Have you seen the new spring TOMS collection yet? It’s amazing. And the best part — ballet flats! Like these Lina Woven Ballet Flats, which are backordered of course. My only complaint about the ballet flats is there is no white or cream canvas flats for me to paint. How cute would a pair of ballet flats be painted?

The Alessandra Black Canvas flats could maybe be painted on the sides but they are backordered too. Looks like I’ll have to get the ballet flats for wearing and the classics for painting.

What do you think?
Do you love or hate the new ballet flats?
Have you been able to get your hands on a pair?

Even though I don’t cook very often, I have a large collection of aprons (see above). When I got into baking and cake decorating I started collecting them and friends have bought them for me for gifts over the years. I don’t really need any more aprons but I found some really cute ones on Etsy that I want.

1 – Breakfast for Dinner Apron by Haute Mess

2 – Retro I Love Lucy Apron by loverdoversclothing

3 – Josephine Half Apron by BLinkDesignSA

4 – Estonia Screen Printed Apron by Ann Sommerfeldt

#1 is my favorite — who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner?!

I’ve been doing a lot of screen printing with freezer paper stencils lately so I thought I would post a tutorial on how easy it is to do. Once you learn how easy it is it becomes pretty addicting. I love grocery shopping bags (even though I have like a million of them) but  wanted a larger one. I found this cute canvas bag at Hobby Lobby and wanted to put something cute on it.

All you need for this project is something to screen print on, freezer paper, and exacto blade, screen printing ink, cardboard, and an iron. And a design to screen print of course.

I started by sketching out my design onto some paper. I decided to use a similar sugar skull design as my painted TOMS.

I went over my sketch with Sharpie so it would be easier to trace onto the freezer paper.

Trace the design onto a piece of freezer paper. If you’ve never used freezer paper before, it has one waxy side and one paper side. Make sure you draw on the paper side.

Now it’s time to cut out the stencil. Use an exacto to cut out the small pieces first and then cut the larger ones.

Here’s my completed stencil. I made a few changes to my original design when I started cutting to make it easier. Make sure you save all the small pieces that you cut out so that you can iron them on.

Next iron on your stencil. I find it easiest to start with the largest piece and then add in and iron on the smaller pieces one by one.

Here’s my first stencil on my canvas bag, all ready to paint. Make sure you put a piece of cardboard underneath the stencil to prevent the screen printing ink from bleeding.

I’ve read a lot of tutorials online that recommend that you use fabric paint but I hate the way fabric paint looks when it’s dry. It’s almost like a puff paint sometimes and I’m not a fan. Screen printing ink is a little bit more expensive than fabric paint but it’s so worth it. I picked up these Speedball inks at Hobby Lobby a few isles down from where they sell the fabric paint.

Use a paint brush to apply the screen printing ink to the canvas. Paint thin coats, using as few as possible to get the desired color. For this design, I only used one coat of black ink.

Let it dry for about 5 minutes and then peel off the stencil. You want the ink to set but not to dry completely or the stencil will be hard to pull off.

Here’s my sugar skull on the canvas bag.

And the flowers.

I thought the bag had a lot of negative space so I went back and added a few circle stencils.

Here is the finished product. Let it dry overnight and then heat set using an iron. Make sure you put a cloth between the iron and the bag and heat set for 2 minutes on each side.

This weekend I attended a baby shower for my best friend Brandy and her husband Dan. I wasn’t sure at first what I was going to give them since it would be hard to top the mural I painted for their nursery and the baby blocks I painted them for Christmas. A few months ago we talked about how cool it would be to make some band tee onsies for their son-to-be Jack, so I decided to make them as a shower gift. I love giving handmade gifts so I found a couple of cute things on Etsy for Jack as well.

The shower was in Connecticut so I decided to paint a gift box I found at Hobby Lobby instead of using wrapping paper so it wouldn’t get crushed in my suitcase. Plus a handpainted box seemed more appropriate for a hand made gift than store-bought wrapping paper. And I love to paint. This was a no-brainer.

I am in love in bunting at the moment so I painted a bunting theme on the box. A new baby is something to celebrate and bunting couldn’t be more appropriate.

I found this adorable crocheted flight hat with goggles by Yarn Over Crochet on Etsy and I knew they would love it. I can’t wait to see pictures of Jack wearing it.

I found this wooden smart phone teether by 3 Princesses Engraving on Etsy as well. Every kid needs his own smartphone. I’ve never seen a wooden teether before but I love wooden toys and figured at the very least it would be fun for Jack to play with. Hold on, Pony calling!

The first thing I made were these cute bibs. I love the mustache bib, so fancy. I drew the designs on regular paper and them traced them onto freezer paper (on the non-waxy side)and cut out the stencils with an Exacto. Iron-on the stencil and paint the design using screen printing ink. Pull the stencil off before it’s completely dry so it doesn’t get stuck and mess up the finish. After completely drying, heat set using an iron. I used freezer paper stencils for the onsies too.
 

Dan is a huge classic rock fan so I made them a Grateful Dead onsie for Jack. He’s going to be the coolest kid ever.

No future classic rock fan would be complete without an Allman Brothers Band onsie. Dan also happens to be a huge Allman Brothers fan. Making this stencil was a bit of a challenge because the logo is very detailed but it turned out perfectly. The best tip I can give you about using freezer paper stencils is to make sure you use very thin coats of screen printing ink and as few as possible to get the desired color, especially with very detailed stencils.

They say that every man should own a tuxedo, right?

The last band tee onsie I made was this Smashing Pumpkins one. Brandy has loved them since middle school and now Jack will too. Or at least look like he does. He’s going to look so cool!

My hobbies change a lot. One month I’m painting TOMS and the next I’m screen printing. Then I’m decorating cakes or learning to knit. Or scuba diving. The point is, I like to try things out. I love starting a new project to learn how to do something new. I’ve been painting a lot this year but before that I was decorating cakes. Lots of cakes. I started taking a basic cake decorating class but soon went out on my own and started playing with fondant. I’m not one of those people who starts out easy and builds up my skills, I just skip ahead and move into the more advanced stuff. I was looking at a blog I made when I was cake decorating and was pretty impressed with my skills. It’s been awhile since I’ve decorated a cake… I wonder if I can still do it. Here’s some of my favorites from the past:

#1: Every time I see these Hello Kitty cupcakes I just want to die of cuteness overload. I made these red velvet cupcakes for a friend’s birthday and even though they took a million hours to make, I am so happy with the end result. This was my last cake decorating project.

#2: Since I showed you my last project, I think it’s only fair to show you my first one too. Here it is, my Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus cake. This was my first ever cake and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I bought some fondant and icing colors and a cake board and a few other tools and just went for it. I was pretty happy with it. I used to have a lot of horror movie nights with some friends of mine and this one was made for our screening of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. All I can say is that the cake was way better than the movie. If I remember correctly I made lemon-vanilla cake with fresh stawberries and chocolate ganache. Yea, that was a tasty one.

#3: Here is a picture of my first 3D cake, a hard hat with the Strike Construction logo. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be but my best friend who ordered the cake said it was really great. I made the most seriously moist and tasty cake ever. The trick is a little coffee to intensify the chocolate flavor and a small tub of sour cream. Sounds weird but it’s sooo good.

#4: I made this Hibiscus cake for my parent’s 30th wedding anniversary. They met in Corpus Christi and honeymooned in Hawaii and the tropical flowers just seemed appropriate. Making the flowers was quite a challenge and if you take a look at the blog post for this cake you will see that I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was going to try using wire to put the flowers together but ended up just pressing the petals together and keeping my fingers crossed that they didn’t fall apart on me. Thankfully it worked out in my favor.

#5: This was my first wedding style cake and I made it for a friend’s sister’s 25th wedding anniversary (hence the silver). It was a reimagined version of the top tier of their original wedding cake which had an absolute ton of piping on it.

#6: Here’s my second cake. As you can see my skills improved quite a bit from one cake to the next. This cake was for my best friend’s birthday. I wanted to make something super girly and fun and also use gumpaste. All of the pieces on the top of the cake were made with gumpaste. The cake was chocolate but the filling was the best part… it was a nutella filling with chopped hazelnuts. It was like biting into one of those Ferrero Rocher candies. So good.

#7: This graveyard cake turned out pretty cute but was actually kind of a failure. I wanted to make a cake for Halloween that was filled with blood — well, OK strawberry puree — that poured out of the cake when you cut into it. I made it the night before the party it was intended for and I guess the puree sort of congealed overnight and did not flow when cut into. It would have been no big deal except for the fact that a bunch of kids were really dissappointed that the cake did not flow blood. Oh well. Those kids have no idea how many hours I spent making the rocks on the side of the cake alone.

I have an absolute ton of earrings yet when I’m getting ready in the mornings I have a hard time finding them because they are scattered all over the place. Does this sound like you? Well I found a solution — an earring display board!

The project is simple, I took a picture frame that I wasn’t using and took out the cardboard backing and glass. Then I cut a piece of stiff craft felt (they sell it in sheets in hobby stores, it’s usually with the regular felt) to fit the frame. Then simply punch your earrings through the felt and put the back on to secure it. It’s that simple. The felt is stiff enough to hold up in the frame even weighed down by all the earrings I punched in it. This generally works better with stud earrings but you could put any earring through the felt.

Now my biggest problem is deciding which earrings to wear. That’s not really a problem I mind having though. This cute earring board is currently in my closet leaning against the wall on a shelf. It looks really cute and adds a nice pop of color too.

I’m a huge fan of drinking bubble tea (or tapioca tea or boba tea) but not a huge fan of the $4 price tag on one of these tasty drinks. It didn’t take me long to source myself some large tapioca pearls and fat straws and mix up my own teas. And my honey milk tea is just as good if not better than my local bubble tea shop. Sorry, Bubble Island.

The first thing you need is some tapioca. I found this bag of large green tea tapioca pearls at Hong Kong Market in Houston. I checked a few other places and only found the small ones so if you live in an area where there are not a lot of Asian markets, then the internet will be your best friend. Luckily I live in Houston and we have a lot of Asian markets (yay).

You may have noticed that the bag of tapioca says “ready in 5 minutes” on it. Well it’s a lie. Please ignore. So first you have boil some water. 7 parts water to 1 part tapioca. Put the tapioca into the water after it gets to a rolling boil.

Let it cook for 15 minutes and then put the lid on and turn the heat off. Let it sit in the put for another 15 minutes covered.

It should look like this.

Next, drain the water from the pot and rinse the pearls with cold water.

To sweeten them, make a mixture of honey and agave syrup. I mixed German honey, orange blossom honey, and agave. You could probably just use one of these if you wanted to, but I like the mix.

I never really measure but this is probably about 3/4 cup of syrup mixture. Pour the rinsed tapioca in and let it sit until you’re ready to use it. I use some of the syrup to sweeten my honey milk tea.

Now for the milk tea. Pour some really strong black or green tea into a shaker and top with half and half or milk until it’s a nice creamy color. Sweeten however you like it. I added one packet of Truvia and a spoonful of the honey syrup from the tapioca. Add a few cubes of ice and then shake. The key to making bubble tea is the shaking, so shake it real good. Then shake it a few more times for good measure.

Add a few spoonfuls of the tapioca to your drink and a fat straw and you’re all set for a tasty treat. Holy yum these are good.

One thing to note about making your own bubble tea at home, it’s very addicting. Also, the tapioca is really a one time use. If you don’t use it all, you’ll have to get it back to the right consistency in warm to hot water before using again. After it cools down it starts to harden in the center. All that means to me is that my drink has a lot of tapioca in it so I don’t have any left over.

I started making my own tee shirts back in high school. Back then I had no idea how easy screen printing could be. I didn’t know even know you could do screen printing at home without a lot of fancy equipment. I used to print my designs on iron-on transfers. I’ve been wanting to try out screen printing for awhile and I finally started some projects.

Before my Borders closed down I found this great book there with 20 stencils from some of the world’s leading street artists. The stencils are printed on perforated card stock so that they can be removed and used. It’s a really fun book if you’re into street art, which I am. You can find the book on Amazon.

I ordered a bunch of cotton tote bags a few months ago when I decided to try out screen printing but never ended up using them. Since I’ve been wanting to have a set of cute totes for grocery shopping bags, I figured these would be perfect if I stenciled some street art on them.

It was really hard to pick my favorite 9 stencils out of the book. I picked out 8 originally and then went back and swapped out 2 and added 1 more. So many great artists.

I’ve never done legit screen printing with an actual screen, only with freezer paper or stencils and a paintbrush but what I can tell you about either of those methods is that you should only use screen printing ink. NEVER USE FABRIC PAINT. I’ve read a lot of tutorials on freezer paper stencils and they all recommend fabric paint. The finish is horrible with fabric paint. If you want your screen print to actually look like something you would buy, use screen printing ink. It may be almost double the price but you won’t regret it when you see the finished project. You don’t have to use a screen and squeegee either.

After picking out my stencils I started making totes. I put a piece of cardboard in the tote to prevent bleeding and taped my stencil on with packing tape. I would recommend using that blue painters tape that comes off easily but all I had was packing tape so packing tape it was.

I said this was easy screen printing right? Once I taped down my stencil I just painted the screen printing ink on the tote with a paintbrush. I knew the design wouldn’t be perfect but since I planned to do 9 bags each with a different design I figured this method would be much faster with a lot less cleanup. I let the ink dry for a few minutes but pulled the stencil off while it was still mostly wet.

I love the way these bags turned out. Not perfect, but then again neither is street art. I let each tote dry overnight and then heat set them the next day using my iron (about 2 minutes on each side).

Here’s all of the designs I printed. Now I can’t wait to do some grocery shopping with these fun bags!

I recently painted my first mural for my best friend’s nursery. Her and her husband decided to go with an vintage airplane theme for Jack’s room — very classy theme for a boy with a classy name.

Here’s an aerial view of the room with the mural. Well as aerial as it could be from the top of a ladder. Very creative shot though Dan. The mural really completes the room.