Talent Feature Tuesday: Natalie Bennett

As a Relief Society, we would like to be able to show off some of our girls talents! Check out NATALIE BENNETT's crafts she has made and descriptions below. She also blogs over at http://www.nat-natty-nat.blogspot.com. Check her out!!!!

 

For Christmas I wanted to give my mom and mother in law something practical instead of the usual scented soaps, or bath and body works products. I decided that I could make them each an apron. I went to the fabric store and found three different fabrics that went well together. I made the backing of the apron the same fabric as the ties. Then with the other two pieces of fabric I created the ruffles. When the aprons were done I put them inside of Mason jars, and tied a ribbon around the top with a recipe attached.

 

I decided that I wanted my favorite scripture (D&C 25:10) somewhere up in our apartment. I knew I couldn’t paint on the walls and I didn’t want to pay for vinyl that I would have to peel off and throw away when we move. So I decided to make them on wooden boards. I went to Lowes, and bought two pieces of fencing boards because they were cheap and long, then the people at Lowes cut them for free! I had them divided into thirds because they were each 6 ft. long. I then decided that I either needed to buy letter stencils or somehow make them myself. I decided to save on money I would find a way to make them at home. I should have bought them. I took me hours to make the stencils. I printed the words out on card stock, and then with an exacto-knife I had to cut around each letter, making sure I kept the small circles that went inside of the letters like “e” and “o”.  I had to start the project by sanding down the wood because it was really rough. I then painted the boards several coats of my favorite paint color (Jade Bath: which at Lowes and home depot you can buy sample sizes of any color for around $3). Once the boards were dried and all my stencils cut out, I lightly taped the stencils to the boards where I wanted them to go. I used white paint to do the letters. Some of the while bled through the stencil so I had to go back through and touch up my boards with the jade color. I finally finished the boards, and bought some hanging gadgets to nail to the back of the boards. I love having that scripture on our wall!

I took a cheap painting canvas, and traced a heart onto the middle of it. Then I taped off the areas around it to paint the stripes. After painting on the stripes I painted the heart area the same color as the buttons I found. After it was dried I took red thread and put it across the white stripes, and taped the ends of the thread to the back of the canvas. I then took a hot glue gun, and 2 packages of similar colored buttons, and glued each button around the heart area. Then at the bottom I painted the Me + You. It was a fun craft!