Frugal Crafts & Homemade Gifts
(Monthly featured column by BetterBudgeting's
crafty readers!)
Inspirational
Tiles
by
Jill Badrick
These tiles make
great birthday, graduation, Christmas or Mother's Day gifts. I always give a coin easel in
addition to the tile as a gift so that the tile can be displayed. Otherwise you
could attach a loop of ribbon to the back of the tile with hot glue to hang the
tile from a nail. More...
Items needed:
Ceramic tile
(4" square or hexagonal works well)
Paint (acrylic or enamel)
Paint brushes
Sponge
Sharpies (ultra-fine tip) or gel pens
Coin easel
Scrapbooking/Craft book for sayings and design ideas
Embellishments (i.e. stickers or jewels)
Tissue or tracing paper
Instructions:
1. If the
tile has a glossy finish, it is necessary to make the surface more rough in
order for the writing and design to stick. One way to do this is to sponge paint
the tile using acrylic paint before tracing a design onto the tile.
2. After roughening the tile, trace a design and/or saying from the
scrapbooking book onto tracing paper or white tissue paper.
3. If the size of the design needs to be modified, you can use a copy
machine to adjust the size.
4. Using the Sharpie or a pen that will soak through the tissue paper,
trace the design onto the tile. The design should be faintly visible on
the tile after removing the tissue paper.
5. Re-trace the design and/or writing using your preferred color of
Sharpie/pen (be careful at this step because some pens will smear easily)
6. Use paint, pens, or markers to finish your design.
7. If you make any mistakes when tracing your design or decorating your
tile, you can use finger nail polish remover to remove all the paint and writing
from the tile and start completely over.
8. Before attaching any embellishments (i.e. stickers or jewels), you may
want to use a sealant that can be sprayed on the tile to avoid smearing of the
paint and markers.
Examples of good sayings:
* We create our tomorrows by what we dream today.
* Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.
* Believe you can and you're halfway there.
* Never say the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.
* Every great achievement was once considered impossible.
* Stand for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone.
* God couldn't be everywhere so he created Mothers.
* Don't dream it, be it...
* 2 Teach is 2 Touch Lives 4 Ever.
* * *
Copyright
© 2008 by Jill Badrick. All rights reserved.
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