Hobby Haven

 This past weekend my friend and I stopped by a garage sale and they had a bunch of cool unique playing cards. One deck that we found has purple, blue, light purple and light blue stripes on the back and the cards are light purple/pink an light blue. The Diamonds and Hearts being light purple and spades and clubs being blue. The card box was a bit damaged so we decided to decorate a plastic card box that I had. We decided on a cotton candy theme due to the light purple/pink and light blue. We first found the cotton candy design we wanted and then we used the Cricut to cut the design out on light pink and light blue vinyl. For the cones we used white vinyl. We used holographic vinyl to cut out "Cotton Candy" to put on the front and we cut out some sparkle diamond to add onto the box. Overall, we definitely will be doing more of these because we loved how it turned out. Materials Needed: Cricut - Cutting machine Crayon Holder Box Vinyl - Light Pink, Light Blue and White Hologra...

A few days ago, I did my 2nd attempt at a mousepad since the 1st attempt didn't turn out how I expected. After work last week, I went to Hobby Lobby to get a another pack of mousepads. Since I already had the design picked out, I went ahead and printed it out on sublimation paper using sublimation ink. Just as a refresher, sublimation is a type of printing in which the ink turns into tiny particles and embeds itself into the surface of an object, creating a seamless and beautifully vibrant design that never peels or cracks. For the temp, this time I did 400 degrees instead of 350 degrees. I watched some videos on sublimation and most of the videos said you need to have it at 375 or above. I think the higher temp definitely worked better. Last time I said we burned them, but we actually didn't have the temp high enough so all the color from the design wasn't transferring to the mousepad.  Materials Needed: Access to a sublimation printer Sublimation Mousepads Heat Resistant ...

     A while ago I made some sublimation keychain wristlets. I made two different kinds, one was a sublimation keychain wristlet made out of neoprene and the other was made out of nylon webbing. The neoprene wristlet was definitely easier overall since it comes assembled already whereas the nylon webbing you need to cut the webbing to the length you want and then you also need some keychain fob hardware (the pliers and keychain fob). I first chose what design I wanted for the keychains and then measure the neoprene keychain and decided on what length I wanted for the nylon webbing wristlet. After I had the size dimensions for both, I was able to make a template so I could put the design on. After, I printed the designs out on sublimation paper using sublimation ink. Next I used my heat resistant tape to secure the wristlets onto the design. For the neoprene wristlet I wrapped the design around the keychain and for the nylon webbing I was able to just lay the piece of webb...

     This past weekend I attempted to sublimate a water bottle with a heat gun. I first went and bought a sublimation water bottle from Hobby Lobby. Next, I had to make the design I wanted for the water bottle so I measured the water bottle. Then, I used Affinity Designer to create my design. I found banner posters for some of the broadway musicals that I like. Below is what my design looked like. I then printed out my design on sublimation paper using sublimation ink. After, I attached my design to the water bottle using heat resistant tape. You want to make sure the design is tight around the water bottle and not loose. Next, I used my heat gun and applied heat over the design. Making sure I moved the heat gun around and not staying in one place too long otherwise I could burn the design. Once the design starts coming through pretty dark that's when you know the design has transferred to the water bottle. I removed the paper from the bottle and I saw that it didn't turn...

     Last Thursday, my friend and I made some sublimation coasters. We first bought some sublimation coasters. We got ours from Michaels and these ones were a bit more pricier than some of the other choices, but we decided to go with these because they had a bit of a marble look to them on the sides and we liked that these coasters were smooth and shiny compared to matte. Next we picked out 4 designs that were similar because we wanted to have a set of 4 coasters that were cohesive and go well together (same kind of art style). This part took us a while to get because it was surprisingly hard to find 4 different images in the same style that we liked. We finally decided on our 4 designs after maybe a couple weeks of slowly looking. We decided to go with a location theme. So the first coaster was of Venice Italy, the second coaster was of Zurich Switzerland, the third coaster was of Ibiza Spain and the fourth coaster was of Tokyo Japan. We first made the Ibiza coaster and ...