More Mother's Day....DIY Canvas Tote Bag

Well my aim was to get this up on Thursday, but as you can see...that didn't happen! Better late than never, right?

This little project is so simple that you could run out to the craft store now and pick up the supplies and have it completed in under 30 minutes!

Once again, I bought the supplies for this at A.C. Moore. Here's what you need:

Materials:
Canvas Tote Bag
Iron-On Printable Transfer Paper
Iron
Pillowcase
Scissors
Parchment paper

Once you have everything rounded up, you'll need to create the design that will go on the bag. I originally wanted to use Wordle but my printer didn't like the site and wouldn't print my word cloud. So....I had to find another site that did word clouds and I'm kind of glad I did. Wordle is AWESOME, but you can't really do shapes. With ImageChef you can and there are tons of shapes to choose from!

There are pros and cons with both sites. For example, on ImageChef you can't print right from the site. You have to save your image as a photo and then insert it into MS Paint or MS Word. I chose Word because I'm very familiar with it. It's an extra step, but I was willing to take it to get that heart shape!

Here's a screen shot of my word mosaic on ImageChef.

 

 

And here's what it looks like saved from an image on my hard drive.


 

 

As I stated above, I inserted this into a blank MS Word document and then printed it out on the transfer paper. Make sure to read the instructions on the transfer paper before using it. I know that sounds silly, but there's a right side and a wrong side to print on.

 

After you have your image printed onto the transfer paper then you can get prepped to iron. At this point you'll want to cut the image out into the shape that you'd like it to be. Keep in mind that if you have white transfer paper the edges will not blend into fabric that isn't white. So if you want the lines clean and crisp make sure you use a good set of scissors. I left mine a little jagged because I liked the way it looked.  

 

The transfer paper you purchased should have specific instructions on how to proceed with transferring the image to your fabric. I'm going to give you the run-down of what the product I bought said.

 

Pre-heat your iron to the hottest cotton setting you can and turn off the steam! Place a pillowcase over your ironing board and put your tote bag on top of that. Run the iron over the tote bag to remove any wrinkles.

 

Now, the transfer paper should have a backing. It took me almost 10 minutes to get the backing paper off the first heart. I was getting extremely frustrated, but I just had to find a good point and try to get the backing paper to lift. For some reason, the second one wasn't as tough as the first one.

 

Next, you'll want to set the image on your tote bag. At this point, you can put it wherever you like. I toyed with tilting the hearts on mine a bit, but in the end, as you can see above, I left them centered and straight. I didn't use a ruler for this - I just eyeballed it.

 

Cut a sheet of parchment paper slightly bigger than your image and lay it over top of the image. Next, take you iron and lightly pass over the image going slowly and applying very light pressure. Do this at least 5 times applying light pressure. Make sure to get all around the edges and/or any corners of your image. Then, go over it again 5 more times with very firm pressure, again making sure to pay close attention to the edges and/or corners of the image.

 

The instructions that came with my transfer paper made it seem like the parchment paper would stick to the image, but it did not. Once you've made your final 5 passes, let it cool for a moment and remove the parchment paper. If you plan to do more than one bag, you can reuse the sheet of parchment.

Here's one of mine hot off the press.

At first, I thought it didn't take or I printed the image on the wrong side of the paper, but once I ran my hand over the image I could tell that it would be okay. It feels as if the image is part of the fabric now.

I chose the word cloud because of the Subway Art I also did for Mom and MIL. If you missed that post you can find it here. I love the word cloud idea and v1.6 was great with helping me come up with adjectives to describe his Grammies!

So there you have it! Super simple and handmade Mother's Day gift that they're sure to love! The only thing I would change is probably find a transfer paper that doesn't have a white background OR dye the canvas bags another color. Hindsight is always 20/20!

I hope you enjoyed this little craft! To all the Mamas out there...Happy Mother's Day! :)

Ciao for now, bellas!

 

Mother's Day...already?

Sheesh *wipes brow* where has the time gone? I started this blog to help myself get organized in my life! When life throws you a curveball (or ten) even the best of intentions fall to the wayside. I'm having a very hard time juggling life, my part time job and blogging! I'm not giving up though!!

So please let me apologize for my lack of posting! I have several blog topics for posts coming up! Today, though, let's talk about Mother's Day! I can't believe it's already May! YIKES! 

I went on a search for cute, handmade Mother's Day crafts the other day and I settled with some subway art and canvas tote bags. Today, after v1.6 got on the school bus, I came back home determined to get at least one task accomplished AND blog about it! All in one day!! YAY! Now, onto my little subway art boards!

 

 

I got inspiration for this post from many blogs, but How Does She had a great tutorial that I followed for these! I didn't do everything exactly the same way, but you'll find exact details below on how I did these.

First, you'll need some tools!

I found everything I needed at A.C. Moore. Any craft supply store should have these materials though. I went to A.C. Moore because I had a coupon!

Materials Needed:
2 sheets 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbook paper (you can get plain or patterned - your choice)
2 wooden plaques (the ones above are 4x6)
1 foam brush (I bought 2 because I'm a nutcase and wanted to be overly prepared)
Mod Podge for paper (note about this below)

You'll also need access to a computer and printer.

The first thing I did was go on a hunt for some chalkboard-esque fonts. I found an awesome site that has free fonts called Fontspace. The font I used in the boards is called Mom's Diner.

Next, I opened a blank Microsoft Word document and started playing around. You can use whatever words you'd like to describe your Mom, Grandma, Aunt, etc. These little boards make great gifts! Here's a screenshot of my Word document:

 

 

I would recommend printing a draft copy of this first on a plain piece of paper to make sure it will fit on your board. That's what I did and I'm glad I did because I had to go back and make everything just a tiny bit smaller.

 

In hindsight, I could have added a ton more words, but I like the simplicity of this AND I was working with text boxes in this document. They sometimes don't always like to cooperate and like to overlap, etc. So I tried to keep it simple.

 

After I had everything where I wanted it, I printed it out on my scrapbook paper. Then I had to figure out how to cut it out so it would fit. Since the top of the plaque's edges are beveled slightly I flipped the plaque over and traced it, as seen in the photo below.

 



 

It didn't turn out too bad, but I really should have dug out my scrapbook cutter and cut the edges with that rather than scissors. If you don't have access to a scrapbook cutter then just go ahead and use scissors - just make sure you cut inside the lines. I ended up having to trim a little off the edges to make it fit, but they still turned out cute!

Next, I applied a thin layer of the Mod Podge to the back of the paper and then stuck it onto the plaque and pressed firmly to get it to stick.

Here's my note about Mod Podge - I have never once in my life used the stuff and when I was standing in the Mod Podge aisle with tears in my eyes because I realized there were literally twenty different types of the stuff, the hubs calmed me down and pointed out that there was Mod Podge specifically for paper. I gave him a big hug, dried my tears and then went in search of the next item on my list. That being said, I have absolutely no idea if regular Mod Podge would work with this project, but from seeing other people's posts about DIY crafts - I'm pretty sure the stuff is versatile! Now, the real question is...did I just waste $8 by purchasing the 'paper' version or should I have just bought the regular stuff? I don't know if I can use the 'paper' version on photos or other items? I have to do my research I guess!

So that was it - I repeated the process for the second board and it literally took no time at all to make these. Looking back, I really wish I would have painted the wood before sticking the paper on there because I think they would've looked even cuter with a white distressed paint, but oh well! Lesson learned! If I do these again for Christmas gifts I'll know to paint the boards first, and I may just sponge some white paint around the edges of the plaque to jazz it up a bit! Who knows!!

Next, I'm onto canvas tote bags personalized with an iron-on transfer! My aim is to have these done and post about them on Thursday! I'll try my best!

Tell me, have you had any fun adventures or made any cool crafts with Mod Podge?

Ciao for now, bellas!