I didn’t really think over much about the process, but it definitely went in the this is something that I have to pay somebody else to do because I am completely clueless category.

Today, I made my own canvas print all by myself.

It turns out that the word print in canvas print sort of says it all about how the photo gets on the canvas. A roll of canvas is loaded in a big printer and it prints on it pretty much just as if it was paper.

I sort of stumbled upon this discovery. I’m a member of Quelab- a hacker/maker space in Albuquerque and they have a large printer and vinyl cutter. Somebody else had sent an email asking to be trained on them so I asked to join in. I didn’t know what I needed the printer or vinyl cutter for, but figured that if I knew how to use them, I would find something.

At the training, the guy mentioned that they had rolls of canvas to print on. So a few days later, I went in to print out a few experiments.

A quick search online lead to some videos on how to frame a canvas. I had to get S’s help building my first frame, but the second one I put together all on my own. S has this cool thing that I think is called a pocket jig that drills these cool angled holes that worked really well for how I wanted to build my frame.

Attaching the canvas to the frame basically involves a staple gun and a lot of staples. One does have to make sure it’s stretched tight and the corners are a bit of a trick. (Thank you YouTube.)

The first canvas I framed turned out to be a total disappointment. It was a gorgeous picture, I was so proud of my frame… and I screwed up my math by a half inch so the frame was just a little too large and the white edge of the canvas was just barely visible on the edges. It was almost perfect, but not something I could ever hang up in my house. It would drive me nuts to look at it.

I did learn something from mistake. I adjusted my math for my second frame and added in just a little extra leeway.

Today making a canvas print goes in the I will probably never pay somebody to do this for me again category.

I love the fine control I get with doing it myself. I can make my canvases whatever size I want. If the brightness of the print is off, I can adjust it on the spot. I can make overly sturdy wood frames.

I love the feeling of accomplishment and pride in making a thing with care and attention to detail. I love the process of creation. I love having things I’ve made around the house.

(This picture I used for this came from the Pecos Wilderness on a trip you can read about here.)

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These pouches/envelopes are quick and easy if you have a laminator (you could also try using self-sealing laminating pouches if you don’t have a laminator).  They’re a fun project and make a great place to store any mostly flat objects- papers, receipts, etc. 

For this example, I made a pouch to store these cool snow people I have.  (I also recently laminated the snow people so that they will be protected and last a long time.  They’re made out of a thin cardboard and the laminator didn’t do a great job sealing all the funny edges so I then had to carefully trim them all the way around to make them look better.  Note to self: thicker things with funny edges don’t laminate well.  This may also be related to having about the cheapest laminator money can buy.)

Check out my other laminated project ideas!

As with many discoveries, this one was something of an accident.  Once I saw the potential, the accident didn’t seem like such an accident after all. 

To start out with you will want a laminator or self-sealing laminating pouches.  The self-sealing pouches are fairly expensive compared to the pouches for use with a thermal laminator and you can pick up a decent thermal laminator on Amazon for $20-$30. 

The self-sealing pouches really only stick on one side, so you’d want to modify the instructions to just use one sheet of paper instead of two and then one side of the envelope would still be see-through.  This might even be a nice effect depending on what you’re looking for. 

You want to start with two sheets of paper which you can decorate however you want.  The red thing in the picture is a MyStik that I picked up at a scrapbooking store.  It basically applies double-sided tape and I used it to stick down my snowman so he wouldn’t move around before being laminated.  It’s totally not a necessary tool for this, but I’ve found it to be handy for a lot of my little craft projects. 

The two sheets of paper go back to back into a laminator pouch and through the laminator.  You’ll want to line the pieces of paper up as closely as you can.

Then the very top edge gets cut off.  A paper cutter is the perfect tool for this, but of course is not necessary. 

All done. 

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A couple of days ago S came home from the store with a bird feeder and the declaration that he was going to make a bird house.  It sounded like so much fun, I decided that I needed to make a bird house too. 

So yesterday we buckled B into his stroller and headed out to our shop for a bit of construction.  The previous owners left a little bit of scrap wood here and there which has been amazing to have around.  We scavenged through the scrap wood and picked out our pieces. 

Mostly we just started measuring, marking and cutting.  And then sometimes re-cutting when we realized that we hadn’t entirely thought through our plans. 

S recently bought a new circular saw for our shop and this was my first time using it.  It’s definitely a tool that makes me just a little bit nervous, but it makes cutting wood so easy.  I feel like learning how to use a new tool always opens up so many new options.  I don’t consider myself terribly handy, but I like tools.

Once I had all of my pieces cut out, I sanded them down.  Then I learned how to use S’s nail gun to put them all together.  It also feels a bit like a dangerous tool, but made quick work of the task. 

I screwed the roof on because I had read that it’s good to leave a way to access the inside of the birdhouse so that one can clean it out between residents.  I also drilled holes in the bottom so that water won’t collect in there.  My reading online suggested oiling the wood so I finished it off with a coat of the oil I use on my cutting boards.  I have no idea if that was the right choice of oil or not, but I think it will be ok. 

I am ridiculously proud of my bird house.  S did help me a little in figuring out the saw and nail gun, but I pretty much built it all by myself.  There is something about building things that is just such a great feeling. 

It was interesting to see how S and I’s bird houses each turned out so differently given that the wood pieces we started with were basically the same.  I love the peaked roof on his. 

I already have some new ideas on what I’m going to build next.  I am so psyched about knowing how to use the circular saw and the nail gun.  They open up so many options. 

The post Making bird houses appeared first on Live Hoppy.

I recently learned a whole new approach to hemming pants that is easier than the other method I know and also provides much better results.  This method for hemming pants is suitable for beginners and can be done by hand or with a sewing machine.

(Hemming pants is just a fancy way of saying “making pants shorter”.)

You can definitely hem a pair of pants with just a needle and thread, but a sewing machine definitely makes it a lot faster and easier. I’ve had my sewing machine for years, but if I was looking for a new one, I think I’d go for this model on Amazon (affiliate link).

Knowing how to hem pants is a great life skill to have. It can be a struggle to find pants that are exactly the right length.  I used to not buy certain pants just because they were too long and I thought hemming them was too much of a hassle.

After learning this method of how to hem pants, jeans that are a tad too long will no longer be a problem!

I could hem a pair of pants before if I had to, but the results were less than ideal.  Now, I can quickly and easily create professional results.

My previous method for hemming pants looked like this:

• measure how much extra length there was
• cut off about an inch less than the amount extra
• fold under twice and pin
• sew

The problem with this method is that the hem at the bottom doesn’t look the same as the original hem.  My basic sewing skills don’t even let me make a good approximation to the original hem and matching the thread color is also an issue if, like me, you only have half a dozen colors of thread on hand. 

The magic in the new method I’ve found is that you hem the pants without cutting the original hem. It’s a super slick trick that keeps the pants looking like they did originally.

My newly discovered method for hemming pants looks like this:

This is a super slick method to achieve a great end result.  If you give it a go, let me know how it works for you in the comments below!

You might also enjoy reading how to make laminated picture magnets.

Credit where credit is due

I learned about this trick from How to Get Dressed: A Costume Designer’s Secrets for Making Your Clothes Look, Fit and Feel amazing  (Amazon affiliate link).  It only had a couple of sentences about this trick which was referred to as the ‘Hollywood Hem’, but I vaguely remembered it and came back to it when I was looking to hem some pants.

I actually only read part of this book, but the point that really stuck out to me was how it’s only relatively recently that we’ve started expecting mass-produced clothes to fit us right off the rack.  It highly recommends getting a good tailor to make modifications.  That made a lot of sense to me, but looking for a tailor is not on my to-do list for the day.  I will definitely be making sure my pants are the right length though!

Why actors look like a million bucks

The author states that she has never put an actress or actor on stage without at least some sort of modification to each item of clothing to make it fit properly. 

Apparently that is part of why they always look so good!

This is not the sort of book that I would normally pick up- I’m not that into clothes, but I think I’d read a review somewhere that peaked my interest.  The part I read was pretty interesting and had lots of great tricks.  I imagine there was more good stuff in there, I probably just got distracted since I tend to read many books at once.   In any event, I am thankful to have picked up this trick from it. 

The post How to hem pants the easy way and get professional results appeared first on Live Hoppy.

Recently, I have made some cool laminated picture magnets and I wanted to share my process.  You don’t actually need a laminator for these, although it is nice to have (more on that in a minute).  It was really fun to spend some time doing a creative, hands-on sort of craft.  I do so much on the computer, but there is nothing like the feel of making something ‘real’.

These turned out amazing and now I have nice little gifts for family members.  Plus I have a few for me.  It’s great knowing that I can put these pictures of baby B on the fridge without worrying about splatters or other messes.  They should last pretty much forever.

I made four different types: ones in self-laminating pouches (no laminator needed), basic ones, ones with white borders that are really just from the magnet under the photos and fancier ones with black borders.

Supplies:*

• A laminator OR self-laminating pouches (available at Walmart, Amazon, etc.)
• Photos
• A paper cutter is super nice, but not necessary
• An exacto knife and construction paper for borders around the photos (optional if borders are wanted)
• Magnet sheets (The link goes to the same ones I used.  They worked great, but I did wish the magnets were a little stronger.  Since they’re made to go through a printer, they’re super thin and thus not very strong.  This does mean that they go through the laminator really well though.)

Type 1: Self-laminating pouches

The first set that I made I used some self-laminating pouches that I had around.  They turned out cool and I wanted to make more so I went looking on Amazon for more of the self-laminating pouches.  They’re a bit expensive and real laminators are fairly cheap with much cheaper laminating sheets that go with them.  So I ended up buying a real laminator.

That said, if one just wanted to make a couple, the self-laminating pouches do work pretty well.  All I did was cut the magnet sheets to squares slightly smaller than the photos and then follow the instructions for the pouches.

Basically, the self-laminating pouches are just a clear plastic front with a sticky back.  You remove the paper backing from the back and then press it down to seal the pouch.

Type 2: Using a real laminator

The next type I tried was using my new laminator.  I cut the magnets with my paper cutter to be slightly smaller than the pictures and then just put the pictures on top.  I used a sturdy cardboard piece to lie it on so I could feed the sheet into the laminator without the photos sliding around. 

Since the magnets are thicker than a standard sheet of paper, sometimes the edges don’t seal quite as closely as I would have liked.  I found that running them through a couple of times in different directions helped with that.

Type 3: White borders

The white borders are pretty easy to make.  I just cut the magnets out to be larger than the photos and centered the photos on the magnet pieces.  This does mean being very careful that the photos are centered and don’t move while going into the laminator.

It would also be possible to write things on the white borders- names, dates, et cetera.  I sort of wish that I had found a way to incorporate B’s name, age and the date of the pictures on each one.

Type 4: Black borders

The last type I made had black borders.  I used the paper cutter to cut out the squares of construction paper.  I then used a pencil and a stencil that I made to draw the inside whole to cut out with an exacto knife.

The photos I had came on sheets of four with a little extra white border around them, so on these ones, I left some of that extra border.  It was covered up by the black ‘frame’ anyway, but gave me just a little extra to make positioning everything easier.

I then layered stacked the magnets, photos and black borders before sending them through the laminator.

I love how these turned out! Here’s a picture of a couple of them on the side of the filing cabinet in my office.  
Here’s another picture of all four types.

It was a really satisfying project.  I haven’t yet figure out what my favorite style is.  I don’t know which ones I’ll be keeping and which I’ll give away.

The laminator has been an amazing thing to have!  It has sparked lots of creative thoughts and I’ve used it for some other projects.

Read my post on cool and unique laminator projects.

Any ideas for cool laminator projects?  Let me know in the comments.

*Links are Amazon affiliate links.  That means they’ll give me a few cents if you click through and buy something.  Of course, nobody ever actually does click through my links and buy things, so I’m really not putting these on here for the sake of advertising.  I’m just sharing the stuff I used for this project.

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