Hello friends!

Okay, I know we've done coasters approximately 47 times here on the PPP, but something we have not tried is resin! I have been intrigued by resin for a long time and have always wanted to give it a try. I found this kit on Amazon and thought I would walk you through the whole experience. 

Here were the contents of the kit: 3 silicone molds, an apron/table cover, some gloves, many bottles of resin dye, some beaker/pour cups, the epoxy hardener and clear resin, mixing tools, tweezers, droppers and some shimmer metallic foil in 3 colors. 

This epoxy resin is a 1:1 ratio meaning that it is equal parts hardener and resin for each project. The amount given was meant to be enough for 3 coasters, one in each mold. So I started with the mold that looked kind of like a geode slice. I mixed up some clear resin in the 1:1 ratio and once it was fully combined, I poured out a little bit into two containers and added some dye to make one blue and the other green. 

I then added most of the clear resin to the bottom of the mold, drizzled in each color and used a stirrer to create a swirled effect. I also used tweezers to add some of the silver foil and poured the remaining clear on top. 

Although the directions did say that this was not necessary, I used a heat gun gently over the top to pop any bubbles that formed in the resin. 

For the second coaster, I decided to try a solid color so I mixed up some vibrant orange resin and added some bits of the coppery foil. I used the heat gun on this one as well. 

On my final coaster, I decided to go crazy and attempt a rainbow ombre effect. To do this, I mixed up 6 different colors of resin. I did have a small spill that meant my final mix was not a perfect 1:1 ratio of hardener and resin. As I had more hardener than resin, I made a completely uneducated assumption that it would be fine. SPOILER: It was not :) But we will get to that later! This coaster was somewhat stressful as I had to pour each color very fast so as to not let the one before it spread too far. I then swirled the colors around until I was happy with how it looked. On this one, I did not use the heat gun as I was afraid it would move the colors around too much. 

I let all 3 dry for about 24 hours and the first 2 were good to go and dried solid. The geode one ended up being my favorite!

Shockingly enough, the one that did not have the correct 1:1 ratio dried to a point where it was no longer wet, but did not fully harden. That's on me!

I think I will use this floppier one as a base to rest my glue gun on so that any glue drips do not damage my table top. The geode coaster is now being used as a coaster in my bedroom and the orange one is a base for a candle I have on my work desk. 

So final thoughts on the resin experience: The kit was very easy to use and the only error that occurred was because I blatantly ignored the very simple directions given to me. It is also nice that the kit came with reusable molds and a lot of color dyes so I could make more resin projects in the future if I just bought some more of the hardener and resin. It was a good little project that helped me to see if I liked resin and could do it. 

I do think that I want to do more and might buy more smaller kits or some more resin/hardener to use with the supplies I have left, but I will say that the clean-up from it is pretty hard. The kit did come with some sturdy plastic mixing pots that I ended up having to throw away as I was not sure how to clean them out properly. I assume that you could wash them out, but I was wary for any amount of resin to go down the drain as I did not think my property manager would have been super thrilled about that. I would definitely want to do more research on how to clean all the tools used so that everything would not have to be thrown out after the project.

So what do you guys think of this resin first try? Have you ever used resin before? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's image on the homepage is from Pexels user Thirdman: www.pexels.com/photo/person-pouring-resin-in-plastic-cup-7256264/

Hi friends! Happy 2022! Today I am back with a shorter blog as this project is not quite complete. I am still waiting for a crucial component to come from Amazon! 

Last week I was hanging out with my mother and was feeling craftily uninspired so we went on a little shopping trip. Obviously one of our stops was the Dollar Tree. I am a big fan of tiny little things so I was immediately excited by these little glass bottle charms. 

Right next to them were some fun beads and stretch cord and an idea started to take shape.

When my mother and I have an opportunity to do craft fairs, I like to make sure that I have a range of things that would appeal to adults and children. I don't usually make jewelry, but these supplies above really seemed to lend themselves to a cute necklace/bracelet combo. I don't care how old you are, letter beads are always adorable!

I started by filling each little glass charm with some of the beads. I then put some Super Glue on the rim of the glass before pressing the cork topper back on to make sure it would stick. I also put a tiny dot of Super Glue on the place where the little eye bolt was pushed into the cork at the top to ensure that wouldn't slide out.

Next I used the variety of beads and stretchy cord to make some cute words that matched the color scheme of the bottle they would be going with.

The plan is to tie up the stretchy cord onto a jump ring and also attach the bottle to the same jump ring so that they can hang from a necklace chain together. I bought these silver necklace chains, but also want to try it out on the colored stretchy cord to see how that looks. The thing I am waiting on is appropriately sized jump rings so I can get started on putting everything together when those come!

I also made some bracelets to match each necklace. The plan is to keep them untied so that they can be tied to the perfect rightness for whoever is wearing them, but I also might try my hand at some of those slidey knots that you can tighten. 

Finally, I made some simple monogram strands and some matching bead strands. The plan is to use my jump rings when they come and attach each pair to one of these silver clips to make cute little monogram keychains. 

And that's it on this simple project! Along with the jump rings, I also have a larger variety pack of letter beads coming from Amazon as I've been having a really great time making things with them. I even made myself a little keychain with a not so safe for work swear word on it and I think there could be a niche market for bracelets, keychains or necklaces with some sassy phrases although I'm feeling like that may not be appropriate for the blog :)

I hope you guys have a happy Sunday! Let me know what you think of these bracelets and necklaces in the comments below!

 - Rebecca 

P.S. Today's image in the blog front page is from Pexels user Magda Ehlers:
​ www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-color-beads-1331705/

Hello everyone! So today I am here with some cute DIY décor that can carry you through the winter season. I want to preface by saying that this is not an original idea and you can find countless varieties of it on Pinterest, but this is my version of the cute little snowman pot DIY. 

First, you need to buy two sizes of terra cotta pots that will sit on one another. I went for the two of the smaller sizes that they had at Michaels. 

I then bought some outdoor acrylic paint to ensure that it would adhere well to the pots. I painted the smaller pots black for the snowman hat and the larger pots white; I did two coats for each color. I used some sandpaper to scuff up the pots after the paint had dried to give them a worn look.

I then dipped the handle of a paintbrush in the black paint to make the snowman eyes and mouth on the white pots. After that was dry, I glued the two pots together, with the smaller black pot on top. I tried using both hot glue and liquid Gorilla Glue and found that hot glue worked better as it dried almost immediately while the liquid glue was very drippy and I had to keep wiping it away to avoid glue streaks down the white pot.

As that was drying, I worked on the snowman noses. I cut down some thin wooden dowels that I had with an X-acto knife and carved them to look like carrots. Then I painted them orange and let those dry.  Once they were dry, I attached them to the front of the snowman face with Super Glue.

I was bothered by the fact that the top black pots had a hole in the top, so I cut out a small circle of some black adhesive vinyl that I had and glued it down to make it look more like the top of a hat. 

Finally, I cut out some lengths of twine that I had, as well as some thin strips of felt to use as hat decoration and as scarves. I attached both with some hot glue here and there to keep them in place. And here they are! There was some wait time as things dried, but overall these were very simple little crafts and they came out so cute!

What do you guys think of these little snowmen? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's image on the homepage for this blog comes from Pexels user Jill Wellington: 
​www.pexels.com/photo/snowman-holding-shovel-3334473/

Hello Friends – It’s Suzanne, Rebecca’s Momma, and I am happy to be back with you today on the PPP with a trio of ornaments to help brighten up your holiday season.  These sweet and simple ornaments can be made with just one sheet of double sided decorative 12 X 12 inch paper, making them as economical as they are easy.  With one pack of coordinated paper, you could give your holiday tree a whole new look.
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I started with my paper, a paper trimmer, scissors, glue, some baker’s twine, a stapler and a scalloped circle paper punch.  Remember, any place I’ve used a cutting tool, you can use a pair of scissors and achieve the same results. Later, I also snagged some beads and other embellishments from my stash.

​The first thing to do is cut the 12 X 12 paper into three pieces – one 12 X 6 and two 6 X 6.

​Ornament 1 uses the 12 X 6 inch piece.  From that, punch or cut 6 circles of your desired size.  Fold each of those circles in half, with the pattern you want showing to the inside of the fold.  

​Carefully lining up each folded circle atop each other, glue them together until you have a stack. 

Before gluing the top and bottom together to complete the circle, run a length of baker’s twine down the “spine’.  I also added a bead to the bottom of the twine to give the ball some weight.  Glue the last two sides together to make a ball. ​Add another bead to the top, if you wish, and hang on your tree.

​How easy was that?  Ornament 2 is just as easy! Cut one of the 6 X 6 inch pieces of paper into six 1 inch strips.  Keep two of the strips the full 6 inches, cut two of the strips to 5 ¼ inches and one of the strips to 5 inches.  The last strip is extra.

​Stack the strips with three of them facing one way and the remaining two facing the other.  ​Align one end of all the strips and staple together.

​Align the opposite end of the strips, causing the two outside layers to bow out, and staple that end as well.

​Punch a small hole at the top to add a length of twine as a hanger.   Again, I added a bead to give the ornament some weight. I also punched a hole in the other end and added a bead there as well.

​Now that you are warmed up, Ornament 3 is a little more time consuming, but again, very easy.  This ornament has many names but is most commonly called a Swedish or Scandinavian Star.  To start, take the final 6 X 6 inch piece of paper and cut it into twelve 6 X ½ inch strips. Each side of your star will use six of the strips.

​Fold two strips in half to find the center and glue them together at the center, forming a cross.  Glue two strips on either side of one of the original strips, gluing to the opposite side of the cross piece.  You will be creating a weaved pattern, so if your middle strip is “over”, you want the two that you are gluing on to be “under” (or vice versa).  Turn your piece a quarter turn and weave the added two strips to the other original strip, being careful to form a weaved pattern.  You should now have a piece that is three strips wide by three strips high, with a little woven center.   Take the two corner strips and glue them together, flipping them so that they point out from the center, as shown.  Repeat this on all four corners and then repeat the whole process with the other six strips of paper so you have two identical pieces.

​Stack the two pieces on top of each other with the woven centers facing out. Turn one of your pieces so that the straight middle pieces of one align with the glued points of the other one.  Weave the straight strips to the inside of the glued points and glue into place. 

​Once the tips are good and dry, cut the excess paper to match the points.

Punch a hole in one point to add a length of twine for hanging.  I had paper left from the 12 X 6 inch piece I used for Ornament 1 so I punched another scalloped circle for the middle of one side and also added a thin wooden snowflake from my stash.

​Since the small star came out so nicely, I decided to try one with a full sheet of 12 X 12 inch paper.  I used a different style of paper, but if you were looking for a tree topper to match your new ornaments, this would be a great size for that.  For this one, I cut my 12 X 12 inch piece of paper into 1 inch strips.  

​I repeated all the same steps, using some small clips to keep the larger corners in place while they dried. 

​For this big guy, I cut a scalloped circle on my Cricut and added a beautiful paper snowflake from my stash with a second, smaller scalloped circle in the center.

I hope you are inspired to make some of these ornaments and have a very happy holiday!

​Rebecca here quickly: Today's picture on the home page is provided by user Valeria Boltneva on Pexels www.pexels.com/photo/yellow-red-and-green-christmas-tree-with-baubles-756686/
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​Happy holidays everyone! 

Hello friends! Before the blog, I want to shout out my crafty mother, Suzanne. Today is her birthday! Thank you for all the crafty love and support you have given the PPP!

This week we are working on some larger scale mixed media frames. I have done some smaller mixed frames before and loved the project, so I wanted to do some larger ones with a kitchen/cooking theme. Here is the link for past mixed media frames if you are interested:
www.thepatternedpaperplate.com/blog/mixed-media-collages
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I picked up three frames at Goodwill and some paints to use for this project at Michaels. 

I had wanted to use chalk paint for a while and thought this would be a good time to try it out. Chalk paint is very good at sticking to surfaces where acrylic paint might end up chipping or flaking off. One of the frames I bought was wood, but the others were plastic and acrylic paint often does not dry well on plastic. I also bought the wax coat that is meant to go over the chalk paint, as well as some metallic paint to give the frames some detail.
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When I was at Goodwill, I also picked up a Betty Crocker cookbook. I have had a gorgeous cookbook with drawings for a while that I’ve used in other projects, and I wanted to have the option between the drawings and images from a traditional cookbook.

​I had also had these adorable little utensils for a while and figured this would be a great time to use them. 

The first step on the frames was to sand them down slightly to help the paint adhere. I then did three coats of the chalk paint, letting them dry completely in between coats. Once the chalk paint was dry, I added some dimension with gold paint. The metallic gold paint I had bought was too yellow, so I mixed it with some of the silver metallic paint to create a more champagne gold. 

I added this gold paint in the corners and on the details of the frame to give it a little life. Once that was dry I covered everything with one coat of the brown wax top coat that was meant to go with the chalk paint. This sealed the paint and made it a bit glossier. The frame on the left shows the chalk paint before the top coat and the frame on the right has the top coat on it.

While all of the paint coats were drying, I went through the two cookbooks and found pages that I liked and that I thought would like nice together. I created a distinct theme for each frame; one was salad/veggies, one was bread and one was pasta. 

Once the frames were dry, I added the cookbook pages that I had picked out, cutting and ripping certain pieces to give it the look that I liked. Once the glass was back in and the frames were reconstructed, it was time to add some details to the front of the glass. First, I used some champagne gold sticker vinyl that my mother had given me to cut out some phrases using my Cricut. I went for a font that was somewhat “Times New Roman”-ish to match the print of the cookbook pages. I stuck these phrases to the front of the glass and then glued down the small metal utensils I had. I used some clear Gorilla Glue to attach these. This glue is very strong and great for surfaces where hot glue might peel off like glass and metal. The one thing to be careful of with liquid Gorilla Glue is that it spreads very easily so its important to use only a tiny amount. And here are the frames all done!

I really enjoy making art like this which utilizes magazine clipping, book pages, stickers, three dimensional accents, etc. It is a very freeing approach to art and allows you to mix and match a variety of mediums. What do you think of these frames? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca
 
Today’s picture on the blog homepage is from Pexels, provided by Polina Kovaleva:
www.pexels.com/photo/kitchen-room-with-ornamental-plants-5644353/

Hello crafty friends! Is it on November 14th? Yes. Have my husband and I already decorated for Christmas? Also yes. If you are aggressively opposed to decorating for Christmas this early, I respect you, but perhaps this is not the blog for you! Many of my Christmas decorations are crafty projects made by myself, my mother or other members of my family/friends so I wanted to take you on a tour of all those decorations.
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First, let’s start with something you’ve already seen before, the little village and trees that I did a blog on earlier this year. Here’s a link to that blog if you are interested in seeing the whole process:  ​www.thepatternedpaperplate.com/blog/farmhouse-inspired-christmas-village. I won’t lie, it was a lot of work but I love how the little village looks! In the back right corner is a little snowman that my parents have had for a long time, but can't quite remember where its from. All we can say is that it's old! I like to believe that it was handmade by someone at some time! The three levels of the snowman all store into one another like Russian nesting dolls, and it has always been always a decoration that I loved. This décor is all sitting on a table runner made by one of my aunts who is a quilter. 

Next, let’s take a look at some other crafts made by Suzanne, my crafty mother. This first one is a little hanging Noel sign that she made with a stove burner cover from the Dollar Tree. Next is a little Santa and snowman. The Santa is made from a small wood slat and the snowman is made from a shutter. My mother has a special talent of turning anything into a snowman and this shutter is one of my favorites! Also, my mother is working on some of the small Santas shown here so if anyone is interested in buying one, send me an email at rebecca96@comcast.net. She's be willing to do some local sales!

Now its time to show you some beautiful art made by another one of my aunts. She is so very patient and has made the family some beautiful fabric/felt arts pieces. The snowman on the wood is especially meaningful as the wood was taken from my Memere and Pepere's old house. The other small plaid piece next to the snowman is something I made. It was really simple and just involves some cardboard, some old flannel shirts, ribbon and an embroidery hoop. 

Finally, let's look at some ornaments on our tree that are handmade. My favorites are a heart with a picture of my grandparents made by my cousin, these little Harry Potter books made by my mother  (there's one for all 7 books), beautiful alcohol ink ornaments made by our family friend Debbie and this adorable little wood painted ornament made by the lovely Cara who has a shop on Etsy: 
www.etsy.com/shop/SeptemberSunStudio?ref=shop_sugg
​Go check her out!

We do have some cute store-bought décor as well, but I wanted to focus on the handmade things today. What is your favorite handmade Christmas decoration that you have? Let me know in the comments below! And happy beginning of Christmas season!

​ - Rebecca

P.S. The image used for this blog on the main page is from a website called Pexels, provided by user Karolina Grabowska: 
www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-rocking-horse-christmas-ornament-6032713/

Hello Friends – It’s Suzanne, Rebecca’s Momma, back with you on the PPP after an extended absence while we prepared and sold our home of over 20 years and moved to a suburban “luxury apartment”.

Rebecca suggested that the process I went through to purge, downsize, and pack my former craft space and set myself back up in our new home would be an interesting journey to share with you.

In our former home, my craft space was in the finished part of the basement and measured 8 feet by 12 feet. In this space, I had two 7-foot by 2-foot table tops on top of craft cubes from Michaels, two bookcases chock full of things and lengths of gutters to hold spools of ribbon and towels racks from which to hand punches on the walls. 

Screwing things into the walls was no issue in our own home because we owned the walls! In addition to this space, I had a spare room, the laundry room, the garage, and the unfinished part of the basement to stash all sorts of things in a relatively organized way. In addition to standard craft supplies like paper, ink pads, stickers, and paints, my stash included items from the dollar store to refurbish, recyclables to upcycle into new things, cuts of wood, tiles, large envelopes, file folders . . . and the list goes on. I was dangerously close to hoarder territory, which is the fate of the crafty person who sees the potential in almost anything. 

The first step in my purge to downsize came from having to get the house staged for selling. Our realtor recommended to lighted and open up spaces all over the house, so for the craft area, that meant taking things off the walls and reducing the inventory in the space by half. ​​As the paper punches and ribbon came down, I took a serious look at each of them, assessing the last time I’d used each of them, the potential for future use and the way it worked with other items I had. Not surprisingly, many of the punches were duplicated by dies, which store in a much smaller space, or hadn’t been used in a very long time. I reduced ribbon to neutrals, knowing that I could use coloring mediums on white ribbon to make it any color I want. Next, I set a personal goal to reduce from four paper carts to two. I went through each sheet and each pack, keeping only those sheets that really appealed to me and not the whole pack just because it all came together. We took one of the tables down and gave the tabletop to a friend to organize her space. I packed up the rest of the items in the cubes and put those boxes and the cubes into storage. That really helped to open up the space for the showings. I went to each of my stash locations and each time I said “Wow, I forgot I even had this!,” that was a sure sign it was meant for the donate box. Some friends came ‘shopping,’ I donated some paper crafting items to a local children’s group and the rest went to a local charity shop.

When it was time to move, I packed up the rest of the craft items and the movers delivered them to the new space together with the cubes and boxes that were in storage. They were a little shocked at the number of boxes for the craft room and just kept piling them in. 

​The first step was to get the cubes and tabletop together so that the stuff in the boxes had a place to go. I ended up with a counter height work surface, made by stacking the storage cubes three high as a base for one 7-foot tabletop. 

​This holds my paper punches, large paper cutter, Cricut (electronic cutter) and Cuttlebug (manual cutter and dry embosser). The cubes underneath hold everything from craft paint and paintbrushes, paper for card bases, a last few wood mounted stamp sets, wood items to embellish and repurpose, rolls of vinyl for the Cricut and packaging items. The black tower holds all things Christmas. A new item in the space is a DVD holder, which is perfect for all my newer Stampin’ Up stamps since they come in DVD sized cases.  Ink pads sit on top, and the extra shelves hold some of the paper punches that used to hang on the wall.

​I have a smaller desk to work at, a side set of drawers that holds my downsized collection of ribbon and other embellishments like buttons and sequins as well as adhesives. Two carts of decorative and colored paper are covered to keep the sunlight from fading the colors. Most important, there’s room for a rocker and TV so Rebecca’s dad has a spot to sit, and we can be together while I’m crafting. A big change in this space is that, as renters, we can’t screw things into the walls willy-nilly as we did in our own home. 

The three biggest lessons I learned from this move, relative to my craft room, were to:

1)Recognize the past crafter, the fantasy crafter and the now crafter.
When Rebecca was a child, I was an avid scrapbooker and completed many scrapbooks of events in her life and our family vacations. Those scrapbooks and the supplies used to make them take a lot of space. I’ve found a company which will digitize the scrapbooks and the pictures and memorabilia I’ve been saving. Not only will this protect those memories, but the space also this will free up will be huge. It’s OK that this is Suzanne the past crafter. It’s also OK to acknowledge the things that I tried, didn’t enjoy, and won’t continue to do. I love paper crafts, but I’m not a heat embosser or someone who enjoys coloring. That’s Suzanne the fantasy crafter, so embossing powders and lots of various coloring medium hit the road during this purge. Keeping those things does not put the money I spent for them back in my account!

2)Let the store be my storage room.
I was always a big advocate of a “stock-up” and having a stash. When I had a lot of extra space, it was easy to shop “on spec,” seeing things that might be useful and buying them “just in case.”  Now, with less space, I will have to be more deliberate in my shopping. It’s unlikely the dollar store will run out of stuff to repurpose, or Michaels will not have paper. I don’t really have to have it all in my room.
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3)Realize that having too much stuff to manage is overwhelming and actually diminishes my creativity.
With the exception of one stamp set (which I replaced on E-bay) there is not one thing from my craft purge that I regret getting rid of. Each pass through lightens the load and lightens my heart. Having things that I really use and love instead of an excess of things to wade through has allowed me to focus more on doing the things I really enjoy.
 
The process of downsizing for our move has involved more than just my craft room. Our clothes, kitchen appliances and dishes, seasonal décor and memorabilia, tools – just about everything we own has gone under review. I gained so much inspiration and encouragement throughout this process from a YouTube channel called The Minimal Mom. If you are feeling overwhelmed in your space or feel like it’s time to start to downsize, I highly recommend her. She’s very gentle, very practical, and very real.
 
Now that I have a great new space, I will see you soon with some new craft projects!
 
Rebecca here! I’ve decided I’m going to start crediting the free pictures I use in this blog more. They often come from a website called Pexels which allows you to use pictures free of charge without the need to credit the photographer, but I’ve been feeling lately like it’s just the right thing to do. So to start off, the image used in this blog’s icon on the home page was retrieved from https://www.pexels.com/photo/pencils-in-stainless-steel-bucket-159644/ and provided by user Pixabay in 2016. All other pictures in this blog were taken by my mother. Thanks all and see you soon!

Hello everyone! So we are back with part two of the acrylic pour coaster journey and I will be showing you how I packaged these up to sell and/or gift in the future. I wanted to make some very cute tags for the coasters and I started by making tags for the 3 sets of 4 and the 3 sets of 2. I used my Cricut to cut out tag shapes that fit the color scheme of each set. 

I then also used my Cricut to cut out adhesive vinyl with the names of the coater sets. I had fun coming up with the names! I also found a little sticker for each tag. Finally, I used my, say it with me, Cricut, to draw out the little piece of paper that said how many were in each set. Here was the front of the tags all finished. 

I then put a piece of white paper on the back of each tag and wrote a little blurb for each.

I used some clear small bags to package up the sets of 2 and tied the tag on the front. 

For the sets of 4, my mother and I went to several Dollar Trees to find some little wooden crates to package these in. The crates were bare wood, so I used a mixture of acrylic paint and water to make them look like they had a light stain. 

I put the sets of 4 in each crate and then again packaged them up in a clear bag with the tag on the front. 

I packaged the larger single coasters very similarly to the sets of 2, but did something a little different on the tags. I again cut out the tags with my Cricut, but used rub on transfers for the names of each coaster. For those that don't know, rub on transfers come packaged somewhat like stickers. 
You pull the transfer off with the front packaging as opposed to pulling it off of the back sheet like a sticker. The transfer sticks to the front sheet and you use something flat like a popsicle stick to gently scratch until the transfer has unstuck from the front sheet and stuck to your surface. 

I used some stickers, adhesive gems and washi tape to decorate these. I also put a little handwritten blurb on the back, this time mentioning that these were not heat-safe and could not be used as a trivet for something that had come directly out of the oven. 

The single coasters then each went in a bag with their own tag. 

And there they are all packaged up! I really love all the silly names I came up with for the coasters and think the packaging will make a big difference when trying to sell these or giving them as gifts. 

What do you guys think of the packaging? Let me know in the comments below! Happy Sunday everyone!

​ - Rebecca 

Hello crafty friends! Happy Sunday.

So …. Have you seen me make coasters before? Yup. Have you seen me do acrylic pour painting before? Countless times. Buuuuuuut, I LOVE how this product turned out and am so excited to show you. If you are sick of pour painting, this might not be your blog! And that is okay. However, I will say that this blog gives some new tips and tricks about pour painting, so, in my humble opinion, it’s worth a read. This project is being split into 2 parts. This blog will cover the making of the coasters and the next blog will cover the packaging and tag-making.

So my mother gave me some coasters in a crafty purge and I will admit that I took them begrudgingly, but I’m so glad that I did take them. Most of the coasters were about 4 to 4 ½ inches square. I decided that I was going to make some sets of acrylic pour coasters, but was somewhat worried about how the paint would adhere to the tiles as most of them had a glossy, textured finish.

​ I thought about using some sort of adhesion medium like gesso to ensure that the paint would stick, but then I found this very helpful Youtube video where this woman tried pour painting on tiles using gesso, another adhesion medium and then on bare tiles. 

​The video is very short, so I’d recommend giving it a watch, but the main takeaway is that the bare tiles worked best. Because the tiles are non-porous and anything painted on just sits on top, the gesso and adhesion medium bubbled and cracked under the paint, where the paint dried perfectly on the bare tile. Therefore, I listened to the nice YouTube lady and poured directly on the tiles. I also used some pre-mixed acrylic pour paints that I had bought a while ago, I believe at Michaels. 

These paints are already mixed with the pouring medium instead of you having to mix the two together yourself. I would highly recommend as they are the perfect pouring consistency and very easy to use. Although the bottles are small, I have found that the paint goes a long way and I have not yet run out of any color, even having used this on other projects previously.

I decided to make three sets of 4 coasters and three sets of 2 coasters. I did have two additional tiles that could have been another set of 2 but those were a fail and ended up a delightful shade of brown. They did not make the final cut!
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For the first set of four, I went for Christmas colors and used my normal technique which is to pour paint directly on the coaster and then move it around from there. This technique has always worked well for me and is good for ensuring that colors don't bleed together too much, especially when you’re using very different colors.

​I then wanted to try out a popular pour painting technique which is to add the paint all together in a cup and then flip the cup over onto the tile. Or rather, place the tile on the cup and then flip the whole thing over. I felt like this technique would be great when using more similar colors that you wanted to blend and mix together a bit more. To do this I simply squirted some paint into a bathroom cup and then continued to squirt all the colors I wanted on top of one another. I then gave the cup a little shake and did the coaster flippy situation. 

​I loved how this looked and used this method for the rest of the coasters. I also had one set of two coasters which did not have a glossy sheen and instead were a matte, raw stone type of finish. I wanted to see if these responded to the paint in the same way. 

​Overall, these did work the same way, but the paint dried a little less vibrantly on these two tiles. I think that because the tiles did not have a glossy finish, the tile might have absorbed the paint to some extent where the paint on the glossy tiles truly did just sit on top of the surface. The glossy tiles were also textured, and I liked how these looked better overall. These tiles were not a failure at all, just not my personal favorite of the bunch. 

I had a lot of fun picking colors for all of the other sets. Here they are all pour painted up. I let them dry overnight and then gave all the tiles two coats of my preferred varnish. This varnish claims to be weatherproof and able to be used for outdoor projects so I figured that it would hold up for some coaster action.

​Once the varnish was dry, I cut up some squares of felt for the bottom of the coasters. I always do this as I feel like it finishes the coasters, covers any paint splatter on the bottom and makes sure that the coasters don’t scratch any surfaces when people try to use them. I attached the felt with some Gorilla Glue hot glue.

​In the box of coasters my mother gave me, there were also four larger tiles that were about 6 inches square. These were an interesting combination of being somewhat glossy/shiny, but also somewhat matte with many little holes and crevices throughout.

I originally did not know what to do with these, but then decided that I would try to pour paint on them as well and “market” them as oversized coasters or little trays to put under plants/vases.
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I had absolutely no idea how the paint would take to these but left them bare and did each a different set of colors. I just had to make sure that paint had pooled in each little hole or indent so that they would not be left empty when the paint dried.

​I loved how these dried! I think that the strange texture really lent itself to the pour paint look and ended up having a sort of geode effect.

I gave those bigger tiles the exact same treatment as the smaller one and added 2 coats of varnish and felt on the bottom.

The main takeaway from this project is that acrylic paint adheres surprisingly well to tiles of any sheen/texture. These are probably my favorite pour painting project I’ve ever done. It might be tied with some paintings I did for my husband and I’s bedroom a while ago which I’ve shamelessly linked below.

​www.thepatternedpaperplate.com/blog/acrylic-pour-painting

Hello everyone! So I am back this week with an IKEA upcycle to share with you all. Not to get too deep, but I've been doing a research project on IKEA for one of my graduate classes and looking at how sustainable the company is. As someone who loves IKEA and whose apartment is about 70% furnished by IKEA, I do think its important to think about how these products are made, what they are made of and how we dispose of them. 

All of that to say, I decided that I wanted to do an upcycle project on two pieces of IKEA furniture that I have to give them some new life. I have two of these IKEA Alex drawer units in my office/craft room and I've had them for several years. They are extremely functional, but a bit bland. 

I recently added some handles to another IKEA piece that I have and it really made the piece seem more personal, so I wanted to do something similar to these drawer units. 

Instead of doing drawer handles on these white units, I decided to get some golden knobs. I also had the idea to get some peel and stick wallpaper that I could use to cover the fronts of the drawers themselves. I got a pretty teal wallpaper with gold flowers to match the knobs. 

To help me with the drilling of holes for the knobs I made myself a template. Using a piece of painter's tape, I measured the drawer front and marked a hole in the middle. I then used this to mark where the hole should go on every drawer. 

I found that the best process was to first cover all of the drawer fronts in the wallpaper. Instead of driving myself insane and trying to get the pattern to line up perfectly from one drawer to the next, I decided to just ensure that each drawer was different enough from the ones near it to look purposeful. I cut a piece of the wallpaper slightly larger than the drawer front and then stuck it on. Once I had squeezed out as many bubbles as possible, I used my X-Acto Knife to slice around the edges of the drawer to make it even. I also used the sharp tip of the knife to pop any bubbles that were left in the wallpaper. I would say that covering all 18 drawer fronts took me about 2 hours total. 

I then used my template to drill holes in each drawer. I will say that because of the particle board-ness of the IKEA pieces, the holes that it makes are a little messy on the back. Every time I have drilled into this kind of IKEA material, the front of the hole is very clean, but the back splinters a bit. As it's the back, I don't really mind and the screwhead covers most of the damage. Beware that this is usually very dusty and messy too so I would recommend drilling the holes over a trashcan. 

Once the holes were drilled, I just screwed in a screw from the back and twisted the knobs on from the front. Even the shorter of the two screws that the knobs came with was too long so I did end up using some shorter screws I already had. And here they are all done!

The cost of the wallpaper and knobs together was about $50, but I do still have at least half of the wallpaper left, as well as two knobs. I'm really happy with how these turned out and I think they look a lot more stylish now. This was my first time using peel and stick wallpaper and I found it very easy. I have used contact paper before and found it somewhat difficult to use as its extremely sticky and hard to reposition. This wallpaper was really easy to pull off and reposition and was thick enough to hide any imperfections in the material of the drawer units themselves. I know that some DIY projects, such as covering a countertop, may require contact paper for the durability factor, but if you're trying to do a craft project and just need some sticky paper that doesn't need to be waterproof, my vote would be for peel and stick all the way. 

Do you all like how the IKEA upcycle turned out? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca