Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Learn How to Make a Pair of Southwest Style Beaded Earrings

Hi and thank you for stopping by this blog to learn how to go about making these beautiful southwest style earrings!...




The skill level on these earrings is moderate, so, in my opinion, you will need at least some experience with beading to be able to make them. 

However, it is my belief that most of the time people can always learn very quickly if they have the desire to!

There are many videos on YouTube that you can watch to learn how to make beaded jewelry.  I designed and made the earrings pictured above using the Beaded Square Stitch.

If you would like to learn the Beaded Square Stitch (link), please watch the video I made below where it will be demonstrated using large pony beads... 



Since the Miyuki Delica beads used for the actual earrings I made are very small, you may want to practice the square stitch using large pony beads (or any other beads you may have) and yarn (as shown in the video above) to familiarize yourself with it before you embark on the pattern below.

I created the free pattern below using graph paper and colored pencils.  You will be working the square stitch from side to side as demonstrated in the directions outlined below.

Please refer to the directions below the pattern image where I will explain how to download the picture of the pattern and simply copy and paste it into a word processing document (link to an article explaining this process in detail) so that you will be able to print it out for your reference.

Here is the pattern...
 
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Southwest Earring Pattern


To download and print out this pattern, follow the following steps...

1.   First, in another window, open up a new word processing document.

2.   As you hover over the image above with your mouse, 'Right click' on the image.

3.   Select 'Copy'.

4.   Go back to the blank word processing document that you opened in step 1, and 'right click' within the document, and select 'Paste' from the menu.  Your image will appear.

5.   Print your image from the word processing document in color.

6.   Following the directions in the video above, join your beads together with Fireline .006 beading thread and add an ear wire.

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I hope you have found this tutorial fun and informative. 😊

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the 'COMMENTS' section below the video or on this blog post, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks again for your interest and I hope you will subscribe to my YouTube channel for more crafting fun!
 
Here is the link to the video tutorial overview for these earrings: 
 


SUPPLIES: (some, or all, may or may not be needed)

Miyuki Delica 11/0 Beads

Turquoise, Black, White, Yellow, Orange

Fireline Beading Thread 

Ear Wires 

Wire Guards (to add to top of finished earring to secure ear wire)

Beading Needles


To practice stitches with large beads:

  Pony Beads

Yarn

Embroidery Needles

Scissors


To make your own graphs, you may need the following:

Graph Paper

Colored Pencils

Sharpies


MORE LINKS TO MY VIDEOS & ARTICLES: How To Find a Picture, Resize It, Download to Word Processing & Print to Transfer

How To Decoupage and Transfer Designs

What Is Decoupage?

Crafty Girl Decoupage


DECOUPAGE EARRING TUTORIAL 

  LEARN HOW TO DECOUPAGE A CHRISTMAS SEASHELL ORNAMENT (Video)    • "Learn How to Make a Decoupaged Sea S...   LEARN HOW TO DECOUPAGE CHRISTMAS MOVIE IMAGES ONTO ORNAMENTS” (Written Instructions): https://www.craftygirldecoupage.art/2... Please visit my WEBSITES: CRAFTY GIRLS ROCK https://www.craftygirlrocks.art/ Arts & Crafts for Creative Minds HAND-PAINTED FLOWER & FAIRY ROCKS https://www.handpaintedflowerfairyroc... Instructions & Techniques for Rock Painting HAND-PAINTED ROCKS https://www.handpaintedrock.com/ Pictures of my Painted Rocks PAINTING ROCKS! https://www.rockpaintingrocks.com/ Rock Painting Tutorials 

 CRAFTY GIRL DECOUPAGE 

 https://www.craftygirldecoupage.art/ Learn the Art of Decoupage! INSTAGRAM   / craftygirlrocks   Pictures of my Painted Rocks   / craftygirljewelrydesigns   Pictures of my Jewelry Looking for a fun gift for someone in your life? Check out my ZAZZLE store... https://www.zazzle.com/store/maggiele... I have t-shirts, coffee mugs, Christmas ornaments, phone cases, office accessories, just to name a few! 

  

 

  



 


 





Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Paint a Beautiful Welcome Slate for your Home

Hi and thank you for being here and for your interest in this tutorial.
 
In this post, I will be outlining the exact steps I used to make a welcome slate with a painting of cardinals as you can see pictured below...
 
 
Follow me on Instagram

 
  
 
 
Video Instruction Outline


 
 

I hope you will find this craft fun and informative and that you will use the steps outlined on this page to make a beautiful welcome plaque for your home.

Welcome plaques make beautiful gifts for your friends and family too.  They are also very popular items sold online on sites like Etsy or eBay so you may even be able to start a business of your own...

 
Using the methods I will outline on this page, the sky is the limit for what kind of images you can decorate a welcome plaque with.

You can find most of the supplies you will need in a local craft store, however, I have linked the supplies for this project below for your convenience if you would like to purchase them online.

You may or may not need all the supplies shown and listed below, however if you want to learn more about each item, click the underlined word(s) below the picture.


SUPPLIES:
(to learn more about each item below, click the underlined description)






















Stencil Brushes

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This is a picture of my poppies rock made with a stencil:


 

Watch the videos below to learn how to stencil:

 

 "How to Stencil Poppy Flowers" - PART 1


"How to Stencil Poppy Flowers" - PART 2



________________________________________________________

 

Pre-Steps:

After you read through once and feel you have a general idea, then go back to the beginning and follow them in order to make your own welcome plaque.

Before you begin, you will have to have an image to transfer.  Here is the image that I used.  I found it on PINTEREST...



If you need help in finding an image, please read this article to help you find, download, and print any image from the Internet.

You can also see some images on my Pinterest board linked here.   Just copy and paste an image into a word processing document to resize and print out to use.

Read How to Find, Download and Print Images from the Internet for more information too.

I will link other articles and videos that may be of help to you down below the directions.

________________________________________________________

 

DIRECTIONS:


1.  Paint your canvas (wood or slate plaque) with two coats of white chalk paint, letting each coat dry thoroughly before moving on to the next step (2).


2.  Paint another coat of white chalk paint, however, this time do not let it dry before the next step (3) below.

 

3 Place a generous coat of Mod Podge onto the inked side of the image you want to transfer onto the plaque you are creating.  Before the Mod Podge dries, place the inked side of the image (the side coated with the wet Mod Podge) face down into the wet white chalk paint that's on your plaque (refer to step 2 above).

 

4.  Using your paint brush, coat the dried face-down image with water.  You will see the ink coming through the paper.  Let it dry completely.  Do this "water step" at least five more times, letting it dry in between coats of water.

 

This is what it will look like when the water is applied.
As you can see, the ink becomes visible when it's wet.

 


5.   After about the fifth (maybe more) coat of water being applied to the back of the image, you will start to see pills (small rolls) of the wet paper being formed.  You can gently pull those off (see pic below).  This is actually a good sign of a great ink transfer! 😊

Standard computer paper has about seven layers (yes, 7!) and so it is a little bit of a time consuming process to get each layer off until only the ink remains on your canvas...

 

This is what it will look like when the paper starts coming off.

 

6.  When you have finished with the wetting and drying process outlined in Step 5 above, place yet another coat of water over the back of your image, however, do not let this coat dry completely.

Wait until it is almost dry (still moist, this might take approximately 5 or 10 minutes after wetting) and use your index finger to gently roll the rest of the paper off of your canvas so that the only thing left on the canvas is the ink.  You may also have to do this step a few times until you are happy with the image that remains for you to embellish with paint.

 

7.  There may still be some paper film left when you are ready to color in your transferred image.  That's okay because when you go over the design with your acrylic paint pens, it will rub most of the thin film left from the paper off of the canvas.


8.  Once your image is completely dry, coat the surface with Mod Podge to seal the paint.  Enjoy your welcome plaque!

 










Please visit my other blogs by clicking the link under each picture below..






Hand-Painted Rocks








Hand-Painted Flower & Fairy Rocks

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Learn How to Decoupage Christmas Movie Images onto Ornaments

Hi there and thank you for stopping by!

I wanted to make a specific tutorial on how to create Christmas ornaments using images from your favorite Christmas movies.  Here is a picture of the ornament I made using the methods outlined on this page...






Most everyone has at least one favorite Christmas movie.  Christmas movies bring wonderful memories to mind at this joyous season! 

However, it's not so easy to purchase ornaments displaying the images from movies because there are all kinds of rules and regulations surrounding these images that make them almost impossible to find.

So, I thought, why not make your own???   I figured out a way to do that, and I will show you how in this tutorial!

My absolute favorite movie of all time is "It's a Wonderful Life" from 1947 starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  The ornament pictured above is from that movie and is the movie I will be using images from for this tutorial.

Do you have a favorite Christmas movie???

In this post, I will outline for you through step-by-step instructions, pictures, and video presentations how to make a decoupaged ornament from one of your favorite Christmas movies.

The images you will be using will most likely have to be resized and I will explain how to do that below.  As a sidenote, you can use all the methods outlined here on this page to make other decoupage projects too.

Here is a link (directly below this paragraph) to an article showing you in detail how to find, download, resize and print images from your computer to use for art projects like this one:

Learn How to Resize Pictures and Print from a Word Processing Document

If you need assistance with any of the steps, please leave a question in the 'Comments' section below on this page.

Before beginning, you will need to gather the supplies listed below.  If you need help with attaining any of these items, you can click on the underlined links and get more information for that item.  

Disclaimer:  If you do happen to make a purchase, I will earn a small commission (at no cost to you, so thank you so very much if you do!).

Here is a video outline for this project...


 

SUPPLIES:

  1.  Printed Christmas movie image (more in STEP 1 below)

  2.  Blank Christmas ornaments



Wood Slices are great for this decoupage craft
(Click picture or any link above or below to learn more)

   3.  White Acrylic Paint

   4.  Foam paint brush

   5.  Gift Tissue or White Kitchen Napkin

   6.  Inkjet Printer

   7.  Computer Paper

   8.  Scotch tape

   9.  Mod Podge

 10.  Dimensional paint


Are you ready??  Let's begin!...


STEP 1

Finding and Choosing an Image

1.   Go to your favorite search engine (I like PINTEREST).

2.   In the search bar at the top of the page, type in the term referring to your favorite movie, for example "It's a Wonderful Life"...




Your search results in PINTEREST will look something like this.

3.   From the search engine results, decide which image you would like to place on your ornament.  After you make your decision, move on to the next step below.


STEP 2

Downloading Image to a Word Processing Document

4.   Using your mouse, hover over the image you've selected, and 'left click' on the image two times to bring a larger version of the image to the top of the PINTEREST page.  

5.   Now, 'right click' on the larger image at the top of the page and select 'Copy Image' from the choices that appear in the menu that pops up.

'Copy Image' from the large image at the top of 
PINTEREST page (Copy image is the highlighted choice)


6.   In an open word processing document, select 'Paste'.  Your image will look like this when in the document...

'Paste' (CTRL 'V') is the Image used for the ornament
to be pasted into a word processing document


STEP 3

Use the Format Keys to Resize and Frame the Image

7.     Now that your image has been pasted into the word processing document, use your mouse to grab the circle on the corner of the image (see pictures below), 'left click' on the corner and move your mouse back and forth to make your image the size you need to fit the specific ornament you are making...



Close up of the mouse on corner of image.
In this one, notice the arrow over the circle indicating
where to click with your mouse to move the line
in order to make the image larger or smaller


8.     The image on the screen will be true to size when it is printed so move the line around the image to get it to be approximately the size you need for the specific ornament you are making.

9.    Once you get the image size close to where you need it to be for printing, click on the image once again (while it is still in your word processing program) to get that black line around it.

        You should see something like 'Picture Styles' pop up at the top of the screen.  Select 'Soft Edge Oval' (or whatever style you would like to use).  See the pictures below for reference.


Format Image Commands in Word Processing.
I selected 'Soft Edge Oval' for this ornament.
 

I taped ornaments to the screen to
demonstrate how you will know how large or small
 to make your image as it will be 'true to size'
when printed from word processing program.


10.  I use 'Soft Edge Oval' for my ornaments.  This is what my image looked like before I printed it from my word processing program...



You can use the 'Picture Format Keys' again
to make your image wide or narrow too.
Remember to click on the image to bring
the keys up to the top of the page.   To make the
image wider, grab the side of the image with
your mouse and move left or right.  You can
also change the color of your image with
these keys as well.



11.   Print your image out onto computer paper.  Cut the image from the paper and secure it to the front of your ornament using clear glue.  You can use a glue stick, but I like to use a thin layer of clear Elmer's glue. 
 
         Sometimes it helps to have a coat of dried white paint on the surface of the ornament before gluing it down.  However, it's not necessary for this to be done if you're using computer paper print outs.

          There is a section ("Decoupaged Tissue Christmas Ornament") below where I have posted videos of how to print on plain white gift tissue or kitchen napkins to get an extra thin paper image.  If you use this method, it will be necessary to paint the surface white first because the image will not show through onto a darker background.  In any case, more about that below!


12.      Embellish your ornament with dimensional paint, glitter, or flatback adhesive pearls and rhinestones to give it extra flare!    Seal the ornament with Mod Podge.

        
Here is one more image of how my ornament turned out...





I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  Thank you for being here!

___________________________________________________


Decoupaged Tissue Christmas Ornament


PART 1 - "How to Print an Inkjet Image on a Tissue for Decoupaging"




PART 2 - "How to Find an Image, Resize and Download it to Print"





PART 3 - "Trimming the Image and Applying the Mod Podge"




PART 4 - "The Finishing Touches, Glitter and all that Fun Stuff"












 

Learn How to Make a Pair of Southwest Style Beaded Earrings

Hi and thank you for stopping by this blog to learn how to go about making these beautiful southwest style earrings! ... T he skill level o...