Painted Dance Studio Sign - Handmade Gift Idea

This is a simple sign that I made for a friend who has a dance studio.

This was a simple wooden sign/plaque that I purchased at a local craft store for a couple dollars.  I began by painting the background in a red/orange blended pattern, keeping the orange at a diagonal angle across the middle.

I then found some clipart of dancers in silhouette.  For this project I was looking for silhouettes in the ecstatic dance style since this is the primary type of dance done in my friends dance studio.  

I cut out the dancers that I wanted to use and traced their outlines on the wood with carbon paper.  (Be sure to tape your dancers to the wood so the image doesn't shift while tracing it) I then free-handed the lettering (You could also print and trace with carbon paper).

The next step is to paint the dancers, to make it simple I filled each dancer in with a solid color.  In this example I used a metallic Gold paint.  And I chose a gloss black to use for painting the lettering using a fine brush for detail.

Finally, I sealed the entire project with several coats of an outdoor clear sealer as I was unsure if it would be hung outdoors or indoors.  You could use a flat or gloss spray depending on your personal preference.

The end result was a unique sign for my friend's studio that will never be found anywhere else.  She really enjoyed the gift and enjoyed the sentimental value as well since I took the time to make something that I knew would be specific to her preferences, colors, and hobbies.

Painted Name Canvas for Kids - Handmade Gift Idea

 
This project is actually over a year old, and I just discovered that it never made it on the blog. (I found a couple more as well which I will post later)

My friend Heather has a little girl (Lily) who loved Dora the Explorer.  I made this for her last year for her 2nd Birthday.  

It is a large canvas board.  When I find a good deal on canvas boards or regular stretched canvas', I often buy multiples and keep them on hand for when I need them.  (Canvas boards are usually much less expensive than stretched canvas over a wood frame.)  In this case, I decided with very little time that I wanted to paint something for Miss Lily so I began to look around at what I had on hand.


I decided to make a painting with her name and her favorite cartoon characters and matched the colors to the ones in her room.

I began by painting the background of the canvas in yellow and green.  I painted the canvas with water first to get it wet and then used yellow and green and added more water where they met to help the colors blend into each other.

Next I searched images of Dora on Google and found a poster that had an image that I liked of her.  I copied it to my computer as well as another image of Boots the Monkey.


I personally wanted to make the images larger than I was able to expand and print them on my printer, so I basically just used the images as a visual reference.  I can freehand pretty well so that worked for me.

If freehand drawing is not something you are comfortable with, print your photo and take it to a copy shop and re-size it to your desired measurements and print it out the exact size you'd like it to be on your canvas.  Purchase some carbon paper and trace your image on your canvas, be sure to tape the image so it doesn't slide.  Of course you want to be sure that your background paint is dry before you begin this step.


The name was done in a similar fashion.  I typed her name in a Word document and went through several fonts until I found one that I liked.  Once again, I could not make the image as big as I needed it for this project, so I free-handed it.  (You can do the same thing as you did with the image at the copy store and following it up with tracing it onto your canvas with carbon paper).


Now all you need to do is paint your name and graphics...just color in each section much like a coloring page.  I used inexpensive acrylic paints from the craft store on this canvas.

When I finished I sprayed a clear coat sealer over the entire board.  I usually spray a couple of coats.  If you skip this step, moisture could make the paint bleed or dirt can accumulate and not wipe off.  Since this was intended for a child (and we all know kids have dirty hands most of the time), I gave it a few extra coats.

For added effect, I took glitter and glued in onto the black paint that I used for her name.  It doesn't show really well on the photo but it does show up pretty well in reality.

*NOTE* 

Don't apply the glitter before the spray sealer, if you spray over glitter, it will no longer 'glitter' and it turns out dull and bumpy.  (Especially if you are using a flat sealer, but gloss sealer also messes with the 'glitter' factor as well in my experience)


The possibilities are really endless for this gift idea.  And for small children, coloring book pages make great traceable stencils.

Don't be afraid to try something new, you just never know what you might create!

The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.— Edwin H. Land

Painted Canvas

I was at it once again.  My Best Friends son just recently turned 20 (a reality I'm not sure I've accepted yet) This young man is very artistically talented so I hesitated at first to make a painting for him as a gift, but decided that he would probably find sentimental value in a gift I made, so I decided to go ahead and do it.

This was a small canvas that I used acrylic paints to complete.

I began by using a large brush and dipping it in my water dish to wet the entire surface, then I proceeded to use 3 different metallic paints to make the background (white,taupe, & bronze).  I overlapped these colors so that they would bleed into one another.  If one color stood out too much, I simply wet my brush again and went over the previous brush strokes to lighten and blend them.

Once the background was finished drying I took a pencil and lightly traced out where I wanted to paint my flourishes.  After that I drew the cross and erased any of the flourish lines that went behind the cross image.  This way it would give the effect that the cross was laying on top of the flourish.

When that was complete I could start painting again.  I came back and used a deep red to paint the flourishes.  I was very pressed for time (I did this whole project in about 2 hours) so I decided not to paint the cross.  I grabbed a metallic gold pen and went over my pencil lines.  Next I highlighted the flourishes with metallic taupe, and grabbed the hair dryer to assist the paint in the drying process.

Finally I opened up a Word document and typed in his name (Nik) and I looked through several font types until I found one that I liked.  In this case I liked the 'N' from one font and the 'IK' from another.  Once I had decided on a font, I enlarged it to a size that was easy for me to see in detail.  Then I took my pencil and drew his name as I saw it on the computer.

*Note*
If you are not good at freehand or you are lacking confidence in this area, a great tool is to use carbon paper.  Just print out your picture or words using your computer, lay the carbon paper over your project, lay your printed name over the carbon paper, tape them down to keep them from sliding around while working, and trace over the printed name or picture.  Be sure to go over every line.  I like to use a pencil or writing tool so that I can easily tell which sections I have traced over.  Remove your carbon paper and you should have a nice outline in which you can now paint.

Once I had his name on the canvas I painted it with a black metallic paint and used the gold pen to draw on highlights.  (Again, I used the pen because I had waited until the last possible minute)

In the end I was pleased with how it turned out.  Given more time I would have likely painted a second layer of flourishes but this might have been too busy, so perhaps it was better this way.

The whole project was less than $10 since I had my own paints and brushes, and it was personal and hopefully had a special sentimental value to the recipient.

So, next time you can't think of what to get someone....consider painting them some artwork.