Rapper's Delight: DIY Easter Wall Art

Friends, I've got spring fever!
In an attempt to spruce up our home with some seasonal-inspired decor I whipped up

 this fun and colorful "Rapper's Delight" Easter wall art.

Because nothing screams SPRING more than bunnies, Easter, and the Sugarhill Gang, right?

Okay, so I admit rap music and Easter don't exactly go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong. And now you're really confused because some how Olivia-Newton John has inserted herself into this blog post. Translation? Rap music and Easter ain't exactly like peanut butter and jelly but there I was driving along one day and out of no where the "Rapper's Delight" song got stuck in my brain, specifically the hip hop the hippie part.
On like repeat number twenty it finally hit me
 "hop...bunnies.....Easter....MUST.MAKE.WALL.ART!"

Have you seen these lovely laser-cut wooden frames at Michaels?
I've been eyeing them forever and decided to pick one up for this Easter project.

First, I spray painted my nekked frame white  and then

I used my Silhouette Cameo to create my wording and vinyl stencil. 

I squeezed this project in during the evenings down in my vampire-dark basement after putting Baby B down for the night so sorry I don't have any pics of the steps but it's the same process I followed for the alphabet stenciled stool I shared a few weeks ago. Basically, after weeding out the letters on my vinyl stencil that I cut I centered it on the frame and then lightly painted the stencil with some Mod Podge to seal it and to keep my paint from bleeding. 

Remember I shared that tip before?! Seriously, that trick has changed my life.

After the Mod Podge dried I went to town with my paint and stencil sponges.

Isn't it fun? Who would have thought rap and Easter would marry each other in my home one day?

What rap song would you throw up on your wall?
Would you go old school or something fresh? 

Pssst.....stay tuned for a "Rapper's Delight" printable coming your way!

PS. Congrats to Laure M! Your tweet won you the $30 credit to oBo Creations! 
I will be in contact soon so you can claim your prize.

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Alphabet Stenciled Stool

Our family has grown by four feet.

Welcome our newest addition--an alphabet stenciled stool.

I hit the pine wood jackpot eight months ago on a trip to Michaels when I came across an unfinished kid's stool on sale for four bucks. I remember this craft excursion quite fondly because it was one of my first trips out of the house ALONE shortly after Baby B was born.

Fast forward eight months later and that stool was still sitting naked and alone in the back of our guest room closet (aside from a short stint as a pumpkin stand in our fall mantle decor) until recently when I decided it was time to mark this bad boy off my to-do list.

I had always planned on incorporating it into the little floor space below the book shelves in the nursery but have gone back and forth a million times on how I wanted to decorate it.

Then one night while reading Dr Seuss' ABC book for the hundredth time it hit me--why not make an alphabet stool?

The little guy needed some sanding on top but other than that he was in pretty good shape. I liked the idea of the seat and legs being different colors so I went with Rust-oleum Semi-Gloss White on top and Valspar's Cobalt Cannon on the bottom. This was the same deep grey we used to makeover the nursery's thrift store chandelier and I have to say I become more and more in love with this color every day.

Okay, truth time....I had no intention on giving the legs a washed out grey look but after two coats of spray paint I got lazy kind of started digging it.

For the letters on top I created a stencil using Miss Cameo (aka Silhouette Cameo).

There was really no rhyme and reason to the design I created. I just played around with the fonts and sizes until I got something I liked and then I cut the stencil out on vinyl

Now for my favorite part--the painting of the letters! Some of you may recall through out the years stenciling and I have not been the best of friends. Bleeding paint was my worst enemy, however, for this project I decided to try the Mod Podge trick by brushing it over my stencil before I painted to create a seal and I am happy to say it really worked. That darn Mod Podge--I swear it's like it's made of rainbows and unicorn hoofs....so magical.

I peeled the vinyl stencil off carefully (holding your breath is optional) while the paint was still wet.

Finally! The first time a stenciling project didn't end with me crying into my paint cans!

Excuse the ugly childproof outlet in the middle of this picture.

I was as happy as a peach with the outcome. 

Now Baby B will have a spot to relax and read when he gets a little bit older or if he wants I can just rock and read to him for the next ten years of his life. I would be perfectly okay with that.

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How to Make Freezer Paper Stencil T-shirts

 

Creating freezer paper stenciled items has quickly become one of my favorite crafting techniques.

So much so that if I owned Twitter the hash tag #freezerpaperaddict would be trending everyday, all day long. Then again if I owned Twitter I probably wouldn't be sitting around

decorating t-shirts with freezer paper & sixty nine cents acrylic paint.

Where is this conversation going anyways?

 

Oh yeah, on to my little stenciled t-shirts

Soooooooo the other day I discovered these little Gerber toddler shirts in my craft stash. I believe they were leftover from some shower gift I made a few years ago. 

Even though it will be a while before he can wear them {they're 24 months} Baby B obviously gets first dibs on them.

I decided to go all nautical on 'em.

 

This tutorial is a little watered down {I believe I was hungry or something and was in quite the rush to finish these shirts}. If you're interested in checking out more of step-by-step instructional tutorial feel free to check out my freezer paper stenciled favor bags I did for Valentine's Day.

 

This time instead of drawing and cutting out my own stencil on freezer wax paper I actually managed to get my Silhouette machine to work properly for me. Sans cursing and throwing of things......can you believe it? I used it to cut out a little whale and crab stencil I

bought from Silhouette's on-line store.

 

I then used my iron to apply the stencils to the shirts {waxy side down} and started painting away.

 

 

Once the shirts were slightly dry I removed the wax paper stencils

and bada bing, bada boom; new nautical t-shirts!

 

 

 

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