Saturday, March 29, 2014

INSPIRATION NATION// DIY STAMPS!


I'll ask this straight, are you up for some fabulous textile printing? ;)


Call me nuts, but I see a lot of potential in bottle caps. "Bottle caps, yep you're crazy!". Let's just date back and take a look at the in-door style closet organizer I made using bottle caps. It's still sturdy and rocking my wardrobe today, and let's not forget these come for free! So what else can you exploit these for? DIY Stamps of course! Stamps are for babies, you say.Maybe they were, but today let's make a rebel out of ourselves, shall we? :D



You'll need:

Bottle caps, lots of them!
Craft Foam (plain or patterned)
Super-strong craft glue
Stamp pads/Paint
A scissors and a pencil
Washi Tape (optional)


How-To:

1.If you'd like your stamps to look extra cute washi tape the tops first. Of course you don't need to do this, it's just one of the perks of being excessively girly.



2. Trace around the bottle cap's circumference with a pencil to determine how much area you have to draw and doodle any shape inside. I just made me an entire botanical set, so I began with a rose. If you need, you can have a template or anything of the kind for reference. :)

3.Cut out the shape you drew and glue it down onto the cap.

4.Grab your stamp pads, or paint (I used acrylic paints) and begin stamping away. I just used a pretty satin napkin to put my pattern on.
Tip: If you're using paint, it can be a tad difficult, so just make sure that:
       - You have a nice, even coat of paint on the stamp shape.
       - Make the paint a bit diluted (using water) so it's smooth and not gunky because
       that'll make the designs, uhhhh...weird.
5. Be awesome and make yourself a cup of tea! (or coffee if you're a coffee person. I'm more of a tea + iced coffee girl, I don't know why I typed that here.I know it isn't even irrelevant)

I poured myself some hot cardamom tea in a cute mug and my pretty new napkin to cheer me up. It's the little things that give me glee.

Here's a close up of the print. Don't they look pretty? How about making ombre patterns now? I think that's what these lil guys will do next.



Liked these idea? Pin it, sweetheart (cuz' sharing is hot)
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In the meanwhile, come join me at Pinterest and Facebook or subscribe to Craft A Doodle Doo if you'd like to get updated on loads more DIYs!
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A million hugs,
Nash

(PS #1: Need another textile design tutorial? This Cath Kidston inspired print tut may just bowl you over! Or check out other DIYs in my DIY Gallery!)
(PS #2: I apologize for the changing blog design, but I'm trying to get a hang of how I want it look eventually. Yes, I'm indecisive.)


Thursday, March 27, 2014

PRETTY ME UP// DIY BEJEWELED HEADBAND!

This is the first rich crafty goodness I churned out for Cut Out+Keep on their Crafty Superstar feature! It's a uber-luxe bejeweled headband and looks so sophisticated at the same time. ( because we know that not everyone fancies OTT things). Looking to perk up a plain outfit?
I bet  this'll do the job!


Just corral your broken jewelry and random beads. (or maybe have some old dresses that you never wore because they were too sparkly for your taste? Switch the sparkle to your hair instead!) Your locks deserve that extra pampering,don't they?

If you already have a crazy assortment of beads and gems on hand, you're good to go!
See the full tutorial I made for them here! or












And if you're gifting it to a friend (like me!) then add it in a small pretty sachet for her to keep in! ( I just made mine out of some satin scraps and a fabric tape gift tag!)

You can check out another super-pretty headband tut here or more accessories to pump up your wardrobe in my DIY Gallery!
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Meanwhile, hop over to my Pinterest and Facebook to follow for hot new DIYs + become a subscriber! (I know we all wanna look gorgeous for frugal!)
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Take care, (Don't forget to pin and share with your friends!)
Nash

Friday, March 21, 2014

INSPIRATION NATION//DESIGN YOUR OWN BLOG! (And a FAB one at that!)

I must confess, I've become disillusioned with my newest obsession, blog designing! Now I've never really designed anyone's blog per se (just a few tips and tweaks for other friends), but I think I'm kind of fancying the blog design bandwagon! So today, I'll let you download a super-easy tutorial on how you can design your own blog (on Blogger, works for Wordpress too) and I'll give you all the blog design elements I designed in this tutorial for free!
     Seatbelt on girls!
I'm honestly head over heels for this one, so much that I feel like switching like my own blog design to the one in this tut, but I'm still in the process of primping up my own. ;)

I used Photoshop CS6 for this tutorial (the version doesn't really matter though) but if you're good at other online editing apps like picmonkey and pixlr then you can probably use those too. Isn't is nice when everything is so versatile?

The blog elements include the header, the fonts, social media icons and the navigation tabs. The above is a screenshot for you to see how they all look like after put together. Such a happy family!
The zip file I put for download include the pdf file which lists the detailed tutorial as well as the individual design elements to upload onto a basic blog template.

Header:
Every blog needs a whopper of a header. It's the first thing that makes those eyeballs stay put on your blog or else close the window pronto! Here's how I made mine and you can make yours too. Begin by thinking of a theme. I love fresh. pretty colors and it's Spring too, so I grabbed this image from Pinterest for reference and began painting away.

Hand-drawn doodles or painted designs are so much the chic trend now and they really give that casual+professional feel to a blog. Here are the steps:

We now import the image in photoshop (it can be a scanned file from your printer or a photograph you took, I used the photograph) and continue with the editing to create our pretty blog banner.

You can see the rest of the steps in the pdf file because the post will run incredibly large if I do post everything over here. (Yes, Nash you say, please don't force us to read your long drawl-y posts!)

A nice way to give your blog a super-polished look is to choose colors with a contrast. Use a few colors from one part of the spectrum and then choose a few colors from a contrasting range of the spectrum. Like, me being me, used a rage of hot pink to pale pink petals to add a feminine pop of color in the header, and a lot of gender neutral blues and greens to give a beautiful contrast. Of course, if you like, you can still make it all your favorite color, but I just think having a palette adds so much more visual interest!

The best part? You don't even need to be a good painter. Posing as one will do (I do the same!)

Fonts:

Fonts make up so much of the blog's readability. Fonts look great paired with contrasts too (Sans serif with serif. Plain fonts with calligraphic. Serious fonts with playful, handwritten ones). Whenever you'd like to use a fancy font, make sure you use it where you need a large font size. Generally, fancy fonts are difficult to read when they are small-sized. Stick to the very basic of fonts for large chunks of writing, because they are more readable and pleasant.

See all the font-mantra I just mentioned down below. The blog title has been written in a calligraphic font (I list the fonts names in the downloadable tutorial file). The tagline for the blog is written in a simplistic font. It helps the fancy calligraphic font pop even more!

Textures and Patterns:

While you can use a multiple of patterns and textures, make sure that you either
1) Use a focal design on one area of the blog and keep the rest minimal or
2) Use a variation of textures on different areas while making sure they all tie up perfectly well together (Usually making everything look unified goes back to the colors you used.)

Obviously the second choice is more difficult to follow through. For this blog design I kept the background completely plain but you can use a very minimal background too and it would still look great.

My rule of the thumb for the perfect laid back+professional design is this, pair opposites but not to the extremes. For ex, I paired delicate flowers with some geometry(circles)! They are not really opposites but circles usually don't come anywhere near flowers, do they? :)

Social Media Icons and Navigation Tabs:
Since I used the same colors and geometry for the navigation tabs as the header (again to tie everything together), I used an ombre pink for the social media icons.


You can check out how to:

1. Upload a header images to blogger
2.Upload social media icons for blogger
3.Upload navigation tabs in blogger:
To upload navigation tabs, use the same technique as the social media icons but don't upload all the images into one widget but individual widgets and link each to it's url.

Everything includes psd files so they're editable or you can add extras by modifying the existing elements. :)
You can download the whole step-by-step tutorial here.
You can download the whole zip file for the design elements here.

Have any questions? Drop a comment! Or leave a comment on my Pinterest/Instagram/Facebook!
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Meanwhile, pin this and share it if you found this useful. *smile*

Check other design resources here

Lots and lots and lots and lots of hugs,
Nash, xoxo

(And oh yes, check how how the blog design looks over here!)



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