Patriotic Sign with acrylic transfer

I love the acrylic transfer technique that I used on these signs.  I needed to make a red, white, and blue item for a swap that I do, so I decided to try my hand at acrylic transfer with color.  I first tried with the same paint I used for the other signs.  The color came off a little more than I would have liked.

I went in search of a higher quality medium.  I found this matt medium at Walmart and tried it.  The color held perfectly! None of it wore off at all.  Unfortunately, it took off a little of the paint in the bottom corner.  

So, what did I learn with color acrylic transfer? It really depends on the look you are going for.  I love that I found a medium that doesn't wipe all the color off, but I am actually partial to the weathered look.  If I were doing a photograph or something else like that, I would go with the matt medium again, but for this sign, I chose the more weathered one.  I added a vinyl heart and some burlap ribbon to finish it up.

Do you want to know the best part? This cost less than $1.00 to make.  I cut a $1.88 piece of MDF into 6 pieces.  The ribbon cost me $0.25. The vinyl was less than $0.25.  The paint was $0.50 for the whole bottle and I used very little per sign.  Then, all I needed was a color laser print.  Not too bad for a nice summer decoration.

Menu Board

This is one of my first creations with my Silhouette Cameo.  I cut the shapes on regular vinyl and then spray painted them with chalkboard paint. DON'T do it that way. Just buy the chalkboard vinyl!  I ended up with tiny bits of paint all around each shape that made the lines look not very crisp.

 I used a wingdings font for most of the shapes because I couldn't find what I needed anywhere else, and bonus: they were free shapes :)  I used a pre-cut piece of wood from Home Depot that was already finished on the edge.  

Train Big Brother Shirts

So, I have 2 big brothers in the house now and I wanted to make them some special shirts.  I looked all over online for just the right shirt, but none of them spoke to me. Well, my older boy LOVES trains! So, I thought, I'll design a train shirt myself and use my handy dandy Silhouette Cameo to create it.  I'm so glad I did! It's super cute and cost me pennies compared to buying one.  Since I already had blank shirts of each size in the closet, I only paid for the heat transfer vinyl (which was ridiculously overpriced because I bought Cricut brand at JoAnn's rather than buying online, but oh well).  I have more than half of the HTV left, so all in all, I spent maybe $10 on all 3 shirts.  I think they are pleased with them too.  Now, little brother just has to come out so he can wear his too.