♫ So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Goodbye! ♫

 

It's a super sad week for me here, as I'm saying goodbye to all of my piano students, many of whom I have taught for 4/5 years now - some since I arrived in Toronto and started teaching here!

 

With all the other excitement happening this year, my time with these students has come to an end - at least for now!  I'll be away from teaching piano for a few months but I'm so pleased with how I chose to celebrate my students and my time with them.

 

In the past, for Christmas and Summer gifts I have mainly baked their treats!  My favourites have been Musical Shortbread and High Five Cookies :)  But this little project was something baked in the oven, that, for once in my life wasn't a cake!

Having seen DIY Sharpie Mugs for a long long time now on Pinterest, and in other bloggers' projects, it's surprising to me that I've actually never tried it!  So now was the time!

 

A black and white piano, using a black oil-based Sharpie on a white mug... I liked the idea of a distinct image on the white mug, and then to take it to the next level for my students - to personalise it for each of them.  That was my favourite part, and definitely their favourite part when they opened their gifts!  It worked especially for those students who were siblings because the mugs were individual for each of them :)

 

 

 

I read many posts about the DIY Sharpie projects, and saw how most of them were similar enough, but each had something slightly different they did about them.  I'll tell you how I did it, and how I combined many elements of the "usual" way I found, and chose my own way as I went along as well.

 

What you'll need (weird not to be writing 'Ingredients' here!):

 

Oil-based Sharpie pen in colour of your choice - I purchased a Fine Black pen from Michaels, with 40% off of course!

Plain white mug - I read a lot that the cheaper the better - I got 3 packs of 6 plain white mugs for $10 from Canadian Tire.

 

Before I bought the mugs, I put together a word document with my students' names on in 3 different fonts, some to match personalities, others that fit the style of font with the name itself!  I chose these fonts which I had previously downloaded free: 'Hello Heartache', 'Girls Have Many Secrets' and 'KG When Oceans Rise'.  In the end I only used these as a reference as I copied the font, and used them as a guide on sizing too.

 

Directions (Method?!):

 

1.  Wash the mugs in soapy water, rinse and leave to dry.  Make sure the mugs are completely dry to make you start.

 

 

 

2.  Decide on your image, and using the Oil-Based Sharpie Paint Marker just let it happen!  You could etch out the design with eyeliner (as I found when I researched), or even try a pencil transfer from a printed design, but I used the printed names as a guide for sizing, marked where I wanted to start and finish, and then freestyled the rest. 

 

 

3.  Once the names were done, it was piano time.  I'm lucky - I have drawn an octave of a piano MILLIONS of times in my life!  It was easy to draw freehand, just using a random rectangle (in fact, a pack of stamps!) for the sizing, and then colouring in the black keys by eye.

 

 

4.  The paint pen did appear to dry just as I worked on each mug (I did 4 the first day, 11 the next, and 3 the final day of DIY-ing - I always had to stop and leave for work!).  Then, placing the mugs on a baking sheet - so they are not touching, place in a cool oven and turn the oven on to 450°F.

 

 

 

Careful not to pre-heat the oven before you put the mugs in.  The gradual heating of the oven helps the mugs adjust to the heat, to slowly heat up and to keep everything from cracking.

 

5.  Bake for 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave to cool without opening the oven door.

 

*** Whilst my mugs were baking, especially the day there were 11 mugs in there, the smell did get quite toxic!  Luckily, with both the oven fan, and our unit's fan on, and a sunny balcony to go and sit on, it was okay - but do be wary of this if you're in a small space, or are doing a lot of these!  I don't know if it is anything super toxic, but the smell was not great, and I felt like it was not the best to sit inside while it smelt so pungent! ***

 

 

6.  When the mugs have completely cooled (and for me, overnight) - wash in warm, soapy water again and leave to dry.

 

 

7.  Go over any patches of the black design that might have cracked, or be more faded than the rest.  Some of the black piano keys needed a second coat of the paint marker, and some of the thicker parts of the names - but it was super easy to go over a second time.

 

8.  Do a second bake in the oven, again placing them in a cool oven, turning on to 450°F, baking for 30 minutes and then leaving them to cool completely.  When cooled, give them another wash in warm, soapy water.
 

 



So there were many different thoughts on whether these mugs could be dishwasher safe or not.  My research on everybody's different blog posts on the project lead me to believe, that yes, if you use the oil-based Sharpie paint markers, and do at least 1 bake in the oven, they are likely to be dishwasher safe.  In my two hand-washings of the mugs there were no problems at all, I just haven't been brave enough to try the dishwasher yet! 

 

I marked up the tags (that had a special note to each of my students telling them I'd miss them a lot!) as Hand Wash Only, just as a precaution, and then stuck one of my Sew Lah Tea Dough stickers on too!

 

A double wrap in tissue paper to keep them safe as I took them to student's houses, and schools, placed in white paper bag, with a strip of piano tape I have had in my craft box forever, and they were ready to go!

 

 

17 DIY mugs made, as of today, 11 given out, and 6 more to go before my time teaching all of these amazing students is over :-(  I am SUPER happy with how much they have all loved the mugs.  Many have finished their lessons to run to their Mum/Dad and show them their new mug with their name on it... YEY!  That's a good feeling!  Hopefully they'll be able to keep them forever, and always enjoy their piano lessons.

 

 

Now I have tried this DIY Sharpie project, I cannot wait to do it more!!  New colours, new designs... I already have one in mind for the Summer time, you'll just have to wait and see how that one turns out.
 

 

I'd totally recommend this project for anyone!  The Sharpie pens make it easy to design and draw with, as you're holding a pen - not a paintbrush!  Keep the design simple and it will be totally effective - it's shiny and well glazed and looks professional (at least to my 10 year old students!!).

 

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ 

 

Good luck to all of my students in their future musical endeavours and piano playing... I am going to miss you all A LOT and hope to always keep in touch!

DIY Shoe Clips

Happy New Year!!

 

I love this post Christmas blogging chance to write about the gifts I made and couldn't share with you all before I actually gave them away.  To have something in the works for a couple of months, to have photos on the hard drive just waiting, and then to actually send them across the pond to England way before Christmas before eventually seeing them be opened on Christmas Day!!

 

 

I made 3 sets of these bow shoe clips, after originally thinking I would make some cute felt hearts (like last year's Valentine's heart pocket sneakers) to attach onto shoe clips.  But on thinking about the gift recipients, and versatility of wearing the clips on any shoe, or with any outfit I went with these, still cute but maybe also 'prettier' shoe clips that hopefully my sister, Mum and sister-in-law would love!

 

Back in September I bought these great shoe clips from Buckle Boutique, ordered online from the Couture Embellishment shop on Etsy.  I did some research, and it generally seemed like everybody was recommending these clips.  I should have taken a photo of them but I guess you can see them on the link above.  The clips are metal and very sturdy, and then attached to a circle of black leather (I believe you can also get them in white).  This made for a really great way to attach my bows to with hot glue.  I'd definitely buy these again!

 

So between September and November when I actually made the clips, I did lots of thinking and research on the kind of clips I'd love to make.

 

A great inspiration was this post from 'Green Wedding Shoes' who gave me an idea of what dimensions I would be using.  Check out her post for the amazing tutorial (she has actual photos of the process unlike me! :-S ), and also another kind of clip - the flowers. 

 

For my Mummy dearest I made a cream coloured satin ribbon. 

 

 

Per shoe I had one long length ribbon and one medium length ribbon, glued the ends together to make loops.  Then, with a little glue on the inside of each loop (in the middle) press it down so it makes more of an sideways 8 shape.  Do this for each of the long and medium length ribbons.  Then, with a smaller length ribbon cut the ends to make a small indented triangle on each end of the ribbon. This will be the bottom piece.  Glue each of the layers together - the triangle cut ends on the bottom, then the longest loop piece, then the medium one and then, finally an even smaller ribbon piece to wrap around the middle and make the bow.

 

I actually had to cut down the leather circle of the shoe clip to fit it to the same size of the ribbon but that worked out fine, and you couldn't see the clip at all once attached to the ribbon.

 

I can't wait to try these bow clips with other ribbons as well, maybe some sturdier ribbons, or with different textures.  I went with a safe bet with these first ones, in a neutral but pretty colour that I think will go with shoes of my Mums.  Hope so anyway!

 



So for my sister and sister-in-law I wanted something to go with black flat shoes, nothing too crazy but still with a little pizzazz.  I went with some stiff black glitter felt I had.  It would show up on other black shoes, but still had a Christmassy/more glam feel than just plain black.  And the sturdy felt was SO easy to work with!!

 



Choosing to do a thicker width for these ones, I loved how chunky the bow looked when it was finished.

I did slightly shorter dimensions, and also finished the bottom felt piece edges with pinking shears instead of a indented cut triangle, and then for the wrap around top piece I also gave it the pinking sheared edge just because I thought it looked better than a plain straight cut! 

 



I REALLY want to make one of these pairs for myself!  Luckily my sister lives in England, and my sister-in-law is here in Canada so they will never wear them at the same time in the same place... But if I make and wear them too... Uh oh I guess then it could happen!!

 

An early DIY gift made, as we had to ship our English package by the beginning of December.  They each had their own adventures... my Mum's was opened as planned on Christmas Day, then for my sister (as she had to work on Christmas Day) - I actually got to watch her open them on Skype on Boxing Day... and then, even later on the 28th December my in-laws got to have their official "Christmas morning" with gifts after their power finally came back on after the ice storm in Toronto left them without for 5 days!



 



 

I loosely taped the shoe clips to these perfect scrapbook pieces of card from a pack I had already, they were perfect for this with the design at the bottom and room on the top to write a message!  Wrapped in tissue wrap they made it safely to England yey!

 

I'm totally going to make many more of these clips and definitely recommend them as an easy DIY project... maybe for some special people in your life on Valentine's Day!?

 

They can honestly be made into any kind of bows, other fun clips... Small versions for little girls, novelty felt designs maybe, or what about adding beading or more glitzy jewels... Other ideas I had were also using buttons...  Okay yeah, the possibilities are endless and I'm sure you have your own ideas too!  I'd love to see your clips if you make some :)  Shoot me an email with some pics!

 

Thanks for reading my first post of 2014!  Have a great year!

Getting Crafty for a British-Canadian Wedding ♡

I'm so excited to be sharing this crafty project with you today as it's been in the works for a while now, but as it was a gift and I hadn't given it yet I couldn't spill the beans to anybody!

We had an amazing day on Friday celebrating the wedding of an old friend of mine from back home in England!  You might have seen the cakes I blogged about a couple of weeks ago - the Cherry Bakewells in my Taste of Britain series which were for her bridal shower... But then, the big day was here!  They had a beautiful wedding in an amazing venue and I was so happy to be a part of it.  Having a friend from England not so far away here in Canada is SO nice!  Especially fun was seeing her family who had made the trip across the pond who I also hadn't seen in a long long time.  It was such a special day, with delicious food and a lot of fun :)

So in thinking about their wedding day and their gift I thought there had to be something handmade there for them both, and what better theme than a little something British and a little something Canadian.

As I mentioned in my last post about the bride-to-be, I'm a big personal fan of British girl marrying Canadian boy ♡  So I thought I would use this in the DIY project for them both!

And so, the flag tea towel idea was born...

 

1 English flag, 1 Canadian flag and 1 more combining the two countries, just like their marriage would be!

For this project I was super excited to be able to use two different, and relatively new techniques that I've been playing around with in my crafting recently.

In August I treated myself to a pretty wooden box with 3 new X-acto knives in, for a different stencilling project.  This, along with Martha Stewart's roll of adhesive sticky-back stencil film and I was ready to roll! 

First to make the stencils... I downloaded some simple images of the flags from the internet, and just using Word I made sure they were the same size and printed them out.  I cut out the part that eventually would be painted in, firstly on only the paper just to make sure it all would look right before committing to the stencil film!

Trickier was creating the English cross of St. George/ Canada maple leaf combo flag!  I wanted them both to be identifiable without losing the flag idea.  Isn't it nice that both the English and Canadian flag are red?!  I opted for the English flag rather than the British one for that reason, as well as the simpler design - simpler in stencilling I think is more effective and way LESS risky - especially as it wasn't a project for me, but for a wedding gift.  It had to be perfect!


I cut out a separate leaf from a different print out and traced it on top of another English flag.  This gave me a better visual of how to cut it out.  I wanted the leaf to be in the centre, with the cross coming out from it.  With these both being red, there had to be a small amount of space between the two parts so it was a very careful cutting out job!

Then, with everything cut out and planned it was time to transfer those templates onto the adhesive stencil film.  It's so easy to cut out from, the only downside is the roll.  The previous project I did with the roll of film was cut out before using it as a stencil another day and I placed it between lots of heavy text books in between but this time it was an all day project and I had forgotten to do that.  Luckily it did flatten out over the couple of hours as I prepared everything before using the paint.  But next time I'll definitely make the stencils a day or two ahead of painting day just to make sure they're really flat and smooth.  But the adhesive does make it so easy to stick down and doesn't really allow for any bleeding which is just great!!

Stencils all cut out so it was show time!  Time for the real deal now.

I placed a sheet of bristol board on the floor and taped it down so it wouldn't move.  Then I taped the tea towel down and measured to see where the centre would be.  I chose to put the design in the bottom centre of the tea towel, so that if it was folded and was hanging, for example on the oven door the image would still be visible.

I used Tulip soft fabric paint which I have tried once before in black and loved the feel of it, and how easy it was to apply.  This time in crimson, poured out in a takeout container with my foam brush at the ready!

Easiest one first of course...

2 down, 1 to go...

Maybe leaving the hardest one to the end wasn't the best idea... I was nervous!

The biggest mistake I made in cutting these out was definitely not leaving enough room at the edge (seam allowance but without the sewing!) to allow for my brush to get close to the edge without going over.  I had to be TOO careful and could have avoided that pressure!

But luckily all went okay and then there were three!

I left them to dry for a few days (72 hours is the instruction on the paint tube!) and then washed them in warm water on a gentle cycle.  And then I dried them on a rack not in the tumble dryer.  Reading reviews about this paint it seems like it holds up pretty well.  Hope so anyway!  Do you have any experience with these Tulip soft fabric paints?!

So, all dry and ready to be packaged up... not without the obligatory photo shoot first!

For the bride the English flag...

For the Canadian groom...

And for the new husband and wife team ♡

So the bonus wedding gift was all made, packaged on top of the oven-to-table set of dishes were the kitchen towels tied up with string!

♡ All the best to the new happy couple ♡

You had a beautiful wedding and it was so special to be a part of  it, thank you!