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Tray Chic

18/7/2016

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Lap Trays Upcycled with General Finishes Coast Blue Paint, Liberty of London fabric and copper vinyl.  Blog by Craft Chatterbox

Before

Before the tray was upcycled
Before - my tray in a very sorry state for itself.
We have a couple of those lap trays with the polystyrene balls underneath  that I totally destroyed with spilt acetone and other crafting abuses.  Following the success of my Winged Eyeliner stencilled make-up tray, I decided to give our two lap trays a wee make over using scraps from other projects.

Coastal Blue Paint

I used Coastal Blue Milk Paint from favourite brand General Finishes.  It's  a deep midnight shade that I thought would go excellently with copper.  I bought it to upcycle a funky heaxagonal drinks cabinet I found on gumtree, but figured I'd give the paint a quick whirl on these trays first.  It's a no prime, hard wearing formula, but as it's such a dark colour, the first coat might look ropey - don't worry though it all comes good on the second /third coats.
First coat of General Finishes Milk Paint in Coastal Blue
First coat on the raw wood photo frame looks perfect, but scary on the tray.
Tray with 3 coats of General Finishes Coastal Blue Milk Paint
After a second coat the tray looks good, a third and it's perfect

Liberty of London Fabric

I'm addicted to the glorious world of Liberty prints.  I picked up some of this gorgeous fabric in Mandors fabric shop in Glasgow and it's been waiting patiently for me to put it to good use.  I plan to make some fabric applique cushions with the fabric, but haven't managed to get around to that just yet.  For the trays, I just used my staple gun to attach the fabric all the way round the edges.
Picture

Freebie Copper Vinyl

The fabric pattern reminds me very much of mountain scapes and our holiday to Iceland last year, so I decided to cut some geometric style mountain graphics using my trustee Silhouette Cameo from vinyl.  The kind guys at MDP Supplies in Falkirk gifted me this copper vinyl as it was an end of roll and always tripping them up.  What a score, I absolutely love it!!

The Finished Product

The only problem now is that I don't want to use these trays in fear of wrecking them!
Lap Trays Upcycled with General Finishes Coast Blue Paint, Liberty of London fabric and copper vinyl.  Vinyl cut with Silhouette Cameo.  Blog by Craft Chatterbox
Lap Trays Upcycled with General Finishes Coast Blue Paint, Liberty of London fabric and copper vinyl.  Vinyl cut with Silhouette Cameo.  Blog by Craft Chatterbox
I'd love to hear from you.  If you have a cameo too, do you use it to upcycle?  Which tray design do you prefer?
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Stencil Fonts - My Free Font Plus Tutorials

9/7/2016

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Hey there, I'm back with my favourite thing FONTS!  Today, it's all about stencil fonts, which are great for cutting out messages for tags and banners as the middles don't fall out.

I have a quick video tutorial which shows you how to convert any font of your choice into a stencil version - it's super easy just cut a little notch out to create the bridge from the background to the inside of the letter.
Tutorial by Nadine Muir on how to convert any font into a stencil within Silhouette Studio.  Includes a free stencil font for download created from the Lobster font

Free Font Download Called 'Stencil Silhouette UK'

The tutorial above covers how to convert the letters to stencil as and when you need to. 

I decided though, that I'd like to have a shot at converting a full font into a stencil version and then create it as a proper installable font.  I managed it with the help of the free software Inkscape and Glyhr Studio.  Here's the font, it's free for download here
free stencil font for download called Stencil Silhouette UK created by Nadine Muir from the Lobster font

How to create your own font or modify another

If you are interested in how I loaded the Lobster font and replaced the letters which needed to change with my edited versions, here's the video:

Projects

This tutorial was sparked from a question on the Silhouette facebook group that I'm a member of.  My friend wanted to know how to make something like this:
Make banners such as this with the free downloadable font Stencil Silhouette UK by Nadine Muir
It's now super easy with my font, takes just 17 seconds!
Of course the name is a clue here, it this font can of course be used for stencils.  I used it to stencil the phrase 'Never ask a girl with winged eyeliner why she is late' onto an upcycled tray.  The tutorial for this is here on the Silhouette UK Blog
Stencil with the phrase 'Never ask a girl with winged eyeliner why she is late' onto an upcycled tray by Nadine Muir. Made using free font called Stencil Silhouette UK and cut using my Cameo.
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    About Chatterbox

    Blog about craft, design and interiors. Includes DIY tutorials for gifts and the home, often using my trustee Silhouette Cameo.

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