Yes, it’s my favorite: coming up with ways to display photos and art, and I’ve got one for ya today that transforms your photo into a fabric wall hanging. My mind was first blown by image transferring techniques at a workshop I attended last year but I haven’t done one since, which is a shame because it’s SO easy, especially considering how cool it is, so I’ve partnered with Canon on this project to show you how!
Materials:
–adhesive spray
–freezer paper
-card stock (I used 12″x12″)
–Canon PIXMA iP8720 Crafting Printer (this is an inkjet printer, which is necessary for this method of image transferring)
-fabric (I used an ivory outdoor fabric cut to about 16.5″x23″)
-basswood stick (36″x1″, found at the craft store)
–saw
–mitre box
–E6000
–jute
Apply the adhesive spray to the card stock and place the freezer paper (waxy side up) on top of it. Smooth out the freezer paper and make sure it adheres without bubbles, then cut the excess around the edges of the card stock.
Print the photo on the waxy side of the paper. I used my Canon PIXMA iP8720 since it’s capable of printing on larger sized paper, like the 12×12 cardstock I used. For the photo, I took an image I posted on Instagram a while back and turned it black and white + flipped it horizontally to its mirror image + bumped up the contrast to darken the black areas.
Once printed, immediately place the image face down on the fabric and use a straight edge to smooth over the entire area of the paper and transfer the image. Be careful not to move the paper once it’s placed or else the image will smudge!
Carefully lift off the paper and marvel at your image transfer.
For the hanging part, saw the wood stick in half with the aid of a mitre box.
Apply E6000 along the length of the wood that will attach to the fabric, then place the ends of a piece of jute string at the ends of the glue line. Adhere the fabric face side down onto the wood. Repeat at the other end of the fabric, but without the jute string.
It’s definitely a unique way to “print” a photo with a lot more texture and decorative flair. I do think a stencil-like image like the one I used gives a cleaner and crisper result, but any photo would work. I’d be curious to try this with something like a photo of a landscape. Have you tried image transfers before? Let me know what you think of them!
This post is in partnership with Canon. Thank you for supporting brands that help bring fun ideas for you to discover and try!
Hey, it’s a new monthly column! One that I had wanted to do since last year and never got to it, and even when I wanted to do it last month I didn’t end up doing it because I was too indecisive about the details (this post was supposed to go up last week but didn’t for the same reason ha), but the general idea I’m going with is that this will be a very casual way to recap the good things that happen on a monthly basis. I’ve felt for a while that I haven’t taken enough advantage of the blog being a really good medium to hold memories and share some things that go on outside of what I post regularly. So for any of you curious about getting a closer look, I hope you enjoy this!
I also hope this encourages me to document more of life, because I realized the only photos I take outside of the blog are ones for Instagram, which explains why most of the photos I had from February were ones I shared on Instagram, which is fine but I’d like to challenge that. So maybe this will be a monthly Instagram recap sometimes, maybe not, maybe a test for other column ideas, or something else. Let’s figure it out together.
TRAVEL
We took a couples trip with 4 other couples-friends (is that the right term??) to Lompoc for a weekend, where we stayed in a barn and played games and played with animals. It was a LOT of fun, even more fun than it sounds so long as you think it sounds like a lot of fun. I didn’t capture much of that part, but I did snap a couple of the stops we made on our drive up the coast.
Our car stopped at Malibu Farm for brunch and on top of the gorgeous design, it’s located on Malibu Pier = amazing views. I consider experiencing good food with good views an extremely favorite hobby of mine.
We also stopped at El Matador State Beach, which has really cool rock formations and caves, and that characteristic Malibu fog. It’s such a unique beach experience- highly highly recommend.
On the second day, we visited Solvang for a winery tour. Buttonwood Farm was our favorite, and also happened to be the cutest (Coincidence? String lights always win.)
HOME
WE GOT A NEW SOFA. Picking a sofa is tough, a decision that for us has taken almost two years, and prior to this one we bought a different sofa that from the second it arrived we knew it was wrong. That was very upsetting, but it led us to getting this one, which is perfect. It’s also the biggest thing that’s been holding us back from making progress on living room changes, so now I’ll be able to share all that soon. I’ve said that a lot before, but seriously, it’s happening.
Part of the living room is my work space, which you’ve maybe already seen the progress on those changes. I mentioned in a previous post that I was considering updating the shelves to the String System, but that changed once I figured out how expensive the String System is, I mean damn! So instead I kept the brackets I had before and painted them black, then replaced the black shelves I had before with white ones (all IKEA). This alone changed SO MUCH, and it didn’t cost much at all- victory.
WORK
I ran a flower crown workshop for a private party of 80 peeps celebrating a baby shower, which I super enjoyed not only for how much I love playing with flowers, but because all the people were so lovely. This is work that I don’t do very often since I keep it to word of mouth, so it makes it even more fun when I’m able to share a craft face-to-face with people.
The theme of the party was pink and blue since the mother chose not to know the gender of the baby until it’s born (no one does that anymore, huh?) so she requested a pink/red and blue variety of flowers in addition to neutrals. The neutrals bucket was my favorite, and also the most popular among the ladies, which is per usual in my experience.
This was the only shot I took at the party because as the bartender there described it, it was like I was working the drive thru window at In-N-Out. It was total non-stop for me for three hours, but seeing everyone love their flower crowns was immensely cool. It also helped that the party was very pretty, and that the bartender had my back and brought me food and a bloody mary SO NICE.
I didn’t make myself a crown at the party, but I came home and noticed that the flowers I had were pretty much on their last day, so I quickly put this crown together because I was still on that high, then had boyfriend take a photo of me wearing it so that I could eventually post it on (YUP) Instagram. Give it up for Instagram boyfriends <3.
Some really good highlights from February I’d say. Complete honesty, I fear that a less exciting month might discourage me from talking about it, but I think having to write about them will force me to see the good in a lot of smaller things, too. This definitely helps with my goal of daily gratitude (wrote a little about that here) and will be a good way to document how there’s a lot more that goes on than sitting at the computer all day to blog, even though that’s all I can remember sometimes!
Well, I learned something very surprising and equally upsetting this week: all the Snapchats I so lovingly shared have been on the private setting, meaning most of you haven’t been able to see them and all those promises I made about sharing this and that were unknowingly unkept, HA. It’s fixed now, and no one has said anything about not being able to see them so it seems it’s just me who’s bothered lol I felt so dumb. That was a good laugh from a very good week.
We’re dipping the tips of our toes into Spring with a really really easy and quick DIY to display those plants/florals and decor, and instead of what I normally would’ve painted black or white, we’re adding just a touch of color whaaat.
The reason this project is so easy is because Michaels did most of the work with these shadow boxes. They come in a set of three different sizes and already have the hangers attached on the back (I very much applaud this convenience).
All I did was cut basswood board to the size of each box opening and painted them in a pinky peach and blue gray color (I used Spun Sugar and Dove Gray). I pushed the the basswood to the back of each box and it held in, though if we wanted extra reinforcement we could add glue to the inside edges of the back of the box before pressing it in. For the third box, I just left it open without a backing.
The best part: putting in decor. I initially had a flower in the vase but opted to leave the ivy in my DIY plant stand instead- still brings those Spring vibes for sure.
We’ve only got a couple weeks before it’s officially Spring, but I start saying it’s Spring once the weather warms up, which was a while ago for us here in west. We didn’t have much of a winter this year at all actually (my winter coat was lonely and sad) but I always look forward to the changing seasons. Is it feeling like Spring yet where you are??
See what other spring ideas the Michaels Makers came up with here!
This post is in partnership with Michaels. Thank you for supporting brands that help bring you fun projects and ideas.
One of my favorite things I do here for the blog is discover sources for modern home decor and generally cool things that I love and hope you will you too. We’re taking a look at some of the curated goods from SWENYO, a retailer that totally understands good design and stylish accessories, and who partnered with me on today’s post to bring you a giveaway for $100 credit to shop their site (details at the end of this post!)
I’ve become pretty familiar with brands I adore and go to for home decor options, and one of them is Umbra. The Hub side table is everything I love about minimal and modern design while still remaining casual. I’m highly considering it as my nightstand replacement, but for now it’s sitting in our living room with this ceramic candle perched on top (always a preferred plus when the container is reusable and gorgeous).
Also by Umbra is the Hub ladder, which I linked to in a previous post and was so excited to see that SWENYO offers it. It’ll probably make its home in our bedroom to hang clothing and accessories on, but here I have it holding a black cord light with an LED bar light bulb which has become a favorite lighting solution of mine (you might’ve seen this before here!) Next to it are these air plant pods that are terribly cute and simple, very affordable, and my first time trying a hanging mechanism for plants- I know, I’ve been so slow about that, but now I know they’re fantastic.
The New Mexico and Tatch pillows were the perfect monochrome and graphic designs I was looking for to go on our sofa. I shared a glimpse of that here and a lot of you seemed to like them too!
If you’re into this stuff like I think you are, SWENYO is giving one lucky winner $100 credit to shop any items on their site! To enter the giveaway:
1) Visit SWENYO.com
2) Comment below with what item(s) you’d get if you win.
Winner will be randomly chosen one week from today and contacted via email. Open to US residents only and must be at least 18 years of age to enter.
Let me know your favs from the shop, and good luck!
*EDIT*
Giveaway winner has been chosen using random.org to generate a random number out of the total number of comments (70) and the winner is comment #69, Abigail! Thank you so much to everyone who entered!
Some really clever DIYs here to add modern decor and function to the home, and they all incorporate natural textures which I’ve been into even more than usual lately. Wood, leather, wool, I want to roll around in all of it (yea maybe not the wood, but you already get my point). See if you’d like to take a stab at any of these ideas, or if they inspire a little project of your own!