Thursday, February 16, 2012

Fabric Paint T-Shirts

Here are two little presents I made for our neighbour's kids:
I bought cheap plain white t-shirts for the 2 year old daughter and 11 month old baby boy (is it just me, or do the sizes look really similar?!).
I washed them first so that the fabric paint doesn't disfigure on the first wash.
I then chose a nice font in Word (Kristen ITC) and printed it out the size I wanted for the front of the t-shirt. I put a piece of cardboard in the t-shirt so the fabric paint wouldn't run through to the other side and also put the printed words in the t-shirt. I then just copied the words with a fabric pen as you could see them through the t-shirt.
For the little girl, I did "Mamas kleiner Engel" (Mummy's Little Angel) and did a pair of angel wings on the back, which I found on Google images and printed out too.


For the little boy, I did "Papas kleiner Teufel" (Daddy's Little Devil) and did a devil's tail on the back.


Once I had done one side and it had dried, I ironed it to seal it and then turned it over to do the other side.
Hope they like them!

Monday, February 06, 2012

Chest-Of-Drawers Makeover

We bought this cheapo chest-of-drawers from Ikea ages ago and it has moved with us into our 3rd new place now. I always think how cheap and ugly the fake wood veneer looks, so decided to pimp our chest-of-drawers! Here's what I did to make this pretty little lady:

From nasty, cheap, anyone can buy to...
Pretty & original!


I removed all the rubbish that seemed to have been stuffed in there and forgotten about, hoovered out the drawers as they were filfthy and generally gave the whole thing a good wash!
I then primed the surfaces and filled in the big scratch that was on the top! I lightly sanded everywhere to get a smooth starting surface.

I then got into my Dexter kill suit (does anyone else watch that programme?! I love it!) and painted the whole thing a nice glossy white. Unfortunately, G was away on a business trip and I didn't want to lug the chest of drawers downstairs into the cellar on my own (think visions of him coming home to find his wife dead at the bottom of the stairs with a chest-of-drawers on her!) and as it is currently -20°C outside, painting out there wasn't an option either! I don't really seem to be a very patient person, so I just put the protective covering out in the living room and got going. Unfortunately the paint I used is one that has a hardened glossy finish so it's more durable etc. Well, to say there was a slight odour given off is a bit of an understatement!
I used PowerPoint to make a border (which is basically just a hollowed out rectangle and four circles in the corners!) and then printed it out and drew over it onto the drawers and then painted it in black. I drew two little borders on the top drawer so it looks like it's two little drawers.


I went to the DIY store to look for little drawer pulls. Couldn't believe that they wanted €6 per little knocker! Talk about rip-offs! I looked on ebay instead and found these little babies for the same price as one, including p&p!
I primed them and painted them black. Here they are half finished:

It looks so much better than it did! You wouldn't recognise it as an Ikea knock-off, would you?!