Turtle Power

Happy Tuesday. Hope you all had an amazing Monday and your week is off to a productive start. By productive I mean that it goes so fast that it’s Friday before you know it. LOL. Before I start on what I intended on posting about, can I say that we have this new bed with a base that inclines and it’s amazing! I am currently sitting in bed with my bed inclined upright perfect position for typing on a laptop, makes me feel a lot older than I am but did I say it’s amazing???? To be fair we have a bed where the top and bottom incline due to my husbands’ bad back but I’m loving the benefits.

So a post ago I told you that I was planning on making as many gifts as I can to not only save money but to utilize my craft skills and endless craft supplies that I keep amassing. Well I’ve stuck to my goal and learned two new things about myself. One, I enjoy painting, well I consider it more like doodling. I’m no Picasso but just using a paint brush to fill in outlines or just to be creative is pretty relaxing. The second thing is that I enjoy working with paper. You may not know this but I’m pretty new to the paper game. I learned how to sew in high school and always felt comfortable with fabric, but paper was a new arena for me other than making basic cards. Now I’m creating paper wall art and layering paper for dimension… I know mind blown. LOL We’ll talk about that in another post because todays post is all about NINJA TURTLES. I can see the awe in your face. Although my son is pretty young to be into Ninja Turtles, his 3 year old almost 4 year old brain loves them. His best friend loves them as well so I decided to make something for both of them using their favorite characters.

Enter my Brother ScanNCut2. I purchased this machine mid last year after conducting a lot of research on cutters, dye cutting machines, Circuit, Silhouettes, and all the fancy machines that are out there. I chose this specific machine because I was planning on using it to cut fabric for my projects and it seemed like the best fabric cutter. I have yet to use it to cut fabric but early this year I actually plugged it in and started learning how to use the features. My favorite feature thus far, the fact that you can scan an image and then use it as a template to cut. Simply print out an outlined image from your computer and then scan it into the machine and cut it. It’s that simple. Well a little more complex than that, but still that simple. The machine also has some templates and fonts which you can use as well. (Disclaimer, Brother or any of their affiliates are not currently paying me or providing any incentive for me to write this post on their product, but I wish they would! These thoughts are my own). Ok so let’s get started.

The project, Ninja Turtle T-shirt Design. Ninja Turtle on the front. Friends name on the back with his age. Since I didn’t have any vinyl or transfer supplies I decided that I was going to just use what I had on hand which in this case was fabric paint. I completed the back of the t-shirt first. After placing a piece of cardboard in between the front and back of the shirt, I used some stencils that I had on hand and painted the name and age on the back. The next day after it was dried, I went online and found a template that I liked of a Ninja turtle face, resized it on my copier and scanned it into the ScanNCut. Once it was scanned I made some adjustments (removed some cut lines on the template). I cut the pattern out on heavy duty card stock and used it as a template to paint on the front of the shirt. To keep the template from moving around while I painted, I used adhesive roll around the edges and affixed the pattern to the t-shirt. Because it was fabric the pattern came off quite easily and this reduced bleeding. I did most of the painting while watching a pretty decent movie. Painting was so relaxing for me, I told myself I would make a few more, which I still may. I also used the same pattern to make valentines cards for my son for school. I used a heart template that was provided in the machine and resized it to my needs. My son’s teachers were so impressed, but I must say that it was a lot of friggin work gluing those small pieces. If I do a similar project in the future, I will have to think of a way to get it all done in less time with the same impact.

Ok get ready for the photo overload.

Valentines Cards for Pre-School

Button Art Turtle not made using my ScanNCut but we were talking about turtles weren't we? LOL This cute wall art with frame is now listed on my Etsy Store. HartfordCraft

Hope you enjoy my post and my favorite, the pictures! I’ll be posting more of my creations using the ScanNCut since it has come in even handier than I thought.

Thanks again for stopping by.

~Darley