House Stuff Works: gifts

This gift idea was straight off a Pinterest pin, so I can't take credit for all the creativity. It turned out just as I'd hoped! This monogram artwork is personal, interesting, and flexible enough to give to just about anyone.

I made one of these for Jaz and Jose Carlos, since their last name starts with an "M." As a newly married couple (remember the Fall wreath I made them in October?), they're always in need of meaningful artwork for their apartment.

Here's what you'll need:
- Picture frame, shadowbox preferred
- Exacto knife
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Glue stick
- Paper: scrapbook paper, cardstock, and colored paper

See those little cutout triangles that are red? Well, I didn't initially have any colored paper on-hand to use. I eventually found a green envelope from a Christmas card (how appropriate) and borrowed a couple of slices out of it. While gluing, I remembered that green is the color of Jose Carlos' rival soccer team (Real Betis)... I thought, "Maybe they won't notice.........." and slept on it.

Sports. Rivalries. To me, that means Ohio State vs. M*ch*g*n. Now, put in that context, it was only right that I should change the accent to Sevilla's team color. ['Cause I dare you to find maize and blue in my house. I dare you!] Unable to find any red-colored paper on hand, I finally found a popcorn box in my pantry that was red. So, I ripped my earlier work apart carefully and used a little piece of a popcorn box for their artwork. Yep, popcorn art. Oh, the things we do for sports.

From start to finish? Easy:
1) Draw a letter, in pencil, on white cardstock. I used the letter "M," which I drew with a ruler and by creating some guidelines.
2) Cut out the letter carefully with an Exacto knife.
3) Free-hand (with your pencil again) some shapes for your cutouts. Mine were triangles of varying sizes. Cut those out with your Exacto knife.
4) Cut out pieces of colored paper that are slightly larger than your cutouts, making sure to match shapes so that the colored paper fits only in one cutout.
5) Glue the colored paper to the cardstock, in the cutout windows.
6) Cut a piece of scrapbook paper (for the background) to the size of your picture frame.
7) Glue the finished letter to the scrapbook paper
8) Frame (then rip apart and restart from Step 4 if you screwed up the color)
9) Gift proudly!

In the end, I liked this project and its simplicity so much that I made another "M" for my sister, Megan. Her background was grey - lighter this time - and a light turquoise for the inlaid color.

What do you think? Have you made any cool or fun paper gifts?

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There was only one gift-giving rule for our family Christmas this year: everything must be hand-made. Now, that term can be used pretty loosely, but it resulted in some really amazing and most thoughtful gifts I have ever seen.

My next few posts will feature the items we exchanged this Christmas.

Crafty Christmas 2011: Etched Glasses
Of course, I stalked Pinterest for weeks coming up with ideas for gifts for my family. And, if you've never been on the site, CraftGawker.com has some really fun DIY projects you might want to try - it's like Pinterest for crafts!

Anyhow, I got the idea for etched glasses from J&S at YoungHouseLove. They etched a glass vase for Thanksgiving, and every day of November they wrote one thing they were thankful for on an index card. On Thanksgiving Day, they read every one of them - how sweet! (Tucking that one away for the future)

My adapted idea was both simple and complicated, and while it could have been a major disaster, it turned out great! :) My mom now has a set of custom-etched drinking glasses... fun and functional: win!

All of the grandkids - Todd the bunny, Nikki the cat,
Goober the Shiba Inu, and Mika the Shiba Inu

And because I can't not show you all of their cuteness, here are the grandkids themselves:

If you're going to take on this project, here's what you'll need:

Glass tumblers
Armour Etch glass etching cream (try Jo-Ann, Michaels, or Hobby Lobby)
Painters tape
Cardstock
Exacto knife
Paint brush

Got them all? Good. Now see if you can follow along with the madness.

First, I bought a handful of drink tumblers from Target, $4 for a set of 4 glasses made by Libbey (sorry, I couldn't find them on the Target website, but they have plenty! Promise!).

Then, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some Armour Etch glass etching cream.

I just did a google image search and found silhouettes of pets that could be dead ringers for the real ones, then printed the black silhouettes out on a sheet of cardstock. It took a little editing in Photoshop to get them to be the same height (2.5 inches). Example:

Source

Once printed, I covered the silhouette with painters tape (green Frog Tape!). Since it was nice and sunny out, I went over to a brightly-lit window and traced the silhouette onto the painters tape.

Using the exacto knife, I cut out the shape of the silhouette I traced and took the negative, peeling it veeeery carefully off of the cardstock.

I lined up the silhouette to make sure it was straight-ish and placed on the glass properly and really tightly... bring on the etching cream!

All of the warnings kind of freaked me out

Then I used the brush to apply the etching cream. First I gave it a thin layer, but then realized that you have to lay it on thick. If you can see any of the glass beneath the cream, then it's not enough etching cream. The silhouette should be all white.

I let the etching cream sit for about 2-3 minutes, and then washed it off under the sink with water, drying it off with a paper towel. The painters tape came off easily, and I gave it one more rinse, leaving me with a finished glass!

Next: Rinsed and repeated 3 more times for the full set.

If you scrutinize, you can tell it's not perfect, and you can also tell which glasses I worked on later as I learned how to use the etching cream. I actually like that they're a little flawed - they're totally homemade!

Here's an up-close of the finished glasses:

Ta-da!

If I did this again, I'd make it easier on myself in a few ways.

With a wider piece of painters tape, I would've avoided layering multiple strips of tape for each silhouette.
Could wax paper have made the tape removal easier without taking away its stickiness? I wish I'd had some wax paper to try it.
A vinyl cutting machine would've totally eliminated any messy outlines and the exacto knife - painters tape challenge. Vinyl, rather than painters tape, could've given me nice, clean, neat lines.

Update: Contact paper! Contact paper could be much, much easier than painters tape and cheaper than vinyl!

And note: if you do this project, you can't just touch up the etched parts-- you have the do the whole silhouette over again, otherwise you'll get spotty etching. Trust me... I tried and failed!

Final result:

My mom loved it (when she wasn't kicking the cat off of her lap)!! When she opened the glasses, she didn't realize they were etched until I made her look at each one... she was really surprised initially, thinking that it was SUCH a funny coincidence that there were Shiba Inu dogs on the glasses she saw first. Of course, then she wanted to know how I did it all, so I'll call that a success! Yep, I'm 27 years old and still makin' crafts for my mom!

Has your family ever done a DIY Christmas? Did you make any of your gifts this year? Let's see 'em!

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