Tuesday, January 22, 2013

House Rules 2.0


Well, my friends, today I am going to repost and edit and old post from a couple years ago. You may remember my posting about our Family Rules Canvas that I made based on a couple of other blogs. Well, I have gotten many compliments since I hung it up and my sister loved it, so I decided to make her one for Christmas. Here it is:




Here is the video of me giving it to her for Christmas (she's going to kill me for this):


I think it is safe to say she likes it. As a matter of fact she and her husband and my Mom and my own husband are convinced I could make some money selling these. So, if you want one without the hassle, call me and I'll make you one. For all you DIYers out there, here are the instructions with my edits added in red. Let me just say that the second time around was so much easier than the first, I guess knowledge is power...hahaha. In case you can't read it her rules are as follows:

(Insert last name) Family Rules
Love God, Love Others
Pray without ceasing
cuddle when you're sad
never give up, you mustn't quit
use your manners...yes, please & no, thank you
keep your promises
Thank God for this day, this family, this home
work cheerfully
Be thankful, eat together, clean up after yourself
Try new things with an open mind, you never know what you might like
share everything except bad ideas
Always say "I love you"
Always tell the truth
Use gentle words
Husband, Love your wife....
Wife, always be on his side
Forgive easily
Encourage your siblings, share in their joy
sing silly, dance crazy, hug often, smile a lot
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Here are the instructions:


I have to start off by Thanking Troye for posting on facebook about her project. It inspired me! She got the idea over at the pleated poppy which I am also linking here so that you can see more of these awesome pieces of artwork. I thought I would post mine with directions in case you are curious about how I did it, or if you want to make your own (P.S. I might consider making these for profit...hint, hint). So here goes...

First, you have to buy your supplies. I bought a blank canvas 24" x 48". I found out that Hobby Lobby will still take a 40% off coupon if you show it to them on your phone, so I got it for 40% off. (I bought my second canvas at Michaels with a digital 50% off coupon) Whatever you do, don't pay full price for your canvas. Also, I got some paint (whatever color you like for the edges), Scrapbook paper, paint brushes, mod podge (I bought the off brand and it worked fine) and Sharpies (Don't buy these at the craft store, you can get them at The Dollar Tree for a 1/4 of the price.) I didn't need the sharpies the second time around.


So, a lot of the ladies who have done this project said that paper shopping was the fun part....not for me. I found it to be overwhelming, but I am not really a scrapbooker either. So, this could be the best part for you.  Make sure you pick out light colors. If the paper has too much navy or black on it the words will be difficult to read. For example, the black and pink striped paper in the picture above didn't make it onto the canvas because you couldn't see the words on it at all. The first thing I did was to lay out the paper in the order that I felt looked most appealing from top to bottom. Although it is not matchy matchy, I wanted it to sort of flow from piece to piece. After my moment of organization I let my inner artist free. I ripped the plastic off my canvas and I got to work with my paint. I felt like a professional painter....Picasso, Degas, Monet....An Arteest if you will...I call it "Field of Grass". Unfortunately I had a choice to make, hang my masterpiece or finish my project...I couldn't afford another canvas, so I had to cover my artwork in order to finish my project. I found out that if you buy cheap tempera paint, you will need to paint at least two coats because this is what it looks like after one. It doesn't need to be perfect though, since most of it will be covered anyway. I used hot pink paint on my sister's canvas.


Next was the fun part for me, I downloaded fonts...there are THOUSANDS of free fonts out there in internet world, it is truly amazing I just googled free fonts and found all sorts of fun stuff. I actually spent most of one day on the font part and, after hours of looking at and downloading all of the fun fonts and, wishing there was time for more, I got started. The first problem I encountered was that most scrapbooking paper is 12" x 12". and wouldn't fit in my printer, also, my canvas was 24" wide. So, I played around in open office (I currently don't have word, but the program I used was the OO version of power point. I have Microsoft Office now and I found it to be a million times easier to work with than OO. I used Publisher, but I am sure you could do it in Word. The following steps are very similar though.) I had to play around with it a lot, but I finally managed to make a template that was 6" tall by 24" wide. I then cut each piece of paper in half and configured it to print on 2 pages and then taped them together....there is probably a better way of going about this, but I had to do it any way I could figure out (comments about better ways are welcomed). This time around, I was able to print it as a banner in Publisher so I was able to tape the two pieces together lengthwise and print one long sheet. This made it possible to make sure all of the "banners" were the exact same length which in turn made the edges turn out even on the canvas. Before I started printing I taped all of the "banner"s together to make sure I had taped them all the same length.  Here is a screen shot of my first slide.


I typed all of the rules out in no particular order and figured which font should go with which rule. It is important in this step to know the difference between Their and there & also your and you're & lastly too, to and two. In life it is also important to know these differences as well as the difference between lose and loose. I win, you lose.....My pants are very loose. Now you know!


 I used a scrap piece of scrapbook paper and did a practice run. I did the wavy cutting after I had printed it and taped it together. Always practice before you use your good paper. This time I taped copy paper together and practiced until it printed out the way I wanted. Then I just retyped every rule in the same template, just changing the font and size to fit.

Important Note Here!!! Don't glue your paper down until you have laid it all out and made sure that everything fits and flows, I didn't figure that out until about the 6th sheet when I realized I had a lot more rules left than I had room...OOPS! It's okay though, I made it work.

Another important note, make sure you have plenty of ink. I ran out of black ink about half way through and didn't feel like going to get more, so I printed in color and colored over it with sharpie. This was a very long and painful way of avoiding a trip to Walmart. I planned ahead this time and did not run out of ink, therefore no sharpie was necessary. 



This was also hard, because some of the fonts I was using were not solid, and I had to figure out a way to make them look the same without just coloring them in solid, which I could have easily done if I weren't an arteest.  For this particular font (I believe it is called candy shoppe) I used a pen and colored it in very painstakingly to make it look like it was painted on and weathered. It took hours....really....




 So, after I arranged all of the strips of paper, I glued them on with the decoupage and then I painted over the whole thing with more decoupage to seal it in. You may also notice that I used some of my left over edges glued down the sides to give it a more finished look since, for some odd reason, all of my edges weren't even. (Ha ha ha, this step wasn't necessary either, as explained above.) I have also read that others have used ribbon for this...I am too lazy innovative to go find need ribbon.  


In case you can't read them, here are my rules: 

Solis Family rules
Love the Lord Your God
Pray without ceasing
cuddle when you're sad
Thank God for this day, this family, this home
Never give up, you mustn't quit
Try new things with an open mind, you never know what you'll like
Always tell the truth
forgive easily
keep your promises
work cheerfully
sing silly, dance crazy, hug often, smile a lot
Encourage your siblings...Share in their joy
Use your manners...Yes, Please & No, thank you
Always say "I Love You"
Share everything...except bad ideas
Love Others
Choose whom you will serve
Be thankful, eat together, clean up after yourself
Husband, love your wife
wife, Always be on his side
Make the wise choice
Use Gentle Words

Now, go and be inspired to create!!!! Or just call me and I will make one for you for a price.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Get widget