DIY Screen Print Wifey Shirt

Do you have a friend that has impeccable taste in everything from clothes to food?

I have three. 

One of them even has her own blog about that awesome taste of hers.
It's called Style me Southern and you should check her out. She's adorable.

I follow her on instagram and one day she posted a picture of this shirt that
I HAD TO HAVE!!

It was from Ily Couture

I was a wife and LOVE letting people know how much I enjoy being a wife...

This was MADE for me.

So, I went to the shop but I wasn't quite ready to splurdge that much...
Even though I know it's probably the best quality and amazing.

I figured I could probably do it myself though and if I couldn't... I had a backup to buy it.

So what was the harm?

I ran out and got some Vintage Tee's from Old Navy and some Simply Screen Print paint.

This is my new paint. I've bought a bunch of it and this was my first time trying it.

   

I've only found it at Hobby Lobby so don't bother with Jo-Ann's or Micheal's, they aren't fan's of it.

A lady at The Creativity Exchange said this was the BEST paint to use on fabrics because it didn't bleed and it had the richest hughes. She's been crafting for like 30 years so I figure she knows her stuff.

I'm going to use it to make my gold confetti curtains this week but it seemed wise to test it out on a
t-shirt first.

So, I started with a design I did quickly in Microsoft Word.

wifey

I used the font KG Hard Candy. You can download it for free here.

I had done a test print on regular paper first to make sure the Wifey was the size I wanted on my shirt.

Then I found my freezer paper and this is where I had to get creative.

You want to print on the NON SHINY side of the paper. The shiny side is the wax you will use to stick your design to the t-shirt with an iron.

Normally since freezer paper is all curled up it curls so it won't go straight into your printer.
Now to fix this you would just spray glue it to a piece of paper.

That was not a good option since I wanted to iron the paper onto my shirt later so I didn't want to ruin the waxy side with glue.

I took one edge of the freezer paper and put a strip of glue from a glue stick on one side and stuck it to a regular piece of paper. Then I ran that side first through my printer.

Worked like a charm and it didn't ruin the entire paper. I could just cut that edge off.

I pulled out one of my new Christmas presents from the BEST HUBBY EVER.
Sigh... I love that man. So sexy and so amazing...

Sorry... was distracted.

Anyway, I pulled out my Xacto Knife Box. It has like more Xacto knife sizes and blades then I will need in a lifetime. It's super dangerous too... I cut my finger open the first day having it. Lame...

I had an old cutting board and went to town.

I kept all the hole cut outs from the swirl in the w to the f, e and y since I'm going to use those still.
You can add these to your shirt with an iron so you won't have to guess about where to paint around.

I set my iron to cotton blend and put the shirt on a cheap t-shirt cardboard cut out that I got for $1 at Hobby Lobby. I taped the shirt to it to make sure the fabric was tight. I didn't go super tight since the shirt was stretchy and I didn't want it to be oddly stretched on the front of the shirt and look wonky.

I ironed on my cut out and made sure it was on their tight, running the iron over it multiple times to make sure.

The Awesome thing about this screen print paint is that it doesn't bleed.

No, seriously... it doesn't bleed. It's pretty epic.

I did a few coats of the gold paint till I got it to a color I liked.

Then I waited for it to dry.

A whopping ADD Crafter 5 minutes.

Super hard five minutes...  I even took a blow dryer to it to speed it up.

I peeled off the cut out and

BOOM!!!

Wifey shirt.

Love. Love. Love.

Loved it so much I made another one in white. The gold one is for a friend's Birthday. Shh... she doesn't know. I mean... she probably will figure it out reading this though... drat.

Not too bad for less then $10 and about a half hour of my time.

Win.

I tried to model it like Megan does in all her cute selfies...

Yea, I'll leave that stuff to the professionals.

Supplies Needed:
- Design
 - Printer with paper
- Freezer Paper
- Glue Stick
- X-acto Knife
- Cutting Board
- Iron & Ironing Board
- Cardboard
- T-shirt
- Screen Print Paint
- Paintbrush

Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to Pin it all over Pinterest.

Many Wifey's be needing this shirt y'all.

God bless and Much Love,

 Jessica 

Simple Valentine Mantle & Easy Valentine Ideas

Seems rare that I decorate BEFORE a holiday...

But it happened:

And majority of that stuff I already had. I picked up some photo frames lying in my photo frame bone yard upstairs (What is that you ask? It's every photo frame I've bought or had over the years shoved into one corner upstairs until I can figure out where to put them... nice huh?)

Some were old and I just kept the photo in them and it made a pretty cool time capsule of our entire relationship. 

The Pom Pom Garland is my favorite.

I bought this giant bag of poms, dumped them out on the living room floor and let the boys go at it while I strung whichever ones they threw at me with a needle and some baker's twine.

Talk about a craft Win Win.

Now enough about Mantles...

Let's talk about Love.

Time to get talking about how you'd like to knock your spouses socks off this holiday season. 

I'm a big fan of the hilarious Valentine card: 

It's still not too late to do the 14 Days of Valentine's theme!

One of my favorites was getting a set of nerf guns, building a fort and having an all out war. 

This year I can't tell you what I'm doing because he reads my blog...

Which I always feel super loved that he does cause I know how boring these things can be. :)

But sometimes just the small effort of a card or a homemade breakfast is just what a hubby needs to let him know that we are always thinking about them.

Valentine's day doesn't have to be extravagant.

You and your hubby not really into the pagen holiday because everyday is Valentine's day?
Find a couple with young kids and offer to babysit for them!

Have a bunch of single friends who hate the holiday? Throw them a red and pink bash at your house.

Valentine's Day is just another reason for us to love on one another.

Matthew 22:36-40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

It's the greatest commandment for a reason.

Spread the love this February! Whether it be wishing a stranger a great day, telling someone how sexy your hubby is (this always makes people laugh) loving on your Man or loving on others...

Don't waste a minute of what God has blessed you with.

God bless and Much Love,

 Jessica

DIY Herringbone Stripe Accent

A woman's mind is a very intricate and crazy thing.

This post is proof of that in the fact that one small idea... suddenly turned into an entire room makeover.

I was cruising Pinterest and saw this adorable floating shelf.

I wanted to build a floating shelf. :(
Where could I build one? ... Hey it would look good over a washer and dryer.

I have a washer and dryer! It needed a shelf!

While I immediately began schematics and how to pull this off I realized I'd have to paint the walls before putting this puppy up.

Downer.

So, then I spent three days trying to figure out what to do with this little yet vital space all so that I could build a shelf for it. I tossed around orange and violet and... just wasn't feeling it.

I was about to give up on my little shelf idea when I remembered one of my favorite pins that I've wanted to always do but never knew where I could do it:

YES!!!

But I didn't want to do the WHOLE room in that so I just decided on the entry walls, the one to the garage and the one into the house which left me with two eight foot blank white walls.

One has the shelves, washer & dryer and all my new stuff I'm going to build in there.

The other... was just blank.

That's how I got to this crazy-ness:

But how I got to that was through this insane process of looking at Pinterest, needing a shelf, having to pick a color, deciding to wallpaper and then needing an accent for an 8 foot wall on the wall I was not wallpapering.

I hope reading these things make your brain feel better about itself. :)

If I can make you think you aren't so bad by comparing yourself to my craziness, this blog is not in vain.

So, I painted all the walls white with some white paint from a 5 Gallon Bucket I bought during a Home Depot paint sale (Yay... $5 off... wooo...) and that brightened up the room ALOT.

Then I decided to use more left over paint from the Boy's playroom making all the paint in this process: FREE.  Score.

Now the Herringbone pattern is pretty much a spastic Chevron pattern on acid.
Come on, we are all thinking it but no one ever says it even though it's true.

I knew it would require A LOT of painters tape.
Now, no painters tape is really as good as they say. They leak, they pull paint off... but there are some that are WAY better than others.

I am a big fan of Frog Tape and when I'm doing stripes it's my go-to.
Sadly, Frog Tape doesn't make an under inch strip that I could find easily so I bought this 3M Gridlock tape. It was easy to use, adorable... not as good as Frog Tape but it did do the job!

I first decided how big I wanted the accent stripe to be. It was going to be the whole length of the wall and then I took a tape measure and just eyeballed how wide I'd want it.

I drew it out to see how I wanted my stripes to go:

I started with the base stripes and put them 8 inches apart making my whole accent strip about 2ft 8inches to give me the four sections.

I based it loosely off of this picture because I liked that it wasn't completely uniform so in case I really messed up I could be like, "No! I totally planned for it to look like that."

Having my plan in my head (and on paper) I took my level and a pencil and started marking on the wall. This may not be the BEST way to make a straight line but it hasn't failed me yet.

I start at one end, draw the line then just keep moving the level down the wall until I have it all the way making sure to keep matching the lines up.

Thankfully I was having my monthly craft day with some awesome ladies and they were super kind to jump in and help me:

We laid down our base lines even though we had little "helpers" trying to remove it.

As I was getting ready to put the angled strips on my incredibly wise friend Amy pointed out we needed an angle so that our lines would all look the same

She's a smart cookie.

She told me I could use a jig but that if I didn't know what that was (which I didn't) or didn't own one (which I did but again, didn't know what it was) we could make one with an index card.

That I did have and knew what it was.

We decided on an angle and cut the card at that angle so we could use it as a template for the other tape lines we were going to put on.

It was easy and with someone helping you, you can knock it out quick.
My friends Sarah and Claire did the first line then left the rest to me.

I was able to put up the tape in about an hour and a half.
It was time consuming because you had to keep matching the angles.

What I didn't do was match up all my stripes. Every once in awhile I'd put it at a different spot just because I didn't want it to be perfect.  I liked the more modern Herringbone pattern that makes a bit of craziness look stunning.

Now I was ready to start painting! 

When you are doing stripes or accents with painters tape here are some 

IMPORTANT rules:

1. Paint the edges of your tape in your base color. My wall was white, so I painted every edge of my tape with the white paint. ALL TAPE BLEEDS. But if you paint the edges of your tape with your base color, it will bleed the color that is already there rather then the new one you are about to slap on.
2. Once you paint all your edges, paint on your color and don't be stingy. Paint it thick.
3. Remove as fast as you can. Don't let the paint dry on your tape. When you are done, take it off. Don't let it sit there to marinate or something else. If it dries completely it will dry with the tape there so when you pull the tape off... the tape will bring it's dried on paint friend with it. 

I decided I wanted some white herringbone stripes with my pattern so once I'd finished painting the tape I took strips of ripped post it notes and started to count. I started at one end and counted each slice to 12 and stuck a post it note. I continued doing this all the way around and it ended up perfect.

Choose any number you want depending on how many different color stripes you want.

Putting the sticky notes helped me to remember not to paint there when I was going to bring in my color.

When you remove the tape for this it is going to be tricky since all the tape will stick together.

So, if you pull a base line be prepared for all the little shoot off angles to come with it! 

It's quick, messy but instant gratification because THIS is hiding underneath...

It's fun and quirky and matches the rest of the boy's wing perfectly.

I was talking to Bryan tonight and observed that my personality somewhat dominates my design style:

Bright and Loud. 

There ya go. 

Not to bad for a day's work.

Now after I pulled off the tape I did have to do touch ups with a smaller painters brush but nothing compared to if I hadn't used the tape at all. Just don't panic if that happens and you need a few touch ups. You still did an excellent job!! And after you fix it, no one will ever know. 

And if you like that Vintage Key Rack you can check out a tutorial for it here. 

I have my own Instagram account now! 

Now you can follow me on Instagram and see what I am up too before the blog comes out! 

Follow me at #mccartydesigns

Also don't forget to subscribe to the right! Just enter your e-mail and you'll make me the happiest person ever. 

God bless and Much Love,

 Jessica

This has been linked up to the Work It Wednesday Linky Party.

Hey 2014, how you doin?

Why hello there 2014

I'm not really very good at New Years Resolutions. Looking back at what I didn't accomplish the year before and trying to again be better than who I am the next year usually just makes me a bit depressed.

Yet, my husband is always determined to be my biggest fan so he's been bothering me with goals and how he can help me become the woman I think I need/want to be.


Make little goals, he would encourage.

A little goal can turn into a big accomplishment over time and though they seem insignificant now, they may foster bigger and better things down the road.

While I have some home goals like finally getting around to doing my mint dining room, gold confetti curtains and wall pappering maps into my laundry room (oh yea, it will all be epic).

My main goal for this year is to play.

I have a pretty adorable 3 year old and 1 1/2 year old running around my home and currently their biggest desire is to get me to put down my computer or whatever I am cleaning and play with them.

Me. They want to play with me. All day long.

That isn't going to always be the case.

I blink and they will grow up.

This year I'm going to treasure them since in about five minutes they will be all grown up and going to college. They will be getting married and not needing me anymore.

Right now -- They need me.

And they need me to be my best.

Another goal I have... surround myself with the best cause I know they will rub off on me.

I've had the pleasure of making some truly amazing friendships over the years. Women who inspire me, make me laugh, cry with me and often put up with me.

They have skills and personalities that I'd love to cultivate and when I hang out with them...

While I know my crazy side rubs off on them, their amazing side hopefully rubs off a little on me too.

This year let's remember the people God has put in our lives for a purpose.
To treasure them, make memories with them and encourage them into the woman (or little man in the case of my kiddos) that God has called them to be.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not   another to lift him up!

And  if we get around to making awesome gold confetti curtains... Bonus.

God Bless and Much Love,
Jessica

A Nativity Christmas Mantle

I haven't been very much on the ball with Christmas this year.
In fact there is still a box of decorations in my dinning room and a decor meltdown happening in my kitchen with our church group's Christmas Party happening on Thursday.

Yea... but my dishes were done! Priorities.

But I did somewhat plan ahead. I knew I wanted to make a giant sign for my mantle.
My mantle space is HUGE.

Everything I put on it always looks super tiny so I decided to make something that would finally fill the space. It ended up being 4ft tall and 3 ft wide.

It was a beast.

It doesn't photograph well but it's beautiful in person. Promise. :)

The Star I made from Lowe's yard sticks using this lady's adorable tutorial from the 20 Minute Crafter.

I wouldn't recommend using Lowe's yard sticks because Lowe's painted numbers and etched on their yard sticks so I actually had to put like three coats of primer on it to cover their imprint.

The swag is just from Michael's. I added an extra pine cone swag to it that you can see by itself in my Thanksgiving Mantle. They look fantastic together! I want to keep it up all year long.... sigh...

We hung our stockings with command hooks cause seriously the person who made those is a genius.

You can never go wrong with red berries in green bottles. I collect bottles all year long that are random sizes or colors. You can spray paint them, glue on them, etch them, ect. They are a fun versatile decoration you can pop in anywhere.

Bryan added his family's antique nativity set, way out of reach of tiny little hands.

The rest of the house may be in chaos but the mantle is shining bright!

God bless and Much Love,

 Jessica