A Wedding Gift

Brandy and I picked these vases up at IKEA.  I thought it would be fun to etch a design on them and Brandy has a wedding to go to in a few weeks.  Perfect - it's going to be a wedding gift!  Guess what though?  They aren't glass!  Or at least not 100% glass.  Although they look, feel, and sound like glass. Grrrrr.  I guess I should have thrown one on the floor to see if it shattered first!  I of course didn't discover this until I was rinsing off the etching creme.  There was a faint outline where the design should have been.  Vexed!!  But I am one to never let a good design go to waste so I decided to just use black vinyl.  I think it still turned out pretty well. 


I added some paper so that the design would stand out more.  It's also difficult to photograph because the designs wrap around the vases.

This is the couple's last name.

As always - thanks for stopping by!

A Lava Lamp for Caroline

 My latest project is another lava lamp?!  Yes, the first one was so popular Brandy asked me to make one for her neighbor's upcoming Sweet Sixteen.  I started with a much bigger lamp.  This one is 16 3/4" high.  The other one I did topped out at 12".  


Caroline likes Hendrix, Dylan, and is also a ballerina so I wanted to incorporate those things to make it as personal a gift as possible.  I spent a good portion of the day on this one.  For some reason it was vexing me!  I did a lot of trial cuts and discarded quite a few ideas before I came up with something I hope she will like.  I decided to go with a Peace, Love, and Rock~N~Roll theme featuring pink as the main color (Caroline's favorite).  I included Dylan's Eye and Hendrix's famous signature, along with a lot of peace signs and rock n roll hearts.  I almost forgot the ballet slippers (oops - thanks to Brandy for reminding me) but I really like how I was able to weld them to her name so it turned out okay.  Overall, I am very pleased with the finished product.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Blog Award!

Cindy at  Scrap-Obsessed awarded Sabriolet Designs (aka me!) the Liebster blog award.  She actually posted this about two weeks ago but I, with my blog challenged self, am just now getting around to posting it!  I can and will do better.  I can and will do better.  I can and will do better.  (My new mantra!) Thanks so much to Cindy for passing this award to me.  And everyone reading this - you HAVE to go check out Cindy's blog.  Her cards are FANTASTIC!!

 

The Liebster Blog Award is designed to recognize bloggers who have fewer than 300 followers, but put much love into their work.  Cindy passed this award along to me when I just had a few posts up so I feel very honored.  To accept the award, I am to spread the love recognizing up to 5 blogs whose work I admire and follow. 

Here they are:

1. Anne at Muse Mama is an one of my favorite people. You won't find a lot of crafts on this blog, but my dear Anne is a word smith and she is thoroughly entertaining.  She's a great mom and I adore her blog.

2.  Karen at Weird Bird Studio has some fabulous artistic creations.  She also happens to be family.  Don't let that dissuade you - give her some love!  She has so much more talent than I do!

3.  Chantal at The Grey Dragonfly is a fabulous seamstress.  She created a quilt not long ago that blew my mind.  Really, you have to see what she can do.

4.  Julie at Buffalo Lucy has created the most amazing and breath taking jewelry you can imagine.  Hand-crafted of course!  Every single one of her pieces is original and the love she has for her craft shows in each and every thing she creates.  Please stop by and take a look at her store.

5.  Last up is Bren.  Another fantastic papercrafter!  You can find here at Bren Designs.  Her work is very intricate and very beautiful.   In fact I might be scraplifting some of her ideas soon!  

Thanks again to Cindy for the award and as always thanks for stopping by!!

*Adorable* Scrapbook Page

 I have been working on a scrapbook for my mother.  Her birthday is in May, and if I want to get it done, I'm going to have to put in some serious time.  This is only my second page.  I am really starting to enjoy sewing on paper, I can see I will be doing a lot of this in the future.  The flourish is from French Manor, the W tag is from Designer's Calendar, and the journaling tag is from Tags, Bags & Boxes.

Thanks for stopping by.

Spring Lanterns

One of my favorite places to hang out is Smartbuygal Forum.  Those ladies are incredibly talented, very friendly, and generous sharing their ideas and files.  I got this idea from Amy R who posted pictures of these a few weeks ago.  You can see Amy's work here.


I also want to walk through glass etching for those of you who have never seen it before. These are both 100% Cricut projects.  I used my gypsy to design these and the list of cartridges is a bit long, but here it is: Celebrate with Flourish, Gypsy Wanderings, Plantin Schoolbook, Songbird, Walk in My Garden, ZooBalloo, Cindy Lou, Cupcake Wrappers, Home Accents, Lacy Labels, Sentimentals, and finally, Picturesque.

These are the designs after I cut them out.  

The next step is to apply the vinyl to the glass.  It's much easier when I am working with a negative image because all you have to do is place the cut out exactly where you want it.  It's a bit trickier the other way around because instead of a cut out image you are working with a stencil of that image.   But with a little practice and patience it can be done.

One important thing is to make sure there are no air bubbles between the vinyl and the glass. You can see that I put the glass pieces onto plastic.  I did this because I knew I would be taking the etching creme to the edges of the glass and I wanted to make sure I protected the table, and most importantly - me!  This is the etching creme I use:

This etching creme is a strong chemical and it is not something you want to get on your skin so I always, always, always wear gloves when I am applying or rinsing it off.  The application process is pretty simple - just brush on a generous coating of creme wherever the glass is exposed.

For the negative images I put the creme over the entire glass from end to end.

I let my creme sit on for a minimum of thirty minutes.  I like to rinse these off in our laundry room sink, I really don't want this chemical anywhere else.  Right after being rinsed off (and removing the vinyl) it looks like this.  

After they dried I cleaned them and put them into the lanterns.  Walla!

 I added a candle and turned out the lights so you can see what it will look like at night.

I adore these lanterns.  They aren't perfect though.  The etching on the large one looks a bit streaky to me so I will make sure to put a thicker layer of creme on the next one I do.  Also, "Spring Showers" isn't quite centered on the small one.  Yea - it's those tricky stencils.   But, overall, I am happy with how they turned out.  One of the great things about etching is that once the design is on there, it's there.  The chemical permanently changes the glass so you don't have to worry about washing it off.  You can clean it like you normally would and the design will not be affected.  I have a few more of these to complete before I run out of my stash, but I need to come up with some new themes first.  And I will need find homes for all of these because I am quickly running out of it in my craft room.

Thanks for stopping by!