Comic Series Post 2- Design a Villian

So now that you have had sometime to think out and design your hero,  it is now the time to comprise your villain or anti-hero!! 

This is very similar to the hero "worksheet", just different questions. 

I hope you enjoy this!!  We still have one more step before we start drawing the comic, so stay tuned!!

Villain Male Worksheet

Villain Female Worksheet

Comic Series Part 1- Superhero

This is going to be a boredom buster series!  We are going to develop a comic!!  Most of doodle to some extent, why not put some structure to them?

First step, we are going to "Design a Superhero".... have fun with this!! Attached you are going to find a "blue print/questionnaire".  There is both a male and female body sketch to use, make one, both, or multiple it is all up to you!! What does their costume look like? What do they look like as a citizen? What cause do they fight for? How did they get their powers? What are their powers?  See how intriguing this can be? 

Hey you never know, you can be, or might be living with a future Stan Lee!!! 

And this can still be done by the little ones, but they may need some adult guidance. 

Female Superhero

Male Superhero

Repurposing Stained Shirts

So it's been a few days/weeks that we have all been inside now.  Some of us are doing cleaning, sorting, organizing and decluttering. Even if you haven't been working on those, I know you can think of at least one piece of clothing in your closet that you love, but has a stain that won't come out no matter how many times you have tried.

Here is a tip so that you can circulate that piece back into your wearable inventory.  This is a great project to do with the kids as well!! And I'm sure they all have a pile of stained "play clothes."

Below are all the the items you need to have on hand...

• Stained clothing piece
• Cardboard or plastic (necessary... should be at least the size of your "design", bigger is better)
• Scissors
• Ruler (optional)
• Paint brushes 
• Paint (ideally fabric paint, or acrylic with a fabric medium mixed in, I only had acrylic so I went with that)
• Paint palette, plate, or anything that will hold paint
• Cup of water to clean your brushes
• Paper towel to dry brushes
• Design or idea to paint

Take your clothing piece and while laying it flat, figure out where your stains are and how your design is going to be placed.  Take the cardboard and cut it to size and place between the two layers of fabric (if you don't the paint will bleed through).  Seeing my cardboard was smaller than my shirt and wanted my design to be centered, I measured things out.. (but this is completely optional!)  If you have multiple stains, your design may be all over, which is fine too! Remember this is for fun and we are trying to make stained clothing usable again!!

Take your "palette" and lay your paints out, start painting, and mostly...have fun!!! I, personally eyeballed everything.  I had an idea in my head that I've been wanting to do for a while so I figured why not, now is the best time.  Use pictures for reference if need be, I kinda did, but not really at the same time.  

Tips if you are using acrylic paint... keep it thin!! The thicker you make your paint the more likely it will be to crack.  Also keep in mind when it dries the paint will be stiff (if you use the fabric medium, this is less likel.. (I just didn't have any).  If you thin the paint with water, it will be more like a watercolor paint, but if it runs (see pictures above) it will dry like that too!!

Once you are happy with it, let it dry.  You may still have to go in and tweak it a bit.  I needed to add a ring around the moon to cover the "runny" spots from adding too much water. But, play with it and have fun (that's the key thing!!)

This shirt idea all came from a "saying", so I needed to add lettering to mine (not necessary.)  I can do many things well, lettering is not one of them, so I cheated on this step.  I used my Cricut and iron on vinyl, but you can completely do it free hand if you choose to.  Make sure your paint is completely dry before you iron, and also keep your iron off the paint when you do go to iron on your design.

All I know is...I had fun with this, and I now have a graphic tee, instead of a stained shirt.  Win, win!!

When you wash this, you are either going to want to hand-wash, or wash it inside out and hang to dry.  I'd also wash it by itself the first time around.

I hope you all enjoyed this, I'd love to see everyone's finished projects!!  Post them here or tag me across platforms @craftlovefashion

Sorry for the two day gap between posts!! This one took longer than expected!!

Day 2- A few ideas for the "shell-shocked"

Ok, ok, I know major cornball factor with the name, but I love "dad" style jokes and puns. So strap in, if you are going to be reading this blog often get ready for a bunch of them.

Today's idea is about my favorite thing to do outside, collecting shells!! My happy place is the beach, the feeling of my toes in the sand just resets everything for me!  I know most places are on "lockdown" and we should all be practicing social distancing, so use your discretion with the outdoors part of this post.  I also know getting to the beach might not be feasible for everyone, depending on where you live and whether they are open (my favorite beach is closed until further notice starting today.... insert ugly cry here). 

So.... Today has another printable!! It's an informative coloring page... I may have had a little too much fun researching and drawing this one.  The shells listed are common on the east coast of the US, so I'm not sure if you can find them out west.  Now while I had the idea that this boredom buster could take a little more time, have more than one step and get some of us a little fresh air, I know that can't happen everywhere. And as always use your discretion!!!

Here are the grand steps I had in my head when I was working this out....

1. Go to the beach, breathe in the fresh air (far away from everyone else), take a walk, soak up mother nature and the sun.

2.  Collect shells, a good variety if you can.  Make sure you WASH YOUR HANDS!! If you find any that are still homes or alive, leave them there, take a picture!!

3. Go home after enjoying your time, WASH the shells you have collected and your hands.

4. Take the printable and sort your shells, coloring the ones you have found, kind of like a checklist (my littlest is obsessed with checklists and collecting things).

Alternatives things to do today...

1. Print the page, have fun coloring, learn different shell types!

2. Sort shells you have previously collected  (or bought, no judgments here). I know I have a ton of shells to go through from all my previous beach ventures.

Here is the PDF Printable Download  Shells

If you want to make your coloring more realistic, I used iloveshelling.com for the inspiration for the types of shells, they have fun color pictures and more types of shells, I left off the more "exotic" hard to find ones.

As always, please feel free to share this, just please don't claim the artwork as your own (claim the coloring).  I'd love to see finished pieces (and your shells too!)  You can find me across platforms @craftlovefashion

Boredom Busters!! Day One!!

Oh boy!!! This world has gone all types of topsy turvy over the past few weeks, it almost doesn't seem real!

Well while the world is sorting itself out, I'm going to try my best to help in the ways that I can (while still social distancing), with art and creativity.  I am going to attempt to post daily different things to do....some days may have videos, activities, printouts, or a combination, we'll just have to see how things go.  All the activities are going to use items most people have readily on hand, by no means am I encouraging anyone to go out and shop!!!  I'll try and gear the projects to all age groups, so young and old can enjoy.

OK enough rambling on, I'll get on with today's activity!

Everyone enjoys coloring, so why not a coloring page!! I hand-drew this one, and converted it to a PDF.  I suggest printing in black and white, otherwise yours lines will be purple (my black sharpie died).  Yes it's simple, but hey have fun and make it your own.

Click the link below the picture and it should open a PDF that you can print!  Have fun coloring!!!  I'd lover for you to post your completed projects on here or Facebook! If there are any issues with that, tag me @craftlovefashion (across pretty much all platforms)

Please feel free to share with friends, just don't claim the artwork as your own!

Keep Calm and Craft On PDF

Dia De Los Muertos/ Sugar Skull Tutorial

I'm going to start this by saying I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!!  To me it is the most magical time of year!  You can truly be anyone/anything you want to be and no one will judge you!!!  If only life was like that all the time!! 

One of my favorite things to do is, you guessed it, make Halloween decorations!!  I LOVE creepy and spooky things, if it's weird, I'll like it!  I already have the neighborhood kids bringing me things (cicada shells and things of the like), and we've only been here a few months...lol, I guess my reputation precedes me! I personally try to keep a little creepy up all year, it makes my heart happy!!

OK, so now for this awesome floral skull.... it is completely budget friendly, coming in at a total cost of $3!!! SAY WHAT?!?!?! Yup, this is a dollar store craft! Dollar Tree to be exact! and I don't care where you live there is one close by, sometimes several in a town!!

Supplies need....
2 floral stems of roses with eyeballs, I bought 1 black and 1 purple
1 plastic skull

Tools used...
Hot glue gun
scissors
bead reamer (or you can use an awl, I had the reamer in my grasp so that's what I used)
needle nose pliers (not necessary, but helpful)

OK now the part where you get to feel like Morticia Addams (I'll take any reason to feel like her #shesawesome), you are going to need to select and pull 5 roses off of the wire stems, make sure you are taking the plastic piece they are held together with. On these bunches there are also black plastic sprigs (you need 2), spiders (you need 1 or more depending on your preferences), and the black leaves (you need 4). They are pictured above. 

After you collect your pieces, grab your skull and figure out where you want your flowers to sit, I did mine more forward so it looks like a floral crown. But your placement is completely up to you!

Now you are going to need your awl and possibly pliers. (Be careful!!  You want to puncture your plastic skull, not your skin, they are pointy and sharp!)

Take your awl and poke a hole in each spot you want your flowers, you may need to use the pliers to make the holes larger to be able to fit the plastic "stem"of the flower.

Check hole size, if it fits, add hot glue and press it in.  Repeat for all 5 holes.

Next you're going to add the extra pizzazz!!

Take your little black sprigs and cut them so each makes two (you'll end up with 4 total).  Place one in between each flower as shown above.  Turn your skull around.

 This next step is kind of a two for.... You are going to add glue to where the sprig sticks out in the back, this will hold it down, but you are also going to add one of the black leaf groupings and press it into the glue (be careful, hot glue is HOT, Lord knows I have burned myself more than not).  Repeat for all 4 sprigs/spaces.

Next and semi-final step, depending on how much extra you want to add, is adding the spider.
This is slightly trickier only because the plastic it thicker on the face (at least on the ones I bought)

You are going to find where you want the placement of your spider.  This step is just like the flowers, you'll need to take the awl and make a hole and expand it with the pliers (please be careful!  You do not want to make a hole in your hand!  The plastic maybe thicker and you'll need to use more force, try not to slip!).  Add glue, press the "stem" of your spider in. I had to hold mine in place until it was cool and firm, you may have to too!

And there she is!!  The one at the top has an eye, this was merely one of the eyes that fell off the flower and I could not reattach, so a little hot glue in the eye socket and voila!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, it probably took more time to read than the actual time the craft will take!  Please follow me and be on the lookout for more posts like this!

Have a spooktacular day!!!

Hi my name is Kelly and I'm The Crafting Fashionista over here at Craft Love Fashion!  I have a true passion for anything that involves making.  For as long as I can remember I have been drawing, sewing, painting, sculpting, crafting, cooking, you name it I've probably attempted it!  In high school I was the kid who gave up lunch to take an extra art class.  In college I studied both fashion and interior design and took a lot of foundation art and design classes.  I don't know why but the whole process of creating things has always fascinated me, no matter where I go I always look at the how things are put together.  I truly appreciate creative people, they are my favorite, and it still amazes me to this day how everyone sees and interprets things differently. 

I am married to my best friend, Kevin, we have been together since what feels like forever (actually my senior year in high school.)  We have been through A LOT together (some REALLY tough times) which has taught me to never judge, because you never truly know what is going on in someones life.  He is the ying to my yang and even though he can drive me absolutely insane, I wouldn't want to spend my life with anyone else.  We recently took the HUGE leap and moved from NJ to GA, and we couldn't be happier.

Together we have 3 crazy amazing kids that are our whole world.  They are so a like and different at the same time, it's crazy!  They are smart, crafty, funny, loving, caring, kind people that I get to call my own. 

In this family we support each other, and take mental health seriously (a topic I will expand on in the future).

This is just a starting point for my blog, thank you for taking the time to read it. I hope you stick around and follow me. Things you can look forward to from me are tutorials, recipes, fashion styling, artwork, and updates about the family.  If you have any suggestions of posts you'd like to see please let me know and I will try to make them happen!