Thursday, May 30, 2013

Twilight Princess Shield



I was commissioned to make a set up for a Link and Zelda photo shoot. One of the items requested was a Twilight Princess shield. The image below is what I had to go off of.


 This is the result many hours of embroidery later! I love it. It's probably my most detailed piece of work to date.

I'd say I nailed it. Patting myself on the back and doing a little happy dance!! 

I can't wait to see this is the photo shoot set up!

Pintest- Screenprinting with Pantyhose

I love watching the Pintester try out all the various pins on Pinterest! Everything look so easy, beautiful, and perfect on Pinterest. For me, nothing I do ever looks as good as it does on Pinterest and a lot of times, it works that way for The Pintester as well.

Then I saw that she was doing a Pintester Movement! She invited anyone with a blog to try out a pin, write a blog post about it and submit it to her.


I thought and thought, then resorted to my Fan Page to see what you all wanted done! Martha A. from Craftymom's Creations shared with me a link to a tutorial by Calico skies to doing a screen print with an embroidery hoop, mod podge and panty hose. That sounds pretty easy and I had all the supplies! SCORE!

In true Pinterest fashion, it looked easy (and the photography was beautiful!)

First of all, in my mind, I can do all things crafty and can succeed the first time. Yea, that doesn't usually happen. In reality, I try all things crafty, and many times I realize I should leave it to other people to do instead. I rarely start with something easy. I just do whatever I want, and learn on the way.

Why should this be any different? Let's gets on with the Pin Test shall we?



Supplies:
  • Embroidery hoop. They come in wood and plastic. I am glad I used plastic because I got Mod Podge all over it.
  • Panty hose. 
  • Mod Podge. Any kind works. I happen to have the glass kind near by, but any kind will do.
  • Fabric Paint. Acrylic will work too, but I find it's a little rougher and in time it cracks. If you mix your acrylic with a fabric medium, that will work too. 
  • Paint brush.
  • Permanent marker to trace your design on to the panty hose.
  • A drawing/print out of the design you want.
  • T-shirt. Or whatever you want to screen print on to.
  • Cardboard to put under your shirt while painting.

To start, cut open the leg of your panty hose and stretch it tight across the embroidery hoop. TIGHT!!!!

With the pantyhose side down, trace your image with the permanent marker. *Tip* You don't have to press down hard, just swipe your marker over the design.

Next is the Mod Podge step. It's an important step! don't rush this part! You want it perfect if you want the paint to stay in your design and not all over the outside. *Tip* Make sure you flip it over so that the panty hose are not touching the paper. Mod Podge dries relatively quickly, it will stick to your paper and really mess you up. Lesson learned.
You'll notice that the rest of the photos aren't a yarn ball. Remember how I said I don't start with easy projects... Yep, the yarn ball was really difficult, I decided to scrap the other one and do something easier.





You will paint the part of the design that you do NOT want painted. In this example I painted outside of the heart and hook because I wanted the heart and hook on my shirt. Make sure you paint all the way to the edge. Really glob it on there. If there are any tiny holes left open, paint will seep through.


You can hold it up to the light and if you see holes, cover them up. Let dry.

After you let it dry (a couple of hours), check again for holes. I found a few, covered them with more Mod Podge and let it dry again.
Now, put some cardboard under your shirt so the paint doesn't seep through. Center your design on your shirt or whatever you are painting. Squirt a big ol' glob of paint and with your cardboard, spread it around.

When it is all spread, CAREFULLY lift it up. In theory you are left with a beautiful, clean edged picture. As you can see below, that is not what happened for me.
Whomp whomp whomp....

I followed all of the directions. I'm going to say for me, it's a pinterest fail. Bummer. Well, I didn't want to waste the shirt, so my only option left was to attempt to freehand the edges and try to salvage it.
Turns out I'm not so terrible at that!

What do you think, Pinterest fail or success?

This post has been linked up to The Pintester Movement. Go check out all the other pins!

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