Hello friends! So I am back with another round of acrylic pour painting. This has become one of my absolute favorite techniques and I was excited to try it out again. This blog post will not cover all of the steps required to pour paint; if you would like to see a more step by step tutorial, please check out my first blog about this kind of painting: https://www.thepatternedpaperplate.com/blog/acrylic-pour-painting. Today I will focus more on some fun new techniques I tried out!

I was lucky enough to come across six 16 by 20 inch canvases for free. They were leftover from the fun, crafty bachelorette party my bridesmaids threw for me last month. I got all of the canvases covered in gesso and was then ready to go.

One technique I wanted to try was the use of painters tape to leave sharp lines on the canvases to cut through the paint. I also loved the idea of having two canvases go together as a matching set. With those ideas in mind, I got to taping. I had no set plan in mind, but just added lines across the canvases until I was happy. Once I was satisfied, I ensured that the tape was stuck down firmly and sealed down the edges of the tape with some pouring medium (this is what is mixed into the paint to make it more pourable). I read on the internet that sealing the edges of the tape with the clear medium would help keep the paint from seeping under the tape, so I decided to give it a try. I also decided to go with a purpley-red color scheme for these paintings.

With my tape sealed and my colors picked, I got to pouring. To reiterate, if you would like an explanation of the technical process that goes into pour painting, I would check out my previous blog! In my first blog on this, I suggested always doing this project outside as it was too messy for indoors. Well ... I'm stubborn so I got myself all set up inside and ended up not making too much of a mess!

Once poured, the paintings looked like this:

After they were mostly dry, I pulled the tape away. I will admit that I was slightly disappointed as there was still a lot of paint leakage that happened.

But I went to work with a tiny paintbrush and some white paint and got the lines cleaned up. I am SO happy with how these look now!

Another technique I wanted to try was a galaxy-looking painting. I did this on a single canvas and picked some fun solid colors as well as some sparkly ones. The small tubes are glitter paint.

I did the traditional pour approach on this canvas, but then had fun at the end by splattering some of the brighter colors on the canvas. My hope was that it would create a kind of constellation(ish) look. This one came out very cool as well and I love the subtle sparkle of it. The colors dried down a bit more muted and less vibrant than you see below, but she's still a beauty!

So these first two ideas of mine went swimmingly and I love the finished products. They need a few coats of sealer as well as some work to clean up the back of the canvases, but other than that, they are done! The other two pour techniques I decided to try did not go quite as I planned and we will get more into those when Part 2 rolls out. I think my mom will be back next time with a Halloween craft blog, so you can expect Part 2 of this pour painting journey sometime in November!

And drumroll please ..... because the hope is to have these paintings ready to sell when Part 2 rolls out! I have always been interested in selling some of my crafts outside of just the craft fair market and this seems like a good enough product to start with. I am still working out the logistics so I should have some more information about the who/what/when/where of purchasing some Rebecca originals in November :)

Let me know what you guys think in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

Hello everyone! How are you today? Today we don't have a tutorial, but a little look at what my craft room has shifted into since I've been working from home. I have been working from home since March and will be until at least the end of December. Initially I had made some "good enough" changes to my craft room, but over the past few months I have moved things around a lot to make the space more conducive to working and crafting. If you are interested in what the space looked like before, go check out my "Craft Room Redo" blog.

One of the things which made a big difference as far as containing clutter was giving over a whole corner of the room to be a "storage area." We have a door in our craft room that leads to the kitchen, but never use it as we also have a door between the kitchen and living room. Since we never use that doorway, it seemed appropriate to offer that corner up as storage. We moved a bookcase over into the space and keep a variety of things on there. When the other door into the craft room is open, it actually hides the storage corner a bit and makes it less in your face.

Another big change was adding a second desk to be the dedicated computer space. Initially, I was working from my corner craft desk which left no room to spread out and do any crafts if I wanted to. I took my old homework desk that my Pepere had made me down from the attic and set up my computer station there. I would love to get a white IKEA desk that matches everything else we own in this room, but my lovely handmade desk is certainly doing the job for now.

Making room for this desk meant moving around some of the craft supply storage units in the room. I put the two tall units next to each other to hold the printer and some plants. I plan to use this as a background when I have video calls as sometimes the rest of the room looks a little busy in calls. I also moved a short storage unit to the other side of my corner desk.

These moves allowed my corner desk to be more free and I can now use it for some work spillover or small craft projects.

These changes have helped me feel more relaxed in my work/craft space and I'm sure that I will keep adjusting to suit my needs. What spaces in your life have been repurposed this year? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

Hello friends! Today we are here with a very short blog post about a quick baking treat, cake pops. I feel like cake pops were all the rage on the internet a while ago and are not so popular now, but I still love them. They are one of the simplest desserts around and people always love them. Below are the food supplies that you will need to replicate the cake pops I made:

First off, bake a box cake according to the directions and let it cool. I went with rainbow chip for the cake and frosting, but you can use any combination of cake and frosting that you would like. Once cooled, crumble up the cake into large crumbles.

Then, plop the entire can of frosting into the cake crumbles and mix both together until a dough-like consistency forms.

Then, line a container with parchment paper to keep the pops from sticking. Using a cookie scoop or just your hands, form the dough into the size that you want!

Once all of your pops have been formed, it is time to decorate! For my pops, I warmed up some white chocolate candy melts and then used a piping bag to drizzle. I then threw some sprinkles on before the chocolate hardened fully. I only ended up using one of the kinds of sprinkles I showed in the picture above. And here they are!

There is really not an easier dessert out there. Today was a short little "bloglet" but I wanted to remind everyone how delicious these treats are! Have you ever made cake pops?

 - Rebecca

Hello Friends – Suzanne, Rebecca’s momma, here welcoming you back to the PPP.  This week, even though Fall is approaching, I have a “Spring Fling” for you. 
 
Crafters accumulate lots of things because we see the potential in what many people would consider trash.  Tucked away until inspiration strikes, we accumulate bits and pieces, magpie-like, until we turn trash into treasure.  One of these things is the humble spring.

Several years ago, I appropriated several rusty cone shaped bed springs.  I turned them into cute bobble-headed snowmen -- applied a coat of sealer to keep the rust from rubbing off, added a head made of fleece (I found these as Christmas ornaments and simply cut the hanging string and tag off), wrapped a length of burlap beneath the head to make a scarf and added a few buttons down the front.

Then, I found some small hourglass shaped springs at a yard sale.  I think they might have been “free with purchase”.  I keep one on my craft table holding my liquid glue upside down, so it’s always ready to go.  And since I have not yet felt comfortable returning to the nail salon, another makes a perfect nail polish holder.

Not long ago, my amazing sister was ready to discard an old box spring.  Before she did, she disassembled it and brought me a bag full of larger hourglass shaped springs.  She’s a wicked enabler, but I do love her!  This supply of springs will last me a long time and I have several cool ideas of how to use them. 

First, placing one inside a vase will help your flowers stand tall.  I’m hoping this might also start to rust the one in the water.

A paper cone inside the spring, acting as a tussy mussy (small interjection from Rebecca here: I had to look up what tussy mussy meant!), also makes a nice place to display flowers – though artificial ones will last longer in this application.  Because these springs have not had a chance to rust yet, I chose to dapple white chalk paint on this one.  I also added a little lace along the top edge.  These would make simple and cost-effective centerpieces for a casual event – just a little different than a plain vase.

For a simple décor piece, I wrapped the spring in a narrow burlap ribbon and made a nest of Spanish moss in the top.  I painted and decorated a small wooden birdhouse and nestled it into the nest.  I chose not to glue the birdhouse into the nest because I can perch other things into the nest, depending on the season – like a wooden heart or ceramic pumpkin. 

Finally, for Christmas (and no, it’s not too early for Christmas), I wrapped the spring in green pines ties, added a doily into the top and stuck in a holiday pick of pine cones, rusty bells and buffalo plaid balls.

I hope you enjoyed today’s little “spring fling”.  I have a few more ideas rolling around in my noggin – maybe a wind chime, maybe figuring out a way to fashion several into a wreath form – so we may have a ”spring fling, part 2” in the future.  Will you think twice about ditching an old box spring before removing a few of those fun springs?

 - Suzanne

Hello friends! So I have been showing you some projects that were part of my recent bedroom makeover, but today I will share a little overview of the whole makeover process. To start off, here is my fiance and I's bedroom pre-makeover:

There was nothing really wrong with the room, but it just felt like Sean and I had put all the things from our teenage bedrooms into one room. Which honestly was basically all we did when we moved in. The room didn't feel like it had grown up with us. We also were beginning to seriously regret the darker blue color we had painted the room. We still liked the color, but it made the room seem so dark and small, especially since we almost never open the curtains in the bedroom. So first step was taking everything off the walls, sanding and patching holes and slapping some fresh paint on the walls.

We went with a lighter blue-grey for the walls. We bought a paint-primer in one and ended up doing two coats to cover the original blue. It did not even take a full gallon! Another big project that was tackled for this makeover was redoing my dresser (see last week's blog for that project). I also updated my "side table" with a coat of white paint. As you may have seen in the pictures above, our bed is pushed against a wall, meaning that there is no room on my side of the bed for a table. Instead, I use a small shelf on the wall to hold my phone, books and charging cords. I gave the shelf some paint, added some command hooks to hold all of my cords and she was good to go!

A few other changes that we made in the room were adding a rug and a freestanding mirror. The room felt like it lacked a bit of coziness without a rug. We ended up buying a rug that was honestly a little bit small for the room, but it still looks nice and adds the cozy factor that we were looking for. Previously we had a crappy old mirror mounted on the wall behind our door. I truly hated that mirror with all of my soul so we got a full-length standing mirror to place in a better spot in the room.

Once paint was done, the last thing needed was really thinking about what was going to go back on the walls. We decided to have three little gallery wall areas: one above the bed and one each above my dresser and Sean's dresser. To make sure we liked how everything looked before committing to it, I used a trick that I got from a Youtube channel I watch, The Sorry Girls. When doing a gallery wall, they always trace out each piece of art on paper and mark where the bracket is. This way, the pieces of paper can be taped up on the wall and you can easily move them around. Then, once you like the placement, drill or nail directly through the paper. Rip the paper off and hang those pictures up! I would highly recommend this to anyway who wants to try a gallery wall. It makes the whole process much less scary.

One final little DIY craft to share with you before the final room reveal is this little chalkboard that I attached to the wall with Velcro Command Hooks. It hangs right next to our door and is a great place for Sean and I to leave notes for each other!

And here are some pictures of the finished room!

Spot the acrylic pour paintings from a previous blog above the bed! What do you guys think? It may not seem like a huge transformation, but the room feels much cozier and relaxing now and we are both so happy with it. Give me your thoughts in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

Hello everyone! How are you today? You might be over there thinking, Rebecca didnt you redo your dresser like a year ago? If so, yes. You are correct. As you may recall, I redid my dresser last year and switched it from an antique style to a fun and colorful dresser with mismatched knobs. I really do like how the dresser turned out with its colorful drawers and knobs, but friends I must admit that once I put it back in my bedroom I did not like it in the space. The dresser was fun and quirky and would have looked great in my craft room, but once back in the bedroom it looked very childish. But alas, I lived with it for a year. As you might have seen in my last post about acrylic pour painting, my fiance, Sean, and I are redoing our bedroom completely and I figured this was the perfect excuse to redo this dresser yet again. This time I decided on painting the dresser brown to somewhat match Sean's dresser and keeping the mismatched knob look, but with a more grown-up and cohesive feel.

First step was sanding down all of the drawers. Last time I redid the dresser, I just hand sanded them lightly before repainting. This time, I wanted to sand the drawers down completely and get them down to the wood. There were about three layers of paint on the drawers so it took a while to sand them down, but my mother and I tackled the project and got them all sanded over the course of two Saturdays.

The drawers each had a decorative beveled edges so while sanding down the front we also sanded down these bevels to give the drawers a cleaner, more modern look. As I mentioned above, I wanted to keep the mismatched knob look, but did buy a pack of 6 gold dresser knobs on Amazon so that there was some consistency across the dresser. I also used some of the knobs I already had which fit the vibe I was going for.

Once the drawers were sanded with both coarse and a fine grit sandpaper, it was time to paint. I was originally going to buy some semi-glass brown paint, but then my mother and I found a random can of brown paint from 2014 in the basement that still looked fine so I went with that! In the photo, the painted drawers look almost grey, but in person the color is a cool-toned brown.

Since I did not end up getting a gloss paint, I bought some water-based polyurethane to seal the drawers. Last time I redid my dresser, I used non-glossy paint which I did not seal and it has been a nightmare to clean. I would highly recommend either using a gloss paint or sealing your paint on a piece of furniture that will be used often. The polyurethane also helped to make the brown look a bit warmer and less grey which I liked.

After the drawers were dry, It was time to line the insides and add the knobs back on. I did some complicated math (well, complicated for me) to find out how many square feet of adhesive shelf liner I would need to ensure I bought enough. Friends, I would like to tell you that it was easy to do the shelf liner. That would be a lie, though. I found it very complicated to cut the right sized pieces and get everything lined up and this ended up taking me a few hours. But when it was done, I added the knobs back on and we were done! For now.

I was pretty convinced that I was going to paint the base of the dresser brown as well, but after my fiance mentioned about 5 times that he thought it looked nice with a white base, I decided to consider it and ended up deciding that I like it too! I will be sanding down and repainting/polyurethaning the base as I did it poorly before, but it will look fairly similar to the picture you see above when done, so it probably will not warrant a second blog about it!

This dresser redo and the acrylic pour paintings from my last blog are part of a larger bedroom redo, so next blog will likely be a little summary of everything that we did for the makeover. What do you guys think of this dresser redo? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

Hello everyone! I hope that you are doing well. Today, I want to share a craft that I am SO excited about: acrylic pour painting. If you have never heard of this type of painting before, it involves thinning out acrylic paint and pouring it over a canvas to get a very abstract pattern that looks a bit like marble. I did much internet researching before attempting this craft, but was still pretty worried that it was all going to go poorly. To start off, for this craft you need a canvas (or two), some gesso, some paint thinner stuff (more on that later), and acrylic paint or color. I also added a clear coat of acrylic spray sealer on my projects once they were done, but that is optional. I would highly recommend doing this craft outside. I am the queen of doing messy things inside, but even had to admit that this craft was not suitable for the indoors. I used two 12 by 12 canvases for this craft and covered them both with 2 coats of clear gesso. According to the internet, this helps the paint to stick better as it is pouring so I did what I was told. Once the gesso on my canvases had dried, I set up my outdoor acrylic pour station, with the help of my mother.

I would also recommend laying the canvases on something so that they are lifted off the work surface. This allows the paint to drip off the side and not stick your painting to the table! When it got to the paint mixing step, I must admit that I went a bit Rebecca and did not measure anything. I did, however, listen to the internet and buy "Golden GAC 800 low crazing extender for pouring acrylic colors" which was very highly recommended by many. This is the paint thinner I was talking about above. You mix it with your acrylic paint or pigment and it allows it to spread and pour more smoothly. I used basic acrylic paint that you buy in little bottles at the craft store, but you could also use acrylic pigment or color, which I assume would be stronger and therefore you would need less of if. I filled little cups with a good pour of "low crazing extender" and then added in a good squirt of each of my paints and mixed each together.

Once my paints were ready, I poured the paint onto the canvas as evenly as possible. I mixed only enough paint for one canvas as it seemed easier to do one at a time.

Once the paint had all been drizzled over the canvas, it was time for the fun paint. Time to lift the canvas up and let the paint blend and pour! I would recommend wearing gloves for this. I did not and there was much paint on my hands.

For this part of the process, it is really up to your discretion. You can move the paint around as much or as little as you want to get your desired look. I would just recommend making sure you have enough paint so that it can drip over the edges of the canvas fully as I think that looks more finished. I had a harder time making the edges look clean on my first try and made sure to mix up a bit more paint for my second canvas. Here they both are!

The painting on the left was my first attempt and on the right is my second attempt. On the second, I definitely had more paint to work with so the colors were able to flow a bit freer and not get quite as muddled as on the first painting. Honestly, I am really happy with both though! I let them each dry for about 24 hours and then covered with a few coats of acrylic sealer. I made these paintings specifically for a makeover that my fiance and I are doing for our bedroom (more blogs to come about that). Here is the gallery wall I have in mind, including the acrylic pour painting and a few other pieces.

Let me know what you guys think about this painting technique in the comments below. Would you ever give it a try?

 - Rebecca

Hello Friends – It’s Suzanne, Rebecca’s Momma, guest blogging this week.  Today, we are going to talk about a little sewing project I recently completed for a friend who asked me to make her some pillow covers.  I am not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a sewing machine, know how to thread it and can sew straight lines.  I also think I can figure out how to do anything, so I said I’d give it a go. 

My friend provided the pillow forms (26 inches square) and the end of a bolt of fabric with which she’d already had a bench covered.  She wanted the pillows to match.

There were a couple of things I knew going in to this project.  First, I wanted the covers to be removable for cleaning and, second, I did not want to have to learn how to put in a zipper.  I thought about how pillow shams for beds often have a crossover opening in the back, so that’s what I decided to do.

This is a very straightforward way of making a very simple cover and is adaptable to any size pillow.  I’ll describe my process and you can easily replace my measurements with your own for the size pillow you have.  I’d venture to say that you could even use a glue gun with glue sticks suitable for fabric (there is such a thing – I just googled it!) rather than sewing.

First, figure out the size of your pillow.  As I mentioned, mine are 26 inches square.  Check the depth of your pillow as well.  If it is very plump, you’ll need to figure the thickness of it into your measurements as well.  For the width of your fabric, you will need a piece the width of the pillow, plus about one inch for every two to three inches of the thickness of the pillow, plus an additional inch for the seam allowance.  For me, this was 28 inches.  The length of the fabric will need to be 2.5 times the length of your pillow.  For me, this was 65 inches.

Then, turn a small hem along one of the short ends of your piece of fabric.  This will end up being the upper side on the crossover opening.

Next, fold your fabric with the good side in, roughly in half, but with the two short ends overlapping each other.  The hem you just sewed should be under the end with the unsewn sort end, so that it ends up on top when you turn your cover right side out.  You are trying to make the long length of the fabric the size of your pillow.  In my case, I have square pillows so I folded my sandwich of fabric diagonally to make sure I had a square.

Next, pin the open edges so they don’t shift and sew straight from one end to the other.  Remember, you’ve added an inch for the seam allowance, so try to stay about ½ inch in from the edge of the fabric.  Sew the other open side straight from one end to the other.  Now you can turn the cover right side out through the opening left by the two short ends overlapping each other.  Use a chopstick or an unsharpened pencil to push the corners out square.  Stuff that pillow form in through the overlapping opening and you are done.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Sewing does not need to be intimidating.  Most household items, like these pillow covers or curtains, can be made with just a few short, straight seams.  I hope you give it a try.

What sewing projects have you attempted? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Suzanne

Hello again friends! Today we will be revisiting a topic that I wrote about a bit ago: the marvelous and mighty macaron. I freaking love macarons and basically only ever go to Whole Foods to buy the macarons they have in the little freezer case right when you walk in. I LOVE THEM. Last time that my fiance and I tried to make macarons, things didn't go too badly but the filling did leave much to be desired. This time we decided to try a different recipe, from the Nerdy Nummies cookbook made by one of my favorite YouTubers, Rosanna Pansino. We followed her recipe almost exactly, but I will let you know where we made small changes.

The first steps were related to getting the batter ready. Macaron batter typically involves dry ingredients mixed with a meringue. Rosanna called for almond meal, but we could only find almond flour at the grocery store so we went with that. We mixed the batter as she described; the only small additions that we made were to add a small amount of gel food coloring, as well as some raspberry extract to the batter.

Once the batter was mixed, we piped the cookies into onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets. The cookies were supposed to be about an inc, but I I have not concept of time or space so I would say ours ended up being closer to 1 1/2 inches in diameter or radius or circumference or whatever word means from one end of a circle to another. After a quick Google search, it appears that diameter was the word I was going for. We then set the cookies out to rest for about 45 minutes. We got crafty and moved my puzzle table into the bedroom with the AC blasting to ensure that the cookies didn't melt. For those of you that do not know, leaving the cookies out allows them to form a skin on top which means that when you put them in the oven, they bake "up" rather than "out." You will get a taller cookie, rather than one than has spread out.

Once the cookies had rested, we baked them according to the recipe and then got started on our filling. This frosting was cream cheese based as opposed to the butter based frosting we tried last time. This frosting was SO much better than last time and did not immediately start melting. If making this type of cookie, I would highly recommend going with the cream cheese frosting. We changed up the frosting slightly by added mashed fresh raspberries, which required us to add more powdered sugar than the recipe called for to balance out the extra moisture from the raspberries.

The final steps were sorting the cookies once they had baked and cooled to make nice top and bottom pairs and assembling everything. To assemble, all we had to do was pipe a small bit of frosting on the bottom cookie and then gently press the top cookie on top, ensuring that we did not push hard enough to break either cookie.

Here are some nice action shots provided by my mother. These were DELICIOUS and the cream cheese frosting worked out so much better than our previous buttercream frosting attempt. I would highly recommend this recipe! Macarons are not that hard if you don't mind giving over a few hours to the project.

What have you guys been baking in quarantine, especially as hotter weather is setting in?

 - Rebecca

Hello friends! Today I want to share a quick card idea that uses nearly a full sheet of 6 by 6 paper and some adorable stickers from the Dollar Tree, also known as my favorite place to buy cheap craft things. To start off, you will need some plain card bases and sheets of 6 by 6 paper. Each card needs two different patterned sheets and I would suggest you use ones that  coordinate. Below are the stickers from the Dollar Tree, which look like small jars; these are translucent and you can see through the jars.

The first cut of the 6 by 6 paper sheet will be to create a large piece that covers most of the card front. I cut (and when I say "I cut", I mean my mother cut because she is much better at math) mine to leave a 1/4 inch bit of white all around when placed in the middle of the card front. This leaves two small strips of paper. It helps to make at least two of these cards at once, as you can use the small strips of the coordinating paper as accents on the opposite cards. Does that make sense? You'll see, I swear!

Now it is time to stamp the sentiment and the accent that will be used with the jar stickers. If you don't have stamps, you can also feel free to use additional stickers to get the same effect. I went with "thank you" as the sentiment and then stamped out some flowers.  You will see what we do with the flowers in a second! The sentiment can be mounted on the paper that coordinates with your base paper.

You can feel free to color in the flowers or not. Now here is the fun part! Cut out a rectangle from the white paper around your flowers, leaving enough room at the bottom of the paper for a jar sticker. Stick a jar sticker over the flower stems to make it look as though the flowers are in the jar. I had to lengthen the stems a bit with a black marker for them to look proportional. I also added a small gem to the bottom of each flower. Aren't they ADORABLE? Mount the white paper with your flower on the same paper you mounted your sentiment on.

Using dimensionals or regular adhesive, attach the sentiment and flower piece to the front of the card wherever you would like. Here are two that I made!

You will be left with the tiniest pieces of paper from the original 6 by 6 sheet and you can either keep these for future projects or use them to decorate your envelopes. See what I mean about coordinating papers? Below are some examples of cards which have a similar style, but with slight alterations.

Give these cards a try and let me know how they go in the comments below!

 - Rebecca