holder . When the print didn't turn out perfectly, I took the opportunity to try decoupaging on printed PLA.  I used standard print settings (.2 resolution and 20% infil) using some purple PLA . The print took about 12 hours on our little printer . When it was done, it looked stringy, but otherwise not too bad. When I pulled it off the bed, the base layer was discolored and full of the hairspray I used to help with bed adhesion. I was able to clean up the stringy bits without any issues, but the base level remained marked up no matter how much I cleaned (and lightly sanded) it. Since I used some Tacky Glue to attach some felt to a 3D print project in the past and it has held up really well, I was pretty sure Mod Podge (which has the same base--PVA glue) should work well too. I found a piece of scrapbook paper in my craft

I've been on a Silhouette sign kick these days, but I thought I'd shake things up a bit and get back to alcohol inking, too. I purchased some 6-inch ceramic tiles from the hardware store and decided they'd be the perfect medium for combining two of my favorite crafting obsessions. I found a design that I thought would work well on a tile with some fun colors behind it in my Silhouette library full of freebie designs. I tossed a few other designs up there to fill the cutting mat and keep from having leftover vinyl cuts. I used the standard glossy vinyl settings for some permanent black vinyl on my old Silhouette Cameo . After the designs were cut on the Silhouette, I used scissors to separate the design from the others on the cutting mat and then got out my weeding tool . This one ended up having flowers that were super tiny. I tried my best to weed the whole design, but because I was working on a smaller-sized decal, I ended up having to give up on weeding the smallest of

It's that time of the year again...when I make homemade fire starters for camping . This year I stuck with the tried and true and made a batch and a half of lint firestarters. I collected lint from my dryer and placed it into the compartments of a cardboard egg carton. Then I melted some old candles in a tinfoil pan on my stovetop. Then I poured the wax over the lint until the tops were pretty much covered and the wax was beginning to saturate the bottom of the carton (put on parchment or wax paper to keep wax from getting on your counter or stovetop). Then let the wax solidify and they are ready to use. We took ours on our first camping trip of the year and they worked great. Put one or two sections of the egg carton (just tear it apart) under a log in your fire and start it. These work about as well as store-bought firestarters (we timed them one year) and are made with stuff most people just throw out. They certainly helped us to enjoy our camping trip.

Well, I'm at it again, making more  signs . I found this great house-shaped sign blank at Dollar Tree a while back and made a sign with it that turned out so well that I had to go back for more house-shaped signs (seriously, I may have a problem I found a design that I thought would work well on the sign in my library of free designs that I've acquired over the years from the Silhouette store . I measured the sign and did my best to size the design before cutting. I used standard settings for vinyl but bumped the force up to 11 since this white vinyl from Silhouette is pretty thick. After the design was cut, I got started with the weeding. I got out my weeding tool and carefully picked out the extra vinyl. I think I should have made this design a bit bigger, if for nothing else than the weeding was a pain in the butt. One of the thin letters was displaced while peeling off the vinyl, and I had to rescue a dot for an I, and the insides of the leaves were pretty annoying, but w