Monday, April 25, 2011

Spring Sign Tutorial {using juice can lids}

In case you missed the tutorial at Creation Corner, here it is! Hope everyone had a fabulous Easter weekend!
Enjoy!

Today I'm going to show you how to reuse those frozen juice can lids to make something fun and springy! Earth Day is this month, and this project is all about recycling and using up materials that you might already have on hand.
Supplies:
 6 Juice Lids from frozen juice cans
Fabric Scraps
Scrapbook paper scraps
Small piece of twine
A board {I recycled a wooden sign I had that I wasn't using by painting it}
Spray Paint
Chipboard lettering, vinyl letters or stickers will work too
Hot Glue/ glue gun
Modge Podge (but glue will work)
Scissors

 Spray paint your juice can lids and piece of wood. The spray paint does not stick really well to the juice can lids, but you only need it on the edges. Let dry for a few hours.( If you don't have a board, you could use a long piece of fabric, such as burlap. That would work also.) The board I had was black, and had a saying on it. I was tired of it, so I just painted it and reused it. 
While that is drying, cut your fabric for the ruffles. You need a strip of fabric about 2- 2 1/2 inches wide for each ruffle. I cut my fabric about 24 inches long, and ended up having a few inches left over that I cut off at the end.
 Fold your fabric strips in 1/2 lengthwise and iron.

Set your stitch length to 4, and run a long stitch for gathering along the raw edges of each ruffle piece. Leave the threads long on each end.  To make your ruffle, you are going to pull one thread from the end and the fabric will start to gather. {If you don't have a sewing machine, you could do this with a needle and thread.}

 Next attach the scrapbook paper to the juice lids. If you have a fancy machine, you could probably cut your circles out with that. However, I used scissors and traced the lids on the paper and cut them out. I used scalloped scissors to make the edge more interesting. I attached the paper using Mod Podge, but glue would work too. I hot glued the chipboard letters on afterwards. You could also distress the letters with ink or paint if desired. (If you don't have chipboard letters, stickers, vinyl lettering, or even printing letters off of your computer would work.)

Decide which way you want your sign to go. I wanted to hang mine on the front door, so I went with
vertical, but horizontal would work too.


Lay out your ruffles, deciding which fabric you want to go with which letter. Don't worry about the messy threads just yet. ;) Now you are ready to glue the ruffles onto back of the juice lids.

 Carefully, apply hot glue to the lid, and place the ruffle around the edge. Fold the raw edges under so they do not show.
 Once that is done, hot glue the pieces onto the board. It is easiest to apply the hot glue to the fabric, instead of the lid, when doing this. Now trim the threads and glue strings.
To hang the sign- I made a tassel and attached it to some twine.
To make a tassel, cut fabric into very small strips so it looks like ribbon. Tie it together in the middle, and attach to the twine. {You could use ribbon or wire to hang this up also.}
Hot glue the twine to the back of the sign, making sure it is even on both sides.

Hang your sign up and admire your pretty craft creation! ☺☺☺
 The best part of this is, it cost next to nothing! If you have a "stash" like me, you can just use it up to make this. AND no one will know you used juice can lids to make this. :) I'm off to start something similar for summer!
                                                           Happy Spring Everyone!



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1 comment:

the nayz said...

hands down, the BEST use of those juice lids ever!!

I can see these being used for every season, kids (family) names- oh my heads going to explode with all the possibilities.