Tag: crafts for home

Printing patterns on the Yudu—yahooo!

I love to experiment. I think I get that from my dad who on his days off would spend hours figuring out how to make everything in the house work better. Or when there was nothing to fix, he would sit down with graph paper and draw out schematics for some machine that would change how the world worked…if it ever made it to production that is. In any case, Dad had a lot of fun and that rubbed off on me.

Now I am no engineer, but I sure like to see what happens when I try something new. For instance, last weekend I got out the Yudu and challenged myself to print patterns on yards of fabric. I love to invent patterns and the Yudu offered me the opportunity to produce something tangible from which I can sew something fabulous.

I decided to start out small and print a design I could make into an easy pillow cover. Here it is all finished and sitting on my patio chair, making an otherwise boring piece of furniture cute. There’s Luna the Chicken in the background pecking away at the Dichondra. Below are pictures of the process. Follow this link to a full How To on Printing Patterns on the Yudu.

Now that the first set is done, I let it dry and shifted the fabric to the left to repeat the process.

DIY 340: Refinish and upholster a bench

I refinished this little bench with “Chalk Paint” by Annie Sloan. The pretty teal color is Florence.

I first primed the old wood with Kilz primer then laid down a light blue I had from a previous project. The intention was to have a base so I could attain a distressed look.

I painted over the entire bench with Annie’s Florence blue, then rubbed with a cloth to distress. Once I had the desired effect, I finished the wood and sealed in the pigment with Annie Sloan’s soft wax. The finish is soft and pretty (not a hard shellac look or feel).

The fabric came from the awesome selection at Jo-Ann’s and it was a matter of cutting to size and stapling tight. This bench took me about 2 hours after I had all the supplies.

To make your own chalk paint, see this tutorial on the DYI Network blog.

Make patterned fabric with the YUDU

Today I created a pattern from a screen leftover from my trip to South By Southwest. For the trip I screen printed a couple of t-shirts to wear for the demonstrations—vintage amps to celebrate the music—and upon looking at it again I thought a repeat of the design would make a cool pattern.

I cleared off my big table and set up the YUDU with plenty of room to run a yard of fabric through it. Then I taped off just what I wanted, and here is the result. Fun, huh?

It’s a great day—a beautiful Friday and I am going to a music festival at The Sail Inn in Tempe tomorrow. I love all day music events this time of year. Speaking of music, I am totally psyched I got tickets to see Yonder Mountain String Band, Leftover Salmon, and Split Lip Rayfield in August at the Red Rocks Amphetheatre. Lucky me!

Vintage amps pattern (Screen printed with the YUDU)

Holiday wreath made from sticks and twine

The Ladies and I made holiday decorations this weekend. Suz was on a roll and made a wreath for every room in her house and inspired me to make one for my front door. Of course it had to have a bird on it…

We are fortunate to have citrus trees in our garden not only for the obvious reasons, but the limbs naturally die off leaving beautifully curved branches that are easy to harvest. They are close to the ground and break off in my hand. I chose ones that curved the most and lashed them together with sisal twine.