with grace & lace: my craft

today i thought i'd share what i did with my craft for girl's christmas. i know you're itching to try it so you can give great gifts to all your favorite people too!

like i mentioned before, i stole this idea from ashley ann @ 'under the sycamore'. her tutorial is {here}. her pics & final product are both far superior to mine but if it gives you comfort to know that a non-crafty crafter can do it too, please continue reading!

i went to none other than hobby lobby to gather all my supplies {surprise surprise}. unfortunately, the day i went nothing i wanted was 50% off but literally everything else was. that'll teach me for not shopping the deals. i bet if i had been on the look out this project could have cost half of what it did, if not less. so moral of the story, check their little flyer each week & then go gather all the supplies i'm going to tell you about.

you will need:
--canvas tote bag. i got the 18.5" w X 14" t. but they did have many different sizes and shapes to offer. this just happened to be my personal fave. mine was $3.99 per piece {not on sale}.
--fabric paint. this is suggested to be more durable than craft paint. i chose black because i had seen it on ashley's and knew that it would look good, there were only 5 or so other fabric paint colors to choose from & this was perfect for this project. i think i'm going to try the dark yellow for another design.
--paint brushes. i used two different sizes. one for the doily stencil & one to paint my letters
--krylon adhesive. ashley suggested using their 'paper finishes spray' & i used this:

it is repositionable throughout the life of the glue. it worked really well but smelled really bad.
--paper doilies. i got a 12 pack {i think} of 10" paper doilies. these can be found in the cake & candy making isle. these also come in different sizes if you wanted to try out something different.

--towel or drop cloth to work on {especially recommended if you're a mess-maker like me}
--card stock
--scissors
--computer / printer
--pencil
--time

ok on to the 'how to' of it all. here goes:

i first laid out my towel to work on & ironed my bags because they were really wrinkly. i then sprayed my repositionable adhesive onto the back side of my paper doily {not onto the bag}. this way when you peel it off later the bag will not even have a hint of stickiness {isn't that awesome?}. and when spraying the glue, do it on said towel if you don't want a sticky floor or table for life. then position the doily onto the bag where ever you wish. since it is repositionable you can move it around until it is 'just right'.

once the doily is in place take your fabric paint and fill in the holes. make sure to get in all the little crevices, having the tiny little dots makes it look all the more lacy. just paint within the frame of the doily, not of the outside edge, to get the effect shown. peel off the doily while the paint is still wet. ashley said that her's peeled off in pieces and that it wasn't a problem at all. mine stayed in one piece so i have no advice on that. lacy frame complete! the top two bags in the pic are at this stage. now on to monogramming...

i think ashley suggested freezer paper. i'm a cheap lil gal so i wanted to spend no more than i absolutely had to so i tried two other options. first i printed out my letters onto card stock. i ended up using different fonts for each because i liked some fonts more than others for each particular letter {i'm sure you understand}.
so after printing i used a craft knife / paper knife to etch the edges of the letters. my hope was to just pop out the letter and then lay the full sheet of card stock on the bag & quickly stencil/paint the letter on. if this had worked it would have been a very speedy process. but alas, i couldn't make clean enough lines with my craft knife {i don't have very steady hands or much arm strength} so i went for option #2.
i cut the letters out of the card stock with scissors {which didn't take as long as one might think} and it gave me a lot of control around curves & edges. this way i used the actual letter instead of the paper that it left behind. i hope you're following me. you can see my cut-out "R" on the top left part of my towel {see above}. i sprayed the back of my cut-out letter with my adhesive, placed it on my bag & traced it with a pencil. since i was using black paint i knew it would cover whatever i drew, i'm not sure if this would be true for lighter colors. maybe use disappearing ink for something like that? anywho...after tracing in pencil i went to work with a tiny square-topped brush to fill in the letters. i had to be patient because i'm not much of an artist.
after it was complete i ironed over the image to seal it.

FINAL STEP: share with all your friends. they will love you for it. & look how cute they look with them!? it was even more precious when they filled them all up with their goodies for the day. what a great way to personalize a tote that you need to be carrying around anyway!

i couldn't resist adding just one more doily 'do' to this post. this is from martha stewart {of course}. how sweet are these little tins with doily details? not to mention who wouldn't want this sweet container filled with sweets? yes please!