Bee Happy Vignette/Sunday Funday Challenge/Sunflower Chalkboard Art /Bee Happy DollarTree Sign

Hello my crafty tribe, this is Artsy Maddie and let's get creative. So today I'm going to start off with this high-end chalkboard sign that I found at a thrift store. It's a little beat up, it's seen better days, but I could tell that it was super good quality. I think it's from Bombay and Company or a store like that. Like pretty high-end, you can tell with the mitered corners and even an inlaid piece to so I took it apart. I'm going to give the chalkboard part some new love with some new chalkboard paint and then I just glued together any of the little pieces that were wiggling loose or just coming loose. It looks like it had maybe been dropped or something in the past so it came apart really easy just like a picture frame. I just scuffed up the front of it with some sandpaper just to make sure that the new chalkboard paint will adhere well. So I already had some chalkboard paint on hand but I've learned now that Dollar Tree and Dollarama are selling little tiny bottles of chalkboard paint as well so it's a nice easy cheap fix. If you guys see one of these hanging around a thrift store it might be a great rescue and thrift flip for you. So I just tried to work in nice long even strokes. I gave it three coats and then for the actual frame it needed a really good cleaning and because of the lattice work on it it was a little finicky. I just went in with some little sticks to get into those little corners and grooves got it all cleaned up. So I decided not to repaint the whole thing. I had heard you say that you have used some of these furniture repair markers from Dollar Tree and I had used one of these previously and found it worked pretty well so I thought I'll give this a try see if I can just touch it up enough to get by. I don't want it perfect. It doesn't have to be perfectly perfect. I just kind of wanted to fix it up a little bit give it some new life and this worked out great. So I just went in with the dark brown and there was even a little bit of a cherry one of the furniture markers has kind of a cherry tone to it which is what this is kind of that bombay finish that they're famous for and then on the chalkboard itself I decided I wanted to do a really nice backdrop for my vignette. So I'm so into sunflowers right now. It's really just adding such a cheery happiness to my home. I'm really enjoying them so I thought I would just carry on with some more sunflowers. So here I'm just going to show you guys how to create some nice easy sunflower chalkboard art. So I'm using soft chalk pastels. They are a lot like chalk but just even softer and they come in much more vivid rich colors. You can pick them up at any art store or Michael's, Hobby Lobby, any of those stores would have them. They're quite inexpensive. You can get some really high quality ones that are very expensive but you don't need those just to do some fun chalkboard art. So just kind of a midline I would guess they're about 12 to maybe 15 dollars for a pack of like 48 colors so then you have this nice range of colors to work with. So just remember that you used to draw flowers as a kid and you can still draw them today and I'm just going to show you each of these steps. So a nice big circle, a smaller circle. I outlined the petals. You can tell they're not perfect. Some of them are pretty wonky but I'm just trying to show you you can do this. Believe in yourself you can do this. So for any color that I work with I usually try and have three shades. So a light shade, a medium shade and then a darker shade. So I'm working with my light yellow here just to outline petals and get kind of the shapes going and then I will be moving into the medium yellow and then I have an orange like kind of a light orange as my darker tone. So right now I'm just mostly focusing on the tips of the petals so just getting the shape down pat and then a nice thicker line at the tip and that'll be kind of the highlight of the petals. If you've ever looked really carefully at a flower usually the deeper richer tones are closer to the middle of the flower to the bottom in the middle and near the stem and then same thing for green. So I'm going to have a light green a medium green and a darker green. So now I'm going to just go in and kind of mark the line so from the center where the brown starts just outwards towards the tip you just kind of do a little flick of orange and that will mark the center bottom of each petal. So you'll see me just go through that you just kind of do a soft almost like a flicking motion you'll be able to get that nice center for each petal. You'll see me knock the chalk dust off a few times throughout so just to kind of get it out of the way so it doesn't start blending in with the colors I have on there I just kind of give it a little knock on the table and it knocks off all that chalk dust. So in the center of a big sunflower there's usually a little indentation and that can sometimes appear more green so I'm just giving that center a little bit of a green hue to it and then for the brown the center of the sunflower I'm creating that just with marks so I'm just it's not quite a dot but just a little mark with the brown colors of the chalk pastel. So just working in a circular motion same thing I have a light brown and a medium brown and I don't think it shows it here yet but I will add that cream color the palest yellow and then I think I bring in another brown later as well. So now I'm just going in with a white and running it down the length of at least one side of the petal just to define the petals just to make sure that they're definite and clear that each petal is a petal and then you can just go in and work with your medium yellow the real sunflower yellow and just fill them in. So you're just filling in each petal you don't want to cover up too much of the orange or too much of the pale but just fill in around it and then I just blend it a little bit with my finger so that'll just sink into any of the lower parts in the chalkboard that your chalk isn't hitting like you'll see the little dark dots kind of showing through the yellow so it just kind of gets rid of that and then I'll go back in with more yellow after. So again just doing those marks with the brown and creating that circle so now I'm going to define that middle part the little indentation in the sunflower just with a little bit of green and a little bit of the pale yellow same thing just marking it not quite dots but just marks because the chalk pastels are square they almost always come in a square format you'll get more of a like a little rectangle mark than a dot and that is perfectly fine I just want you guys to really notice how unperfect everything is but it all comes together that's what art's all about so just the impression of the sunflower it doesn't have to be perfect so just have fun with it it can be super therapeutic and if you thought paint is easy chalk is even easier you can just wipe it off and start again if you need to but I encourage you to just keep going and and push through and I'm sure it's going to turn out just fine so just working in circle motions I don't quite go all the way around in the circle I kind of break it up leaving some parts darker than others and now I have some actual chalk so this is just your normal chalkboard chalk and I'm just going in and getting some pointed edges on the sunflower tips with some white so just really defining those tips so it looks like the sunlight's kind of hitting them and they're much lighter and thinner at the tips of the petals and then the chalk that's up in the right hand corner so I have a green and yellow and orange and a white that are actual chalk I've never found chalk in a range of colors like I do with chalk pastels which is why I don't just use chalk because I can't get those different tones of each color but I do like to go in and use what I can of just regular chalk as well so just trying to define some of those little edges and lines with the chalk that I have and then same thing with the green I'll just kind of outline the leaves and do a bit of the veins that are on the leaves and that is it you guys this is our finished sunflower project so I totally encourage you guys to go for this you can totally do this it's great fun great therapy so just go for it and it gives such a nice background to the vignette you can do such big chalk art it's cheap it's easy so just go for it so for the next project this little be happy sticker sign I'm using a two by six piece of lumber that I cut down to the right size for the sticker I don't have the sizes in front of me but I can put those in the description box for you guys if you want them so this is just some white acrylic paint that I have mixed with some water to make a wash and then I just do this wash all over the two by six so I did the sides the ends just to be sure that none of it shows through so this is the be happy sign that I found at Dollar Tree and I just thought it was so cute that I had to do something with it so this is what I'm doing this little be happy sign so these napkins are from Ikea and they are three ply that last ply is sealed very well to the one ply like the ply that has the print on it so they are a little tricky to get apart but I did eventually get it apart and you just want to do single ply of a napkin for decoupage so I'm going in with some gloss decoupage and putting down the napkin and these napkins were so delicate they were like the most delicate napkin I've used and it was really almost too delicate for decoupage they kind of started to disintegrate right away as soon as they touched the Mod Podge so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this napkin but I'm just going to go through the process with you guys so you can learn from my mistakes more or less and just see what works for you I didn't mind this too much because I kind of wanted an old worn finish now I want you guys to be aware this is a seasonal thing that they sell at Home Depot and it's called Lath L-A-T-H and it's made by Canwell and you get 50 50 of these boards they're four feet long for 20 bucks so I mean you can't beat that price for lumber they're three-eighths inch thick and so they're a little bit thicker than a paint stir stick but you get so many of them I'm not able to buy paint stir sticks here so I'm always I mean to ask for some when I go and like whenever I'm at a Home Depot or a Lowe's and they always say oh sure and I say I wish you guys would sell them and they're like no no we just give them to you I'm like yeah but I want like 50 of them so I was so glad to see them carrying this for summer for the summer season it's a seasonal item so if you guys want them be sure to get them now while you can so I just trimmed around the sticker in a more detailed way I didn't want it to necessarily look like a sticker so I thought by cutting out the detail I might get a little better effect so I decided to try this napkin again I gave it a second a second round of this napkin decoupage and it worked out a little better I was just super super delicate with it I didn't touch it again with the brush and I didn't go over it with more more of the mod podge until it was completely dry so that was the tip I was going to give you guys if you do want to do this then just barely touch it like do not go back over it with the brush so then I'm going in with this sunny butter yellow it's from Dollar Tree so it's the butter yellow and I'm just going over all that laugh that I cut to be the frame for this two by six so I had given it a white wash as well and then just with the yellow over top it gives it that nice bright sunny yellow that I was looking for so then I just sanded over top of the napkin once it had dried and it gave this beautiful like really soft finish kind of a rustic I don't quite know how to describe it like a velvety kind of texture and just really pretty like a country kind of shabby chic look to it and I just really love it so I decided to do the other side of these frames just in case you do end up seeing them on the two by six because the edges are just that little bit rounded that I thought you might be able to see the back of the frame so I just thought I would paint them just in case and then I went in and marked all along the frame every half an inch so it doesn't have to be perfect I kind of wanted like a hand painted look to it kind of a watercolor look just like the sticker has so I just went in marked every half an inch and then just drew a line across the last the board for the frame so this is just using a regular sharpie and then I just went in with a detailed brush and just painted over the lines just to get that kind of hand painted watercolor feel that the sticker has so of course this is super detailed kind of over the top you wouldn't have to necessarily do this I'm just showing you every option being super creative take what you like leave what you don't sort of thing and just make it your own um but I thought you know bees are super popular this year I'm really enjoying yellow in my home it's just such an uplifting color it's the color of hope and it seems like a lot of you guys are too I see you guys decorating with lemons and sunflowers and bees and just everything happy and full of hope and I think that's what we all need right now so then just for that super detailed bee kind of feature on this frame I just went right around the whole entire frame with this black stripe and then it's the fun part you get to put on the sticker and it's so rewarding it's like you've just made this beautiful little sign and it's just a sticker so it just pushed it down really well and then because the sticker has a glossy sheen to it I decided to just go over it all with the gloss mod podge and then it helps it look less like a sticker and like it's all just the same finish so if you choose to do something with this sticker I would recommend that is just using the gloss mod mod podge and then it blends right in with the sheen of the sticker so I did the same thing with the frames I just gave them a coat as well of the gloss mod podge and then once everything is dry I just went with some hot glue and attached the frame to the two by six so I cut these all down to the perfect size I dry fitted them before I started painting everything so I would suggest you guys do that too just dry fit everything make sure you've got the right cuts because that's the best chance to go back and and trim anything down if you need to and then I love this so much I was gonna do just a paint some bees on the back of the picture but I loved it so much I went back to Dollar Tree and got a second sticker to put on the back side and the back side is just the white wash so you can see how well that looks too with the sticker I actually think it's really pretty you wouldn't really necessarily need to bother with that napkin step I think the white wash looks just as pretty so again I just went over it with that gloss mod podge just so that the sheen matches the sticker and just did nice long strokes with the grain of the wood and then they won't necessarily be as apparent like it blends in better if you just go with the grain of the wood so here is the finished project this is the napkin side sorry my lights are very bright so I think that's why that sticker stands out so much when that light hits it just right however I think it looks really beautiful I was really happy with the way this came out and then here is just the white wash side so you guys will have to let me know which one you prefer if you would go to the work of doing that napkin or just not be bothered and the white wash still looks really pretty I think too so today I am part of Sunday Fun Day it's an awesome collaboration between Deco Easy so this is Jani and Diane they are an awesome duo I love them so much I will have a link to their channel in my description box as well as a link to all the playlists so everyone that's joining in today all of our videos will be linked and you can watch them all and get super inspiration they have a new collaboration with Crafting Cousins for Sunday Fun Day and I already love Crafting Cousins they're one of my favorite channels as well Kate and Trish and they do such fun awesome crafts they're like the queen of crafting they've been doing it all their lives so they have lots of experience and lots of fun tips and tricks for you guys so I'll have a link to their description or a link to their channel in my description box as well so moving on to the next craft I have these two sweet little garden ornament bunnies that I found at Dollarama they were four dollars each and I thought I had the perfect plan for them so I'll show you what my plan is down the road here but I just wanted to start with a white coat of paint so this is just the linen rust-oleum chalk paint and then this tissue paper you guys I love this tissue paper the moment I saw it at Dollar Tree isn't this pretty I just think it's the prettiest prettiest pattern with all this lovely greenery on it so this is a super tedious project now it doesn't have to be but I'm just going to show you the very best way to do this I think and then you guys take it or leave it if you just wanted to do this with the sheet of Mod Podge and just go for it and try and get the best results you can that would be great as as well like I'm sure that would turn out fine but I just took the time cut out all these little greeneries to applique individually to these rabbits and I think I got the best results possible for decoupage so I was showing it to my oldest son today and he's like mom did you paint these like he couldn't tell and he was looking at them right in his hand like right up close so this blends in so well and you're able to go over all those little curves and features when you cut them out detailed like this so it is tedious it is quite a few I think it took me about three hours to cut out enough of these little greeneries to do the bunnies but I think it was really worthwhile I'm really really happy with the results so you guys will have to let me know do you guys like crafts like this um would you do it this way or could you not be bothered with that it's too much work um I've always enjoyed cutting little things since I was a kid I think even when I was maybe in preschool I used to like to cut out like super detailed things I would cut out little pictures from the catalogs and then put them in my dollhouse little pictures of pictures and pictures of clocks and stuff it's kind of funny but anyway I find it really relaxing so I cut out all this greenery decoupage these bunnies I love the way they turned out I am so happy with them and I just went all over like a complete pattern all the edges even the little feet and by cutting them this way you can get into those little details just perfectly and the texture of these bunnies just shows through the decoupage and I think it looks so great so when they were all done I was super pleased with them but I had originally planned to paint the eyes and then I just couldn't decide if I was going to paint the eyes or not but I decided to just go for it so because I can show you guys how to do that and then by all means if you did this project and didn't want to paint the eyes I thought they looked just great without it but I just want to show you guys what they look like with the eyes painted and then you can take it or leave it if you wanted to do that or not so I just start with a black coat over the whole eye and to get a nice detail I just brace my elbow on the table and have the bunny braced against the table as well so everything's really stable and not moving and that's kind of the best way to get those nice little fine details and straight lines with your paintbrush so just black solid black to start with and then I mix a little bit of black with a little bit of the burnt umber the brown and then a little bit of that gloss mod podge so I'm going to make it a little bit transparent and a dark brown and then paint the iris so a big circle right in the middle of the rabbit's eye I'm sorry I'm out of frame a little bit you guys I'm still I got a new tripod for my phone so I'm still getting used to I apologize so just a nice big circle it's almost the full eye so basically you're only leaving the corners of the eye the solid black and then I mix just black with the mod podge so it's a little bit glossy and then I just go in and paint the pupil so the rabbits have really large pupils so just painting in a fairly large pupil in the center a nice round circle so again just have your elbow braced against the table have the rabbit resting against the table so everything's really stable and you can get a nice finish so now I'm just going to do some little reflections on the eye so a little bit of white now with the gloss mod podge and just do two little dots so one is a bit smaller than the other I do the bigger dot towards the center of the eye so sorry I'm out of frame you guys so little dots and then a little bit of the bigger dots in the center and here are the finished rabbits you guys I love these so much I think they're perfect for spring and into the summer I think I'll get a lot of use out of these and they have become an instant favorite for me and hopefully they are for you guys too so next project because everybody needs some flowers and their little vignettes so I found this perfect little gift box at Dollar Tree and I think it's with the Mother's Day selection I just thought it was so cute and it kind of blends in with the colors I'm using so I just divided some floral foam to fit inside this box and just kind of snap that um do some initial cuts and then it just breaks right in half it's so easy to work with I cut it the wrong way to start with so then just fitting it in just do a quick dry fit and I just used some hot glue to get it all um glued down and then I found they have so many pretty florals at Dollar Tree right now they are such happy colors and they seem to be just getting better and better quality over the years so definitely pick up your florals at Dollar Tree I just went in with some reindeer moss just to make sure that the bottom was covered I didn't do too too thick of a coat just a little bit for coverage just so that you're not seeing that floral foam and then I found these super pretty like a pale coral rose they had some of these in the early spring and then they've restocked again so you can always keep checking back if there's a flower you're hoping to get and they don't have them and just keep checking back and these little zinnias so I just thought it was a really nice combination with the yellow and the pale coral and I just wanted the box to be really full of flowers so these roses are nice and full and they just help give that full appearance to the box and then that little flower pot that I'm gonna set them on that is also from Dollar Tree and those are some new colors they had these flower pots earlier in the year but not in these colors so now they have some nice bright happy colors of those flower pots as well so it's just flipped upside down with the little box on top so we'll have some nice flowers for our vignette and then I just did one more quick floral I tried this with those plastic roses from Dollar Tree but just wasn't quite happy with it so I found this yellow lavender at Dollarama and I just thought it was so pretty so that's what I went with just cutting it all apart and stick it down into the floral foam same thing just used a little bit of moss to cover up the foam that's that soft reindeer moss it smells kind of funny but it sure looks pretty and then just as a little added decoration to this I found this really sweet blessed magnet at Dollar Tree of course so I just glued two of their coffee stir sticks together just to make it extra strong because the magnet is a little bit heavy and then I just glued the magnet on and it's gonna make a cute little tag for my little floral arrangement so I just stuck it right in there so you can't see the back of it and that's the end result and this cute little bee box this little hexagon shaped box I found at Dollar Tree recently as well in with their Mother's Day stuff it's so cute I just love it so I actually set the pot that I created it in I set it inside of a brighter yellow pot that I thought went a little bit better with this little vignette so just to show you guys that too and then I found these at the thrift store I know these are party light tea light holders but they had the butterfly and I can't remember what's on the other one but they were broken off but I got them for next to nothing so I just stuck a couple of these cute little ladybugs from Dollar Tree they're little stickers that you can get in their sticker section just onto the tea light I thought it was so cute and then I have these little bee tea lights I don't know if you guys can see them but they are the cutest thing I found six of them for a dollar at the thrift store they were my favorite find this year so that is it you guys this is our finished vignette if you watch this whole video please give me a bunny or a sunflower or a bee in the comments and thank you so much this was a long video so thank you so much for watching hopefully you've got lots of inspiration from this video if you guys make any of these things please email me or tag me on instagram or just let me know that you've made it and share it with me please that would make me so happy to see your creations so thank you guys so much for watching hopefully you've subscribed and liked this video and we will talk to you soon see you soon in the next video and please please don't forget to check out that playlist it will be full of tons of inspiration for you guys and I'll have a link to that in my description box as well as the top