This year when I attended CHA, I was invited to the Prime Publishing Blogger Event. Prime Publishing are the creators of a large variety of food and crafting websites, including FaveCrafts.com
I should have brought my camera and snapped a few pictures at the event to show you how many people were at this event, and the different companies represented. As you walked into the room there were tables set up around the perimeter of the room, and at each table were representatives from different companies including
Styrofoam Crafts
Then, when we arrived home we received a box with various product from these companies. Now we have all kinds of new products to create with. We were also told that if we created something with any of the products in the box we could then enter that project into the Best Blogger Craft 2015 contest. At first I felt like my mind was a total BLANK . . . what am I going to create? It needs to be something that inspires others, and creative, but it would be good if it was something that was trendy and current.
I was looking at the Design Foam from Fairfield . . . have you seen this? It is foam that has an adhesive back and there is a grid like pattern cut into the front side of the foam.
Here is a close up photo of the grid pattern on the foam.
Each square of the grid measures just a little under 3".
The first idea I had was to make a quilt like wall hanging for our living room, using the same fabric that I just used to make new throw pillows for the couch, but that just did not seem like something unique enough for a Best Blogger Craft Contest to me.
Then it came to me . . . Scrabble Tile Art! I see tons of Scrabble tile art and craft projects on Pinterest, where people spell out sayings or the names of family members with the Scrabble tiles and put them in a frame. So what if I reinvent the trend of Scrabble tile art with fabric squares that fit into the grid on the Design Foam.
I decided to the the phrase LOVE YOU for this project. You could pick any words or even use the names of a couple (for a cute wedding gift) I used my Brother sewing and embroidery machine to embroider the letters LOVE YOU and a heart onto some left over off-white fabric I had. I ironed on some fabric stiffener to the back since I knew the letters would embroider to the fabric better that way.
If you don't have an embroidery machine, you could recreate this same look by using large letter stamps to spell out the words you would like.
After I had all of the letters embroidered I cut the squares down to size. The package of Design Foam had directions on the inside that tell you the size of fabric to cut depending on how big of an area of the foam you want to cover. They even figure out what you will need for wrapping the fabric around the edge and corner pieces.
Before I tucked each square into place on the grid I did use a little bit of Fabric Fusion to the back of each square, just over the area where the stitching for the letter was. This helped to hold the piece in place while I tucked, and made sure that nothing moved when I tucked in the next square on the grid.
You can tuck it in with your fingers, or grab a crafing tool to help push it in and make a smooth line. I really thought it was going to be hard to get nice smooth lines, but everything tucked in so easily!
I just kept adding letters one at a time, and then I added a heart to the bottom.
The heart was bugging me. It was not as thick as the letters. So back to the sewing machine.
This time after I sewed the heart once, I used the sizing option on my Brother machine and selected the decrease size option, and then I sized down twice. Since I kept the center of my image in the exact same spot, it embroidered a second line just inside the first one.
I decided to repeat this one more time, so in the end I had created 3 hearts, each one inside of the other. After I removed the fabric from the hoop and trimmed all of the strings, it heart ended up having a nice thick outline.
MUCH BETTER! And since each one of these were their own individual piece it was really easy to change that one square with the heart on it out. Can you imagine if this was a wall hanging quilt that was all one large piece? I would have had to start all over just to change that one square with the heart!
Now all that was left to do is wrap the remaining sections in some shiny red fabric I had in my stash.
I did each of the corners as their own section, and then the rest of the grid in separate square, just to keep that "tiled" feel for the project.
Here is a close up of the heart. I think that the technique of using the resize tool on the machine and sewing the heart inside of itself worked really well to make a thicker image.
Because I decided to use this as a table top decor piece I also covered the back of the Design Foam. This was so easy to do since the Design Foam has an adhesive back. And since the entire piece is 12" x 12" you can cover it with a standard piece of scrapbooking cardstock. And if I want to hang it up, I can easily add a hook to the back too, but I really like it for a table top piece. I think it goes perfectly on the table in our entry.
I also trimmed the back with the clear rhinestone sticker sheets from The Buckle Boutique, just to add some extra sparkle to the project. I love how you can just cut these rhinestone sheets with a pair of scissors to whatever size I need, peel off the backing to expose the adhesive and stick for instant sparkle.
Here is one last picture of the finished project on our entry table. I am leaving this out for Valentine's Day and it will be the first thing that any of our guest see when they enter our house.
Thank you to Prime Publishing, FaveCrafts and all of the companies that attended the 2015 Blogger Event at CHA! A special thank you to Fairfield for sending me the Design Foam to create with.
Be sure to watch for the voting to begin February 25th where you can vote on YOUR favorite project to win the Best Blogger Craft 2015! I will post a link to the voting once it begins.
What a creative gift for Valentine's Day! Thank you for the detailed tutorial.
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