Cutting Vinyl with a Cricut {Mini Tutorial}

We posted a few weeks back about making your own Bean Bag Toss. We also mentioned that we were going to give the Bean Bag Toss we made to friends of ours as a gift. We wanted to customize the toss, so we decided to add some vinyl. Our friends just built a game room/bar next to their home *which is on acres of land out in the middle of no where. They have dubbed their new game room/bar as "The Joint in the Woods". We figured it would be most appropriate to add "The Joint in the Woods" to the Bean Bag Toss. 

I'll tell you right now--I don't have the best patience when it comes to applying vinyl. It can twist, tangle, and adhere to its self. Plus I can never seem to line it up straight. I do have the transfer paper which helps, but I'm still not 100% at the applying vinyl part. Mr. Woodsy and I agreed that I would cut out all the lettering and then he would apply the vinyl letters on to the Bean Bag Toss. Team work at it's best!

You'll notice in the pictures that their are paper cut outs everywhere. That's because I do a mock up for size and spacing prior to cutting the vinyl. I want to make sure that I'm not wasting one scrap of vinyl (lets face it--it's expensive). Plus this gives you a good idea of what the finished product will look like. Mr. Woodsy likes to measure out and draw a line (on the surface) where he will be placing the letters with a pencil. Just by Googling I found tons of tips and tricks for cutting vinyl. If you buy the Provocraft vinyl they give you all the settings on the directions. 

Here is what I found when working with vinyl: 

**Use a new(er) adhesive mat and a sharp blade**

*Definition of a Kiss-Cut: 

To die-cut but not all the way through the paper – commonly used for peel off stickers.

 Basic Shape:   

Blade Depth 3 

Speed 2-3
Pressure 2
Intricate Shape:

Blade Depth 3 

Speed 1
Pressure 2 

We used the basic shape settings for "joint; woods" and the intricate settings for the cursive words "in; the". I use the kiss-cut method if we are peeling off the letters and placing them our selves. I use a full cut-through method if I am using the transfer paper. Hope this tutorial helped. Feel free to e-mail us with any questions. 

What do you think of our now customized Bean Bag Toss? 

*Our friends absolutely loved them! 

Disclaimer: Provocraft did not provide us with any of the materials used nor are we being compensated for this post. This post is purely my own thoughts and opinions. 

Ribbon Rack {Tutorial}

Once again, we are debuting a new item from our custom craft room that Mr. Woodsy constructed last year! Today we will show you how to build your own ribbon rack! Originally, I wanted this measly ribbon rack and shelving unit at Michael's. I brought Mr. Woodsy to Michael's to see it, and as soon as he saw it he said he could build one that was bigger and better for a fraction of the cost. I took him up on his offer, and voila! He came up with an 8 row ribbon rack! Once again, Mr. Woodsy has put together a brief tutorial on how to make your own ribbon rack. Remember, there are a wide variety of ways to make your own ribbon rack, this is just the approach he used! If you have questions, please don't hesitate to email us! 

For the ribbon rack I made a simple rectangular box with glued and nailed butt joints. You can personalize your ribbon rack to whatever size you wish, but remember to watch the length. If it's too long you might need to add a center vertical support for the dowels. The length of my dowels were 13.5”, if it's to long the dowels will bow. 

The length of the box on the inside is 13” so a ¼’ of dowel gets inserted in to the slots. As for the slots, I clamped the two sides together got an average size of the spools of ribbon (4  ½”) and divided the by the height of my box.  That gave me the amount of slots the I needed to route out.

I used a 3/8” upspiral bit to cut out each of the slots to the center of each of the side boards. Then I cut a 3/8” down cut to hold each dowel in place once mounted. 

*Pictured to the left is the ribbon rack and the right is the stamp rack*
I added bead board to the back of the rack for support and a little extra detail. Since we wanted all the furniture built for the craft room white, we painted the ribbon rack. I used a basic white water-based paint followed by a coat of water-based semi-gloss polyacryclic finish. *I did 2 coats of both white and polyacrylic. You can roll the white paint on but in order to get a smooth finish you must brush the polyacrylic on. 

Getting ready to nail the shelf in place. What is not pictured is the support brackets I made. It's up to you by the way you want to hang it. It should be wide enough to hit two studs in the wall if you want to hang it free standing. I didn't use that instead I used a scrap piece of wood that I mounted to the bottom and top (1 x 1). They were glued and nailed to the top and bottom of the rack. I then anchored and placed 2 screws in to the top and bottom parts of the wall. 

A few "test" rolls of ribbon on the rack... little did Mr. Woodsy know I would fill up the whole rack in no time! 

Here is what the ribbon rack looks like almost filled up! 

An upclose look of what the ribbon rack looks like filled. 

Paper Rack {mini-tutorial}

Featured on: Craft Gossip

Months after completion we are finally going to start rolling out our various post on our craft room make over. If you remember back in October, I gave a sneak peak of the desk that Mr. Woodsy built. 

Today, we are going to unveil the amazing (8 foot 3 inch tall) paper rack that Mr. Woodsy built for the craft room. Prior to the completion of the craft room I had boxes and boxes of paper, and most of the times I would go out and by new paper rather than sift through the endless boxes of paper. This was until I had an awesome storage solution. One of my goals with building the craft room was to have a paper storage area. I needed to be able to easily see all the paper I have. This is not going to be the most complete tutorial--more like a bare bones this is what you need to do to construct a paper rack kind of tutorial (since it's taken me months to get Mr. Woodsy to write a paragraph about how he built this monstrosity). If you have questions, please feel free to email us, and we will attempt to answer your questions! We did not find plans for this paper rack online. Mr. Woodsy drew them up himself and created this masterpiece himself! 

I used ½" MDF to create the cabinet section, the size of my cabinet was 13” w x 13”d x 93” h. I then clamped the two pieces together to create one consistent board (so I could dado cut into the mdf so that the shelves can be removed if needed).

I took a scrap piece of MDF to practice my dado cuts prior to starting on the real thing. 

I used scrap wood as my guide to keep straight lines. I spaced the shelves so I would get 2” spacings. Remember to account for the thickness of the shelves, I used a 5mm backing laun for my shelves. I dado cut the sides of the cabinet, so the shelves can be removed. I clamped both sides together measured down 3” for the face plate and 3” up for the kick plate.

Then I made marks every 2 ¼” put my straight edge across the sides and used my router with a ¼” upspiral bit to dado the ½” MDF to accomidate for the shelves. Each dado cut was ¼” in depth for the shelf to sit. *Remember to add a ½” to your 13” shelves.

After all the shelves are cut, just glue then nail the sides and top together. I also glued one of the center shelves to give the cabinet some support. Then added a 1/2" MDF board for the  backing of the cabinet. (*Yes the paper rack went all the way up to our attics door!)

 A close up picture of the rack prior to being painted. 

Since we wanted all the furniture built for the craft room white, we decided to paint the paper rack. I used a basic white water-based paint followed by a coat water-based semi-gloss polyacryclic finish. *I did 2 coats of both white and polyacrylic. You can roll the white paint on but in order to get a smooth finish you must brush the polyacrylic on. 

Mr. Woodsy rolling on white paint. 

Once the paint dried, move in your paper rack, and slide in all the shelves. 

*These pictures were taken right after moving in the paper rack from the garage. Mr. Woodsy did not think I'd be able to fill the paper rack--I easily proved him wrong! 

Every shelf is filled to the brim with paper and I'm now banned from buying any new paper!

 

DIY Fabric Bolts {Mini Tutorial}

For the past 6 months we have been working on redoing our (well really, let's face it MY) craft room. I have looked at ALL things organization and a few months ago one of my favorite blogs, Smashed Peas and Carrots did a post on studio organization and mini fabric bolts. As soon as I read Maggie's post I knew this is what I needed to do in my craft room! Then, recently, I saw that Budget Wise Home who has kicked off the new year with all things organizational did a post as well. They featured The Little Green Bean who had cleaned up there fabric piles with DIY Fabric Bolts as well with a fabulous tutorial!

Coincidentally, over the Holidays I finally finished my DIY fabric bolts! Depending on how much fabric you have will depend on how long this takes! I had received some free foam core a while back when my office building was moving. The foam core had some dents in it and they were in a trash pile. Me, being the apparent hoarder I am, and knowing that foam core can get quite expensive piled as much as I possibly could into my car to bring home. It found a home in our attic, and we've used it for a few Halloween projects! A few months ago I cut up the first board of bolts, but with a dull exact-o blade they came out rough and rigid! I wrapped a few fabrics, and instantly was over the fabric organizational project! I'm not sure if it was me persuading Mr. Woodsy to do some cutting or at the fact that he was tired of looking at a mound of fabric, but on a whim during our holiday break he had {within minutes} cut up some foam core, and brought me a pile of "fabric bolts"... and within a half hour I had used them all up and needed more cut! Ultimately, I think I filled almost 50 bolts on my book case. 

I don't believe that there is a standard size for this project. Depending on your shelf space will depend on how large your bolt can be. I wanted to be able to see a little bit of the white foam core and I wanted it to fill the shelf from top to bottom. My foam core bolts measured to be just shy of 12 inches tall by 6-3/4inch long. I had a few that were smaller only because we were trying to use up all the foam core! I do have some extra left over in case I get more fabric; however, now having all my fabric neatly organized I can see that I truly have no need to buy more fabric any time soon. In fact, my goal is to try to use some of this fabric before I go out and buy any more (that's going to be the challenging part--fabric calls my name)! I have quite a few cute projects in mind, and if I ever want new fabric I better use what I already own!