T-Shirts, Stencils, and Paint

My new favorite craft is painting shirts! Why pay $30 for a workout T when you can make one for a fraction of that.

The following stencils were made by Jen at Stronger With Jen G they are awesome and I'm super excited she sent them to me!  The stencils were made with Silhouette Cameo and sticky vinyl.   

 

 This is the same stencil, they are generally only used once, but I loved it and very carefully removed it and reused it.

 I <3 burpees! Who doesn't :-)

These shirts came out pretty cool but I did learn a few things in the process.

When I started working on these shirts my first thought was I would use them to work out in.  The black shirt is a Dankin work out shirt from Walmart.  (I had this shirt liked the fit and had worked out in it.  Since it was still pretty new I decided to use it for this project). It's not a silky feeling moisture wicking kind, but the t-shirt feeling kind.  The stencil stuck great but I did learn it's better to dab the paint on vs brushing it on.  Brushing it on causes the stencils to peel up if you aren't super careful. I used soft t-shirt paint.  It's expensive but I have found it holds up better.

I liked how the first shirt came out so much that I decided I wanted one just to wear around and not necessarily workout in it.  I had a grey t-shirt (just a plain old Fruit of the Loom grey t-shirt) and decided to give the stencil a second go.  I had read about a lot spray paint diy t-shirts so this time I used black spry paint, yep just paint from Home Depot. The pros, it covers fast and there no mess to clean up, and it is washable in the washing machine. The cons, you have to cover every bit of shirt not covered by the stencil or you will get paint in unwanted areas and it doesn't hold up to heat in sweat in certain conditions.  I wore my shirt on a very long road trip in a car with no ac sitting in the sunny window.  Where the shirt was wrinkled the paint stuck together.  I think this is a pretty easy way to paint a t-shirt, especially if you are making them for a specific event and don't plan on sweating in a car alllllll day.

Shirt number 3 had it's own challenges. I actually went and bought this shirt because I wanted a moisture wicking tank top (simply because that's the kind of shirt I want to do burpees in, lol). What I didn't think about at the time was color of the shirt vs color of the heart.  Duh, blue or green would have been a better choice.  So I ended up doing everything in white. I wasn't sure if I would have enough paint so I left the heart for last.  And I did run out of paint.  As it turns out the second kind of paint I used let the pink through a little more giving it a slightly different color.  Sticky vinyl stencils don't work as well on the slick fabric.  The B of burpees is an example of where it lifted. I still love this shirt and work out in quite often.

These next shirts I made :-) 

The give blood t-shirt is a regular old Fruit of the Loom t-shirt in neon yellow.  I made these stencils with my Cricut and Freezer paper.  It worked great! I wasn't sure about the whole freezer paper thing but it worked like a charm and it's so much cheaper then vinyl.  The paint is a combination of spray paint and acrylic craft paint.

 And finally the 4th of July tank! This one was all over face book so I decided to give it a try.  The blue is metallic blue spray paint, the red is acyclic craft paint.  This has done great in washing machine and the dryer :-)

 There are so many cool ideas out there and so many different ways to paint things.  Hopefully this has inspired you to make a t-shirt too!

Back to Blogging

To pass the time while waiting to go to work I started to brows the many blogs I follow and I stumbled across this post from A Dose of Page because knee socks are cool it's on compression socks and she is giving away a pair! I want some so bad but they are so dang expensive I haven't invested in a pair. I entered the drawing (even though I don't have the best of luck at winning things) and I'm crossing my fingers I just might win a pair!

Long Time, No Blog: Post Move Check In

Hello everyone!

It's been way too long.  I have missed blogging and of course having things to blog about.  Life is starting to settle out here, or maybe I'm just adapting to the new pace of life.  I'm not sure.

The last time I posted was before our household goods were packed and moved.  That feels like forever ago, and yesterday all at the same time.

That was my first military move, and no matter how many people describe it to you, and no matter how many blogs you read there is just no way to prepare for the craziness.

I was at work when everything was packed, that may or may not have been a good thing. Even if I was home I could not have controlled how things were packed, but at the same time when they packed my delicate hand made guitar shelf I could have said hey that's fragile!  Even so not many things were broken and most that were I was able to repair.  I still wonder if they would have packed some of craft paints and candles.  They packed things with batteries in them and I was told they wouldn't do that.

Getting to California wasn't bad.  We have made the trip so many times now we just hit the road, took our time, and arrived 4 days later.

The hard part was unpacking! It is true they will pack shoes and plates in the same box! It's really difficult when more then half of your stuff has to stay in storage. The only thing you can do is open and unpack every single box and then repack the stuff for storage.  This process didn't go as well as I would have liked, I'm still thinking of things I would like out of a box, but finding one item in a pile of boxes is just not worth it.

There are somethings we are missing, and it's all decor.  I was really upset about this because they are all hand made items that cannot be replaced.  The big M, the Louisiana flag mirror, photos left in frames. None of it is of high monetary value, but none of it can be replaced either. I'm sure someday I will get over it, and might even try to remake some of the items, but until then I'll feel a little sad.

Now that we are in California and settled into our new house, we are realizing that it's not gonna be a good fit for us long term, it's affordable but too small and good 2/3 of our stuff is in boxes.  That means another move is in our future.  When I don't know for sure but probably sooner then I would like.  I mean really who is fan of packing and carrying heavy boxes.

I've managed to squeeze in a few projects this summer and I hope to post about those soon!

Moving Day is Getting Closer :'(

The movers come tomorrow.  They have very restrictive list of things they will pack.  It hurt but I sold a lot of my crafting supplies.  I know I won't have much time when we get home to craft so it's not the end of the world, but it just feels wrong to sell things that took years to accumulate.

I will be working tomorrow so I wont be here when everything is being boxed up.  I'm half worried, half relieved.

Tomorrow afternoon will be very interesting for sure.

"No Poo" Week 4 Update: Transition Complete but the Experiment Continues

Four weeks in and my hair is normal! Woo hoo I am so happy to have normal hair again!!!!

I have found that the mix I need is much stronger then 1tsp to a 8oz of water, I used about 4 tbsp to 8oz of water.

On a side note, I have made some mistakes this week....

My hair started to feel a little dry at the ends.  I read somewhere that this is a common side effect and adding oil would help, how much and what kind I couldn't remember, but as I stood in the shower washing out the baking soda I saw my bottle of grape seed oil and without thinking it through I poured some on the ends of my hair about up to my shoulders.  

I don't recomend ever doing that, it took 5 days to get the oily smell and look out of my hair! What you are supposed to use is Vitamin E or coconut oil.  Grape seed oil is much to oily. I finally got it out by using a little body wash on the oily spot only hoping it wouldn't negate all the progress I had made. 

My next mistake was trying real shampoo again, after the mess with the oil I thought it might be a good idea to restart the process. Ummmmm I can't even describe what my hair felt like after using the shampoo, it was like it was coated in wax, it felt horrible it was even squeaky!  I quickly re-washed with baking soda and finished my routine.

I now have my hair mostly under control.  I need to work on the dryness, after doing some more research of course :-)

If any of you have given the "no poo" method a try I would love the hear from you!

~Sara

Ok, May Just One More Project Before Moving Day

I am the kind of person that likes to be busy.  If I'm not busy then my mind jumps to all of the things that need to be done in the next few months and starts freaking out. Yes I have tried to work on that but well that's just how my mind works.

Well I have had the last day and half off and my mind has done a lot of going crazy.  But on the up side I have come up with my next project!

Who out there has seen the up-cycled cribs made into benches! I sure have and I want to make one!  The theme I am going with hot pink with black zebra stripes!  Ok so I'm not a girly girl, I don't like pink or animal print stuff, but that stuff is selling like crazy so I'm going with it.

Once again I will state that I love living on an Army post! You can get so much stuff for really cheap.  So far I have bought the perfect pink paint, I already have black on hand, 2x4's left over from an old project, free sheet of plywood, and I'm supposed to be getting the perfect crib parts from a lady here on post as well. So far that's my only hang up, she takes 3 days to get back to me on anything.

But hopefully I can get everything together and this weekend I will create away!

"No Poo" Week 3 Update

Hi there everyone! I am now 3 weeks into my "no poo" trial. For those of you who read my last update, I was pretty discouraged with the results.  My hair was a disaster! It was so nasty that I could not run my fingers through my hair, and if I pressed strands together they would stick like I had glue in my hair.  My head did not itch, and it did not smell greasy. But the only thing I could do with it was keep it up and wear a head band.

Well I did some more reading this past weekend and found that the mix of 1 tsp to 8 oz of water doesn't work for everyone.  Some people mix up paste and find that it works better. When I started this experiment I had read that some people had a hard time getting the baking soda out of their hair once it was washed, so I went with the dilute mixture.  Well 3 weeks in and my hair had not adjusted so it was time for a change.

Today I made a much stronger mixture.  It wasn't a paste, but as I washed my hair I could feel the grit of the baking soda against my scalp.  This time when my hair dried it was soft and fluffy! I also discovered that I did not work the baking soda into the ends of my hair bc when the ends dried they were still sticky.

I can not tell you how relieved I was to have soft hair again!  My plan for the ends is to make the past and get the rest of sticky residue out.  I am hoping that by my week 4 update I will have this all figured out!

This is the top of my head with normal looking hair

 This is the patch (right about my shoulders) that is still sticky