Friday, May 4, 2012

May the 4th be with you!

There could be no more perfect day to post this lengthy, picture heavy update!  For the last few weeks I have been preparing a Star Wars themed birthday extravaganza for Matty Watty.  Below are just a few of the things I was up to...
The concept is like that of a rock bands "property of METALLICA" type painted tagging on all of it's precious cargo.

First off...The comforter.  I found a variegated grey striped comforter, bed in a bag deal at Walmart.  $49 for a king size.  The back of the comforter was dark grey, but not so dark as to not work for my project.

2nd, I found an imperial symbol online and printed it to be 40 pages enormous, gather up my faithful assistant Gwennie (as pictured), and took to cutting out my 4 foot round Imperial symbol.


Before I actually cut out the cogs, I took the huge layer of printer paper only imperial symbol and spray glued it to thicker drawing pad paper, so that it didn't just curl up on me when I went to spray it.

Also, not pictured, is the stencil for the "property of" written and xactoed out in Star Wars heiroglyphics which you will see situated in a later pic on the comforter when I go to spray.




The final decision on placement ended here!  You can see the Property Of stencils just to the left of the Imperial symbol. 












And then I used Tulip brand fabric paint spray in red.  Matt has a thing for Darth Vader, so we went with red instead of classic white, which I think gave it a really fantastic subtle look.  I don't know if many of you geeks have attempted to find sheeting or bed spreads that are King Sized and Star Wars, but there is a distinct lack of them, hence this enormous project LOL.






 And here are the finished product pics.  One on the bed, and one still sitting in the sun drying.  The pic inside is just the WORST possible lighting.  Sorry for that.  If you can see in the far corner of the room near the window, I also stenciled the packages for his birthday with the Imperial symbol.
 I let this sit in the sun after it was sprayed for about 6 hours, on a very strange but fortunate 90 degree day wedged between raging rain and thunder storms.  WEIRD weather this year.  lol BUT YAY for sun on this day.







I also stenciled the pillow cases and shams, as well as the bed skirt.  (Sorry no pic of the bedskirt)

All in all the longest amount of time spent was on cutting out the huge stencil for the main image.  The rest was cake.

A few things I would recommend tho.  One is to use cardboard at least as thick as a cereal box for your smaller stencils.  Otherwise they will curl up on you after your first spray.  I made some Imperial geek chubby girl undies and discovered one thin printer paper sheet is simply not enough!!  lol

I would also recommend experimenting with your spraying technique.  I started with the back of one of the shams to be used to get a feel for how it sprayed and how heavy a spray I would need to get it to show on the dark fabric.

And lastly, get someone to help you.  As simple as this project is, you don't want something as silly as a slight breeze to mess things up for you.  Fortunately my Mom is quite an amazing assistant, despite whatever strange new project I come up with, she's always there to help.

Thanks for reading!!  And happy crafting!!
<3 Adi 







4 comments:

  1. It all turned out very awesome. I enjoyed watching you dodging the abundantly arriving stinging insects looking for a summer home while you were spraying in the backyard. Want to also mention that wrapping paper for gifts was also made using the stencils.

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  2. Yeah, I kinda need to get flying stinging instantly dead bug begone spray. I can't believe all the yellow jackets and hornets this year. DANG. And yes the gifts were wrapped in brown plain paper wrapping and stenciled as well!! I wanted it to be special for his 30th.

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