Image Transfer DIY

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Yesterday when I got lost in the endless Pinterest maze, I was actually looking for a way to transfer an image onto fabric. Since I made my pillow covers, I’ve been thinking they looked a little plain. I found a solution (I think!)

I still want to add to this but, now I know how to do it! It’s super easy! You need:

A printer
Wax paper
Scissors
Fabric

That’s it!

Remember everything will transfer in reverse. Good thing this was a test on scrap fabric!

Word… And my Sutro coffee cup…

I chose my image and put it into Word. Then I cut a piece of wax paper to around 8.5″X11″. I had to finagle it a little to get it into the printer. I wound up sticking it between two sheets of regular paper then pulling the top piece out. Hit PRINT. Then put the ink side down onto your fabric and rub, make sure it doesn’t move or it will smear. And don’t touch the image on the wax paper because the ink is wet. Voilà!

I need to figure out what else I’m going to put on this pillow cover because the chair turned out pretty small in comparison.

The chair is a drawing I did when we finally had to get rid of the original. It was around 13years old and it finally gave out in Oklahoma City. We definitely got a lot of use out of it!

I just hung up these two guys this past weekend. The top one was a DIY I made for Allen’s birthday present. We picked up some Command damage-free picture hanging strips. They are kind of like Velcro but they snap together. I love all the Command products!

With a camper, space is limited so the more you things you can hang and keep out of the way, the better… But you can’t really put nails in the wall, and the studs are never where you need them to be. I still wanted to hang some things to make it more “ours”… They are holding so far! Here are some more Command products currently in use:

On the backsplash behind the stove

On the bathroom wall

In the half bath AKA broom closet!

Allen’s 34th Birthday!

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Yesterday Allen got back to being 3 years older than me. Just how I like him! I usually try to make him something for his birthday since if I bought him something it would be like him buying himself something. Anyhow, I think this year’s gift turned out a little too girly for him. I tried to make it a little more manly but…

I wanted to make a canvas with a quote on it. I look at Pinterest all the time and I’ve been seeing some ideas on there for a couple of months now that really got my attention.

So I had a 10×10 canvas. And I found an old book down at the laundry room here at Candlestick RV Park. I had modpodge already. I had to buy some sticker letters. And I had spray paint. Here’s how I did it:

First I modpodged the old pages of the book onto the canvas and let that dry. Then I put the sticker letters on how I wanted them. I looked for vinyl sticker letters but couldn’t find them. I checked Walmart, the Dollar Tree, and JoAnn Fabrics. No luck. And being this is San Francisco, I’m not too keen on cruising around in the truck. More on that in a second.

Once I had the letters placed how I wanted, I spray painted the whole thing with silver. I could’ve went with hot pink, leftover from my pink flamingo, but, like I said, I tried to make it manly! I wanted to just cover part of the canvas and leave some of the book showing through but it was ridiculously windy and I was worried about overspray… So I nixed that idea. I let the paint dry and peeled the letters off carefully. Then gave it one more coat of modpodge to seal the deal.

I made some wrapping paper out of the same book paper and tied it with twine. I thought it came out really cute. I’m not so sure Allen felt the same way. Ha!

But I made him a quiche and some waffles for dinner yesterday (He loves breakfast for dinner. And breakfast for breakfast.) so I think his birthday turned out okay overall!

This was Saturday night

So back to this truck driving situation. I drove, with Allen in the passenger seat, Sunday, 2.1miles to the grocery store and back. I parked in a tiny lot. I drove down tiny San Francisco streets, I passed a MUNI (city bus) on one of them with cars parked on either side also. Allen says my driving privileges are revoked while we are here. I’m fine with that. I had big plans but I can’t drive that huge thing here. That truck is made for Oklahoma or Texas or even Florida. Not San Francisco.

Charlie’s 2nd Birthday Party!

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

It was very successful! She turned 2 on Friday and we threw a little BBQ shindig on Saturday at our house, parked at Candlestick RV Park here in San Francisco. All the guys from work came over, along with our neighbors and their dog. I think everyone had a blast! We had really good weather so we got super lucky on that front!

The guys from work, and me

Charlie digging a hole

I got a Selfie Stick when I was at the airport, so we had some fun with that! We cooked burgers and Mets and brats and shrimp kabobs and a bacon wrapped pork loin, with baked beans and potato salad and ice cream cake. Those boys can eat!

the tower crew

I definitely needed to have some fun. I’ve had kind of a rough week, mostly bad dreams and nightmares. I did some Googling on bad dreams and grief and apparently this is normal. Not fun. But normal. So I guess I’ll just take it as it is and hope for the best.
Charlie had fun also. I bought a squirt gun (for her birthday-what a crappy present!) and used that for the first time yesterday whenever she got nuts and started barking like a little maniac. I think it’s working!