Easy Carnation Shamrock Tutorial and Prints Back in Stock

Well, it has been an interesting week that did not exactly go according to plan. When we found out Jamie was in labor last week the girls and I ran around like crazy and began our journey up to NH within a few hours of getting the call that the baby was on her way. What we didn't account for was Lola getting quite sick on our way here. So, we made it to NH but just got a quick view of the baby at the hospital that first day and then I've pretty much stayed quarantined with Lola at my parents ever since - not exactly how we planned our visit going. =( We even have had to change our plans for returning home. So, not only have I not gotten any snuggle time with my newest niece, I haven't done much of anything at our new Dear Lillie space, or gotten any regular work done either. I took my camera out that first day but haven't since and I've barely touched my computer.

Hopefully Lola will start feeling better soon so we will at least get to hold the new baby a tiny bit before we return home. I had those first couple of posts earlier this week pretty much ready to go ahead of time but then got behind even though I have photos for quite a few more posts on my computer I haven't had a chance to get them all sized and edited. Hopefully I can start playing catchup today!

So, this morning I thought I would show you how to make the shamrock carnation that I used in our St. Patrick's Day Vignette.

 Here's what you will need:

Scissors

Toothpicks

Sharp Knife - I used a Steak Knife 

Carnations - I used four small bunches from the grocery store

Moss - I used a long roll of moss that I found at JoAnn's

Floral foam (you can use the wet or dry kind, I actually made two - one of each, the wet kind is MUCH easier to cut into a shape, but the dry one was easier to stand up and lean)

 First use a pen or marker to sketch out your shape (this doesn't have to just be for St. Patrick's Day. I think it would be nice as a cross or bunny or Easter). Then use a knife to cut out the shape.

Above is the dry foam which was a pain to cut out and below is the wet foam which was MUCH easier to cut. (I actually ended up trimming it down to be a three leaf clover instead of four because it looked better that way with all of the carnations in it, but forgot to retake a photo of it once I trimmed it down to three). 

Once you have your shape cut out attach your moss to the foam. Because I wanted to be able to reuse the moss later I just used toothpicks that I trimmed down to hold the moss in place. If you don't want to reuse your moss you could just hot glue it to the dry foam.  In the spots where you can see the toothpicks poking out really far I had not trimmed them yet. It helps if you angle them downward as you are pushing them into the foam.

Now just cut the stems of your carnations down so they are an appropriate length for the depth of your foam and start pressing them in.

Once you have them all filled in it should look like this. If you turn it on it's side you will be able to see some toothpicks (as you can see in the photo below), they aren't noticeable from straight on so you can either leave them be, or you could paint them green to match the moss or hot glue some moss on to them).  

And that's it, now you have a cute little shamrock made from carnations.

I also wanted to let you know we've restocked our "Irish Eyes" chalkboard print, as well as our "Wonderful World" and "I Love You" chalkboard prints.

 

And we've also restocked our nest pillows! 

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

How To Download, Print and Frame A Chalkboard (Chalkboard Download Tutorial)

 

Chalkboard art is everywhere these days! I am completely fascinated by it and want to keep playing around with it and try to get more creative with my lettering. I know there are a lot of people though, that enjoy it but don't necessarily want to spend hours working on just one quote so being able to download a chalkboard someone else has designed, print it out and pop it in a frame is a great alternative - especially if you like to change your art our seasonally or for different holidays. We just started offering our downloads a couple of weeks ago so only have a few options right now in our shop, but we have several more that are almost ready to go and a whole bunch more ideas in the works. Hopefully within a few more months we will have a wide variety for you to choose from for a whole bunch of different themes and events. 

Anyway, I've been promising to show you how I've been swapping out the chalkboard prints in this frame for the past week or two and finally was able to get it all written up last night so here it is!

Here is what you need for this project:
1 24 by 36" chalkboard print
Painters Tape

4 pieces of wood for the frame ( to work with these prints I recommend using two 28" long pieces and two 33" long  pieces)

1 large piece of wood (to work with these prints I recommend 24 inches by 36 inches)

chalkboard paint (optional)

stain (or paint) for frame

screwdriver

mending braces (I used 2" by 1/2" ones - there is a photo below of the exact ones I used)

screws (size 8 by 3/4 - I used a total of 6 - there is a photo below of the exact ones I used)

First, I am going to quickly show you how to upload the file online the Staples website. If you already know how to do that you can just scroll down and I will show the rest of the steps. We've gotten quite a few e-mails, though, asking how to do it so I thought it would be helpful to show step-by-step because it's hard explaining in an e-mail. I am sure there are other places that print engineering prints but I always use Staples. I actually don't use them for any of my other printed things, but for these engineering prints their price is great (a little over $3!) and it's easy to upload and then just go pick up the next day.

So, when you get to their website look on the left sidebar and find "Copy and Print" and then choose "Banners & Signs, Engineering Prints, and Oversized Prints":

 That will bring you here and click on "Engineering Prints":

Once you are there select the 24 by 36 size (if you forget it's okay you will be able to switch it later) and then click on "Design Now":

Now click "Add Files":

  then click "upload files" and choose wherever it is you downloaded your PDF file too then just click on that file:

Once it shows up click on the upload button (this is one of our Easter ones that we hope to have ready to go early next week!):

 Once it's loaded on the left side click Media and make sure you have the correct size and then click OK then click on orientation and make sure it's going the correct direction for the file you have uploaded. Then just add to cart and you are good to go! I always choose the option to "Pick up" vs. have it mailed to me and it will prompt you to choose the store nearest you. I didn't show those steps but they are easy enough to figure out.

Now that you have your print it's time to make your frame!

(some of the frame images are from our original make your own chalkboard tutorial).

Here are my boards. I had them cut to size at Lowe's. I used 1 by 4's (which are actually about 3/4" by 3 1/2"). Make sure your board that is going to be for the chalkboard is slightly larger than the size of your frame opening.

The first thing I did was paint my board with my chalkboard paint. PLEASE NOTE: this is not necessary if you only plan on using chalkboard printouts in this frame. Even though I already had two other framed chalkboards when I was making the new one sized for the prints, I still went ahead and painted the board with chalkboard paint so I would have the option of using it as a regular chalkboard later if I wanted to. 

 

While your paint is drying you can put your frame together. Here are the braces I used.

Just put the four pieces together and use the braces at each corner. I just used one on each corner (for a total of four) because I was doing it quickly. It was sturdier than I expected but if you wanted it to be extra secure I would recommend doing two braces on each corner for a total of eight.

 

Then either paint or stain your frame. I have made a few of these now and have stained two and painted two. So here is how it looks at this point (this is actually the first one I did not the most recent one as you can see from the Christmas tree in the background):

Now lay your frame down with the front side facing down:

Take your board and using painters tape (so that it can easily be removed without ripping the paper) start taping down the paper to the large board.

You can use as much or as little tape as you'd like. This is about how most of mine have looked:

Now flip it over and place it face down on the frame (I painted both sides of this board so I'd have more space to write new chalk art on):

Now it's time to attach the board. These are the screws I had on hand. There is probably something better you could use but they were the right size and they worked fine. FOR THIS PROJECT I ONLY USED SIX and put them in relatively lightly if that makes sense.

I just screwed them chalkboard onto the back of the frame. One in each corner and one in the middle of each of the longer sides. If you have a drill it will make it a little quicker but it's still pretty easy with just a good ol' screwdriver! This is an image from the tutorial a few months ago and for the permanent chalkboard so I screwed them in a little tighter. For this one (which I forgot to take a picture of) I did it a little looser so they'd be easier to quickly take out and just tape on a new print and pop the back right back into the frame. I have done it now about 6 or 7 times and it's really quick and easy!

 I just leaned mine up on my mirrored dresser but if you wanted to hang it you could always attach something so it could be hung!

And that's it! 

I hope you all are having a lovely week! 

Mini Valentine's Cake Tutorial with Love Template

Lillie, Lola and I had some fun making some mini valentine's cakes last week. They make a fun little dessert so I thought I would share how we did it in case anyone wanted to make some. I had seen several ombre cakes on pinterest and thought it would be fun to try! I had planned on making this a four layer cake so we made four different shades of pink but I didn't make them thin enough so we ended up just doing two layers on each cake and ended up making eight two-layer cakes instead of four four-layer cakes. Here's what they looked like when you cut into them:

So, the first thing we did was make the cakes. I love homemade frosting but have to admit I find cake mixes to be better than homemade cake! For this we just used a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix and we added graduation amounts of pink food coloring. We used two cakes mixes so we could make four 9" round cakes, but if I were to do it again I would definitely just use one cake mix and make the layers thinner and maybe make just three 9" round cakes. 

For the icing we used my favorite cream cheese frosting that I got from my mom - when we were little this was the frosting she always put in her homemade carrot cake. My parents and sisters loved carrot cake but I was not a fan. I would just eat off the delicious icing and not touch my cake. =) Anyway here is the recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting:

3 Tbsp. butter

4 to 5 oz. cream cheese

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 Tbsp. maple syrup (I sometimes do a full tablespoon)

 3 cups confectioners sugar

Soften butter and cream cheese then add the rest of the ingredients until they are nice and smooth. Depending on how much icing you like you might want to make a little extra frosting. We like a lot of icing on our cakes. For the two cake mixes we made we doubled the above recipe and it wasn't quite enough. It might have been enough if it weren't for the fact that my helpers and I really like to "sneak" licks of the frosting while we are working. If you just like a light coating of icing and you are making one cake mix for a total of four mini cakes I think the above recipe would be enough. If you like a heavier coating of icing I would recommend doing about one and a half times the above ingredients.

Next I took a the top of a clothing gift box and cut out four circles. I used the circular cookie cutter I was going to use on my cakes to trace and make sure they were the right size:

Now I put one of the cardboard circles on top of an upside down vase so that I would be able to twist around it to frost the cakes (I am sure there are more professional things out there made for this, but I always just use whatever I can find on hand). Then used a knife to trim off the top of my cake a bit so it would be a little flatter and I used my little circular cookie cutter and cut out my first layer. I had two little helpers so this part was a bit messy. =)

I put the first layer on and then added some frosting and then put on the second layer.

Then I just frosted the whole thing with a yummy cream cheese frosting (recipe above) and added a cutout that said love. We added some glittery sprinkles to the cake and some silver glitter to the word love because toddler sized girls LOVE glitter! =) Frosting the cake was a bit difficult partly because I had two little helpers and partly because I probably should have refrigerated the cakes a bit so they didn't crumble so much. I had planned on doing something fancier for the frosting but in the end it was just easier to do a very basic frosting job on these. And yes, I know they are a little on the messy side. =)

If you want to make your own love toppers here is a template for the one we made.

We made four cakes that looked like the one above and then we made a few more layered ones and then Lillie and Lola also did some one layer ones and had lots of fun adding all the sprinkles they wanted on those one.

When we were done we added the four cakes to the four place settings on our table.

I hope you are having a great Sunday! I'll be back tomorrow to show you the rest of our Valentine's decorating.