Acrylic Faux Sea Glass

This is a post that I wrote for the "Terri Johnson Creates Blog".

Faux Acrylic Sea Glass
Summer is in full swing now and if you are not lucky enough to walk the beach to collect sea glass, this tutorial is for you. Hello all, Jamie from Craft Chameleon here! Terri has graciously opened up space on her blog to share this fun technique.

What you will need for this project other than your Silhouette and permanent vinyl is as follows:
Paper Plate, 2 grades of sandpaper, nail file, double sided tape, translucent acrylic.

First, you will want to secure the coarsest sand paper down on the paper plate using your double-sided tape. The plate does three things. It keeps your sandpaper located; keeps your dust/sandpaper granules collected and keeps your sandpaper flat/level as to not create gouges.

Next, take the translucent acrylic and sand in a circular motion on the sand paper. Place your fingers on different areas of the acrylic to assure even sanding.

Do this for both sides. When the acrylic is evenly sanded, with the coarsest sandpaper, empty your plate, and replace with the least coarse. Repeat the sanding process.

When completed the acrylic will have a frosted appearance. However, the edges will still have a gloss finish. 

Quickly and easily, take the gloss off the edge with a nail file for your finishing step.

Wash with clear water and dry. Add your vinyl design and complete your project!

Tooth Fairy Bag

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Click here for these fantastic bags.

HTV on Acrylic Blanks

Hello all this is a blog post I wrote for the Silhouette School Blog. It has some good information so I wanted to share it with you all too!

Hope your summer has been full of celebrations. Jamie Omahen from CraftChameleon, here to show you how to make a quick, easy, smooth writing surface, and bubble free Guest Board perfect for any type of gathering!

Gorgeous wood signs for guest books are all the rage for weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, birthday party, bat mitzvah, bar mitzvah, anniversary, memorial service, house warming, grand openings, and family reunions.

 I love the concept and look of those boards but would rather have a smooth finish for the guests to write on, plus a permanent marker can be used and the nib will last much longer.

Enough chatter, let’s make one!

Supplies: 

*HTV with your design mirrored, cut, & weeded

*Wood sign or board

*Acrylic with 4 holes drilled – available from Craft Chameleon

  Note: Clear acrylic will not remain clear in a heat press however solid color or glitter acrylic works well.

*Heat press – heat 300 degrees, timer 5 seconds (settings may vary)

*Parchment Paper

*Scissors

*Hammer

*Decorative tacks or nails - availablefrom Craft Chameleon

*Old Towel

* Permanent Ink marker

*Item similar to a flat cookie tray or other flat metal tray

*Large heavy books to weight down the metal tray

* Optional – Power drill or Dremel type tool

You want to start by creating or opening a design and scale to size. Don't forget to mirror the
design since you will be cutting on Heat Transfer Vinyl.

Load your Heat Transfer Vinyl (glitter or smooth will work) on to your Silhouette cutting mat and cut the design. Weed it.

Cut the carrier sheet following around the heat transfer vinyl design. The carrier films leaves a slight impression, cutting the general shape of the design helps it disappear in the second press.

Place the htv design on the acrylic. Cover top and bottom of the acrylic with parchment paper. Teflon sheets are not recommended, as they impress a pattern on the hot acrylic.

The second press will finish bonding the vinyl to the acrylic and any lines made by the carrier sheet.

Press for 5 seconds at 300 degrees. Open press, carefully remove carrier sheet, recover with the parchment paper, and press again for another 5 seconds.

Wait! What is this photo of? Well I didn’t have a cookie sheet or heavy books so this was my work around.

After the second pressing, you will need to let your acrylic cool under something flat and heavy thus the flat metal sheet & books in the supplies list. Be sure to leave the parchment paper on both sides of your acrylic. 
Shown above, a flat metal plate with a heavy box under which is warm acrylic! The larger the longer it takes to cool




The final step is to attach the acrylic to the board using decorative tacks or nails. Depending on the type of wood used in your sign, pre-drilling pilot holes is a good idea. For the last few taps on the nail head use a folded towel over the area to avoid marring.

Pair the acrylic board with the permanent marker of your choice and the Guest Book Board is ready to go. I had so much fun making the first one, I made a second. In fact I love these so much I am sharing the files, so enjoy!

Wait What?! Flat Leon has been at it again!

Join Flat Leon Insider's Club (purple tab on the bottom left home page) Join Now!

Woohoo let's shop!

Plus now through the end of July he is slipping a free gift in every package!

Canvas Pillow Covers

Just in time for Fourth of July is a fun post using a $3.89 canvas pillow blank from Craft Chameleon.

After preheating the canvas blank, I laid out the text and the white background portion of the heart flag.

I did a quick press just to get the vinyl to stick to the canvas before adding the red flag stripe layer.

I lined up the red flag stripes to where I thought it looked good and did a full press with all the layers. Because the total design was larger than what fits on my 15x15 heat press, I had to press the text separately. After doing the full press with the heart flag and "America", I added the 1776 to the bottom and pressed that part of the design only.

Here is the pillow blank after all layers and design elements have been pressed on.

And here is the final product, stuffed and decorating our couch.

Home of the Free

How lucky we are to live in a country where we are free?

Enjoy your July 4th!!

Leon Is Here!!

LEON IS HERE!!!! Get YOUR 10% Coupon!! 
Visit the new website! 100's of new shapes and each day a new acrylic shape will be added! www.craftchameleon.com

Easy Baby Stat Gifts

Cubbies seem to be all the rage lately. They are adorable and it is a nice way for parents to have a personalized gift with their brand new baby's birth statistics.

This post will show an easy and fun alternative without needing an expensive embroidery machine, or needing to find those costly cubbie blanks.

The 18 inch American girl doll shirts are ideal for this. Not only do they fit the American Girl dolls, but they fit bears and other stuffed animals you can get from Build A Bear and other plush items you can find at your local stores.

I used a black and white doll shirt as I wanted to do examples of both a boy and a girl shirt. The girl shirt I made with light pink and white vinyl but unfortunately the differences in color didn't show well in the photos. I used a blue and black vinyl for the boy shirt.

 

I pressed each color individually.

 

I then pressed the second color and pressed both layers for the total press time.

 

 

 

 

Here are close ups of each of the finished shirts on a plush animal.

 



 

 

I hope this gives some inspiration on a new item to offer in your business or a wonderful gift to give.



 

 

 

School Superpower Keychain



Another school year is about to come to an end. With the rush and excitement of summer vacation arriving, it is a good to remember a nice way to thank those teachers that have educated your child over the past year.

I love the apple acrylic keychain blanks from Craft Chameleon. I really like the bright color of the red and love the glitter red keychains. However, the school my son attends has purple and gold for their school colors, which just does not look good with red. So I used a clear blank for mine.

I cut the text and the mascot out in purple vinyl and the superhero emblem and first letter of the school name in a gold yellow vinyl.  I weeded both designs while they were still on the vinyl carrier sheet.



I layered the two designs together still on the vinyl carrier sheet. I find this helps to avoid bubbles and makes the application process a little easier.

I peeled one side of the brown paper off the acrylic blank.



I added the triangle bail and heavy duty split key ring to finish off the keychain. I think this is a simple and unique item that teachers will appreciate.

The finished item shows a 3 inch white acrylic circle. The design works well on various acrylic shapes. However, the different acrylic was used for photographic purposes only.

I hope this helps to inspire you to create a fun end of year teacher appreciation gift!

Coasting into Mother's Day No Silhouette Needed!

I am so excited to be doing my first blog post here. With Mother's Day being about 6 weeks away, I thought it would be fun to make some posts for Mother's Day gifts you can make yourself.

I love the blank acrylic blank coaster sets from Craft Chameleon. I especially love that they come in a set of 4 blank coasters and include the feet. This makes it so easy to customize and finish. The coasters themselves are nice and thick so they hold up to lots of use.

I made the design in Silhouette and printed them on my inkjet printer. I couldn't find my cardstock so I used regular copier paper. After letting the ink dry, I sprayed acrylic sealer over the images.

  Once the sealer had dried, I cut out the designs to make it easier to apply to the coasters.

I removed the protective paper coating from both sides of the coasters. 





 Using a foam brush, I applied the modge podge to one side of the blank coaster, which would then become the bottom side of the coaster. Then I applied the cut out design onto the mod podge, right side up.



 After letting the mod podge dry for a couple of hours, I applied 2 more coats of mod podge to the backside of the design to help seal it and secure it on the coaster. I applied the coaster feet right after I had applied the final coat of mod podge.



 Here are 2 finished coasters. I did experience some of the ink bleeding from the modge podge even though I used a sealer. I would recommend using scrap book paper or card stock if you are printing your own images. I think the copier paper is just too thin to hold all the ink.

I hope this helps to inspire you for some fun and different ways to use these coasters.

We'rrreeee BACK!

Sorry for the long break! We took off for Atlanta and have returned. Here we are before the doors opened on the first day. From left to right- Jodi, Shelley, Peggy, Jamie, Chaney, Candi, Sarah.

Now that we are back and I have this photo, I want to introduce our new Blog Editor, Sarah (now you can put a face with a name).

Let's welcome her and I am excited to see all the great things she will bring with her!