Well I have been having an eventful July! DanyCon is coming up soon and so is another’s ladies’ night, so I’ve got lots of new and exciting projects to share in the coming weeks! And I am very excited to announce that we have a surprise guest blog post coming this Thursday! Stay tuned for an awesome baby-related craft project from a dear friend of mine! I won’t reveal the blogger or project until Thursday though, so be sure to check back Thursday night.
Julius has been having an eventful July too! In addition to floating around in the lake in RI, there have been lots of fun events at his daycare. He has gotten to meet the local fire fighters, sit in a firetruck and pet all sorts of crazy animals (like an alligator!). Our daycare posts pictures of all the fun activities – and my favorite set includes Julius excitedly petting a (muzzled) baby alligator, while in the next frame he is just as excitedly petting the animal handler’s shoe while the handler holds the alligator out to another child. At least he’s happy.
This week is science week at Julius’ daycare and though you’d imagine we have tons of science themed onesies, I discovered we really don’t! I think I can rustle up one for each day of the week (including the white onesie I just puff painted), especially considering this is also shark week, but I am really disappointed in Will & I.
Speaking of Shark Week, poor Julius has been extra fussy at night and during naps. I think the poor guy is teething again. I’m pretty sure I felt another tooth the other day while he was chomping on my chin. Based on his normally cheery behavior and his unhappy sessions at night I am really happy I can’t remember what it felt like to have teeth come in.
This next project I keep forgetting to post! Will had been mentioning frequently that he wanted a mousepad to use with his gaming computer, so I decided to make him one for father’s day. Since I ordered this cinnamon bun printed fabric for Erin’s shower I’ve wanted to try printing on fabric myself. Obviously I don’t have cartridges specific for dyeing fabric, but I saw many people claiming they could print on fabric with ordinary printer cartridges. After some more research it appears that most cartridges are either dye or pigment based. While it may seem that dye based inks are the way to go (based on name alone) it is actually pigment ink you want to use for ink jet printing onto fabric. The reason being that pigment based inks will just sit on top of your fabric, whereas dye based inks will get sucked in and dispersed causing a blurry picture. It turns out that on my printer, the black ink is pigment based. While I was able to get my fabric to run through the printer by taping it to a piece of paper, next time I’m going to use the “waxed paper method”. This was much cheaper than buying an actual photo printed mousepad, but it isn’t quite as professional looking. I may make some amendments in the future and see if I can improve it. It has not, however, rubbed off – probably in thanks to the coating of fabric glue.
DIY Photo Mousepad
What You’ll Need:
- plain mousepad
- ink jet printer
- 1/4 yard of white fabric
- fabric glue and spouncer
- waxed paper or 8.5″x11″ piece of cardstock, adhesive spray and tape.
- Discover which of your inks are pigment based and choose a photo that utilizes pigment based ink only. (For me this meant black & white.) Resize the photo so it will print in the center of the page and is slightly larger than your mousepad (for me this meant 8″x9″ and I had to adjust my margins to print nearly to either edge of an 8.5″ piece of paper)
- Either use the waxed paper method (I haven’t tried it) or cut an 8.5″x11″ piece fine weave white cotton fabric, spray the back with adhesive and tape the edges to a piece of cardstock.
Tape fabric to cardstock
- Place the sheet into your printer tray in the proper orientation (for me this is upside down in the tray since the paper feeds up through rollers, flipping as it prints).
- Print image from step 1.
Printed fabric
- Let ink dry completely then remove fabric from waxed paper or normal paper and tape.
- Coat mousepad evenly with fabric glue.
Coat mousepad with fabric glue (then spouncer out evenly).
- Place fabric picture on top of glue so it covers the mousepad entirely. Press to adhere then let dry.
- When fabric has dried cover fabric with a coating of fabric glue using a spouncer as an extra layer of protection. Let dry.
- Once the mousepad is completely dry, trim the fabric up to the mousepad, getting as close as possible to the mousepad even if that means removing a few micrometers from the side of the mousepad.
Trim fabric around edges of mousepad
Julius presents his father’s day mousepad to daddy!
