Final Big/Little Reveal Post

Well, two months later and I'm finally going to finishing posting about my final big/little reveal crafts. Better late than never (;

I bought chipboard letters of "G", "P", and "B." I painted both the "G" and the "B" the same shade of pink while I painted the "P" a lighter shade of pink. I wrote "Gamma", "Phi", and "Beta" on the corresponding letters. 

I bought this jar from Hobby Lobby and filled it up with lollipops to represent the "Lollipop Guild" from Wizard of Oz. I used my Silhouette Cameo to create the Gamma Phi decal to place on the lid. I also used my Cameo to cut the tag that I tied around the jar as well. 

Not exactly a craft but I figured I'd mention this anyways! I bought her a candle from Yankee Candle along with a pocketbac and pocketbac holder from Bath and Body Works. I just wrapped them in cellophane and placed it in her basket! 

This letter was actually really easy to paint. The pattern is essentially just a bunch of dots! I began with my base coat. I chose a blue-grayish color. 

To begin making the above pattern, I started by creating a "flower"-esque shape. I began with the center dot and then evenly spaced four dots around it. This will become the center of your shape. 

After creating the center, I added dots in the spaces between the previously made center shape. I tried to make this second row of dots slightly above the ones made prior. 

I continued adding dots in this manner: placing them in between the dots made in the previous layer until I reached the desired size of the shape. 

Once again, here's the end result! On the back of the letter I wrote a small note to my little! 

Here's the entire finished basket! I bought the basket at Hobby Lobby, by the way! I also found "Toto" there as well. Pure luck I guess! I also added a few Gamma Phi tshirts to her basket to begin her collection. 

Now I've finally finished sharing all my crafts from Big/Little reveal! 

Big/Little Canvas

I'm finally going to continue posting about some of my big/little crafts! 

One of my favorite things to do is paint and I'm always searching for inspiration and new things to spice up my paintings. 

While browsing on Pinterest, I found this quote and I loved the current layout of it. 

Image via: Pinterest.com

The only problem with trying to recreate this particular quote was that I had no idea how to paint a background that resembled a galaxy print. 

However, as Pinterest usually does, I was able to find a tutorial!! The pin led me to this YouTube video: 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1RMqVdYMgBw

Here was how the process worked for me: 

Materials: 

Red paint

Blue paint

White paint 

Gold paint 

Black paint 

Paintbrushes 

Cup of water

Canvas 

 I started by painting my canvas black and letting it dry. Then I used the colors above to create the galaxy. My paint was at a limited supply by the time I got around to this canvas but the colors ended up working out fine. 

I followed the instructions on the video and placed both blue and red paint on the canvas. I applied the paint with a dry, flat, thick brush. 

For the next steps I forgot to take pictures but it was super simple! Once I achieved the above look, I dipped a new brush in water and then dipped it into the white paint. I then tapped the paintbrush above the canvas to spray flecks of white everywhere. 

I painted the quote in gold and I REALLY liked how the canvas turned out. I definitely think I had a lot more white "stars" on my canvas than the video did but it worked out because the quote covered a lot of it. 

I have one final Big/Lil post after this one, so be on the lookout for that! 

Oh, sheet.

One of the biggest parts of Big/Little reveal is our sheets that we have to paint. 

If you remember my blog post from the spring (http://lifeofacollegecrafter.blogspot.com/2014/04/iglittle-reveal.html?m=1) 

you'll remember these sheets! The theme for big/little reveal is always movies. Each Big picks a movie and paints a sheet to coordinate along with it. Throughout the official Big/Little week, the Bigs send clues to their littles about what movie they have. On reveal day, the littles stand in front of their sheet based on the movie they got. On the count of three all of the Bigs drop their sheets and the Big/Little pairs are revealed! 

For my movie, I picked Wizard of Oz and picked a fairly easy design for the sheet.

This ended up being my completed sheet and it took forever. It was exhausting but worth it. I was relatively happy with how it turned out. Mainly, I was ready to get rid of the thing. Just kidding. Sorta.

Here's the process though. 

Materials:

Flat sheet 

Paintbrushes (foam and detail ones)

Paint

Sharpie 

Chalk 

Lots and lots of time

Tarp (optional)

Iron

I attempted to find a blue/green sheet so I wouldn't have to paint both the sky and the grass, but life isn't always fair so I had to get an all white sheet.

The first step is to iron the sheet so there aren't any wrinkles when you start painting. This step didn't take as long as I thought.

Clearly, I'm really bad at ironing and I gave up. Not recommended because it made the sheet harder to paint. Regardless, I put a tarp on the floor to protect it from the paint that would seep through from the sheet. I sketched out my design with a sharpie. 

Here's just a close up shot of my sketch Emerald City. 

I first began by painting the grass. I had two different color greens and hoped that they could easily be blended to create a "realistic" look. 

I just did random brush strokes. I liked how spontaneous it looked. 

The next step in painting my sheet was the poppies. I attempted to look up how to paint poppies but I didn't find anything worth while. So instead, I kind of just guessed. 

I used a single color of a pink/red to draw the outline. I filled in the poppy with that color and then took a lighter pink and added some highlight. 

I then went back in and added some darker reds to the center and outer petals of the poppies for more dimension. I don't really have a method for this part. Mainly I just add color where I think it looks best. 

In typical Life of a College Crafter fashion, I stopped taking progress pictures. Whoops. Even though I don't have pictures here's a breakdown of each part of the sheet. 

Poppies:

After I finished painting all the poppies I went back in and added small yellow flowers for some color. I then lightly dipped my brush in light green paint to add stems to each flower. I think this step was really important in adding dimension and life to the painting!

Grass: 

I'm not even gonna lie, I ran out of green paint halfway through and did not have the time to go get more soooo I improvised. I ran out of the green paint that is visible on the right side of the sheet. Therefore I used the deep green paint and mixed it with white to create the color on the left. It looks a little weird, but when looking at the sheet as a whole it's not too bad! I intentionally made the grass that was touching Emerald City the deep, forest green in order to separate the colors and show depth. (I try to use really artsy weirds to make you think I know what I'm talking about). 

Sky:

It's just painted all the same shade of blue. Nothing special here. 

Emerald City: 

I started by painting the city all green. From there, I added green and white paint to the city to create some streaks. I didn't want the city to be one color. I also found light and dark green glitter paint. I used this kind of paint over the dried city to add some sparkle! 

I finished it off by writing  "Littles, crescents, & pearls OH MY!" on the top of the sheet. I used chalk to sketch the letters out on the sheet prior to painting the letters. 

(That's my twin's sheet...too cute!) 

Overall, I really liked my sheet! Definitely a labor of love..

That's it for this post but check out the rest of my Big/Little Reveal posts for more crafts!

Big/Little Reveal

It's that time again....it's Big/Little season! This semester I was lucky enough to take a little and I adore her! She was my first choice throughout this whole experience and she definitely exemplifies everything our sorority stands for! 

Anyways, moving on to the more important aspects of big/little reveal....the crafts! So much went into this event and I'm going to post multiple blog posts for easy reading. 

Here's a bunch of pictures for a peek of what's to come though!

Stay thirsty my friends.

Another side of my cooler is complete! This side took SO much effort but I love how it turned out.

It's not perfect but it makes me happy! I haven't sealed it so it's not as shiny as it soon will be.

Once again, no tutorial. Honestly, I just free hand everything. I look at the image then draw and if necessary, erase and re-draw. 

I use chalk to draw on the cooler but I hear graphite works better. The chalk is fairly thick so for skinnier words (like "cerveza" above) I had to strictly freehand it. 

Cooler painting is serious business and I hope to get better at it. For now, I'll work on at least doing progress pictures while I'm working! It's tough because, as mentioned, I freehand and sketch things. I really haven't been big on tracing anything. It'd probably make it look a lot nicer but oh well. 

The cooler will be done by this weekend! (I have a deadline to meet) So you'll see the finish product soon (: I'm so excited! 

Coolers!

I FINALLY got to start working on my cooler because classes died down slightly. Well, really I just get to have one day off before my life turns back into the busy mess it was before. 

So as I start this I'm about to say what I always say: no tutorial. Sorry. I just wanted to get the hang of cooler painting before I started snapping progress pictures and write a tutorial. 

Also, I freehanded everything so there really isn't much to give a tutorial on anyways. 

But anywho, let's begin! 

 I saw this and decided to be really ambitious and try to copy this! Frankly, I don't think I did TOO bad (: 

Haha, my feet. Just ignore them! 

To make the ocean took me two tries and a couple of hours. I eventually decided that for me it was easiest to paint the ocean a bace color and then add the accent colors and mix without changing brushes. It gave me the layering of color I was looking for. Further, I made sure my paint strokes were swirly and wave-like because it will dry that way and give an appearance of movement (at least in my opinion). 

The letters were simple. I just used my handwriting and wrote it in my handwriting. Simple (: 

This is where you'll really hate me. There's no tutorial and no mini tutorial like that above. 

I just free handed everything! I looked at my reference picture and drew! 

I think it turned out great though! The next sides of the coolers will be tutorials though! Get excited! 

I'm Back!

I've been missing for a while. I know. I haven't had much time to blog with classes in full swing. However, a lot of exciting things (and exciting crafts) have happened since my last post! With the semester dwindling down I'll be crafting much more. While I don't have tutorials for you today I will post all the crafts I've done since the last time I posted! Enjoy (:

(P.S. I'm doing this from my phone since my internet at home is being weird. If pictures are small/blurry sorry, I will be fixing it Monday!)

(The corners are chalkboard painted now!) 

As you can tell, I joined a sorority! What a true blessing it has been. Soon I'll start crafting for Christmas!