Guest Blogger:The Idea Cupboard

Hi Everyone!  I am Summer @ The Idea Cupboard!  I am so excited to be guest posting here at Tattered and Inked!  Thanks so much Kelsey, and enjoy yourself at the beach!  This is my very first time doing a guest post so I am both very excited and nervous!

My little piece of blogland is called Idea Cupobard.  This is where I like to share ideas that I have come up with or that I have found.  It is where I share things that inspire me to create – anything from home décor, crafts, food and fun.  I just love to create things and to share with others.  My blog is still “young” but you can expect lots of fun tutorials and ideas in the future like my Caramel Turtle Brownies or like the one I am sharing now J

I had such fun creating this Watermelon.  I am sure you have seen button art in many places but in case you haven’t you really need to check it out (I found some fun ones on pinterest)– so many fun things out there!  I wanted something really fun and Summery for my mantle that I will be putting together in August.  For my mantle I am planning fun summer colors like Yellows, reds, blues and greens with a bit of black.  I want my August mantle to be inspired by lemonade, picnics, popsicles – you get the idea.  The first thing I made for this mantle is my Lemonade sign

and this framed button Watermelon was next on my list and I am so excited to share the tutorial with you!

Cute huh!

Okay here is what you will need:

• Frame – I painted one from the dollar store, you can see my tutorial here.  You can use any size you want, the size I used was (8x10)
• Fabric or burlap or cross stich fabric - I used muslin
• Buttons (red, green and black)
• Embroidery floss to match buttons
• glue (I used elmers glue)    

Things not pictured below that you will need – masking tape, needle, and black letters to spell out picnic.

The red paint is not mentioned above because painting the frame is not part of this tutorial and I forgot to take it out of the picture :)

Step 1: Getting the Fabric ready - We need to get the fabric ready for adding the buttons.  Take the cardboard backing of the frame and place it on your fabric.  Cut the fabric and make sure you have a good edge to fold over.

Now fold over each side and put a single piece of tape down to keep the fabric secured.  You will be removing the tape so don’t worry about doing a great tape job for now, just something to keep the fabric in place.

Now we want to put this in our frame  so we have a reference on how the buttons will look with our frame on. 

Step 2: Buttons - Now for the fun part! You get to start placing your buttons – fitting things so they look nice.  You won’t be gluing or sewing anything down yet, just placing.  I did the green buttons first.  Then I started placing my red buttons.  Before I filled the space up with my red buttons I added a few black buttons for the seeds.  I then used smaller buttons to make it look like a bite was taken out of my watermelon.

Fill in all of the open spaces.  Don’t be too much of a perfectionist as things will get moved around when you are gluing the buttons, this is just to give you an idea of where you want things.

I ended up replacing the black button with circle medium sized black buttons.

Now is when we start gluing.  I used elmers glue.  You will pick up each individual button and put a drop of glue on the back and then place it back on the fabric.  This takes a bit of time so put on some good music while you do this.

Yes buttons will move and things will change a bit.  I did my green buttons first and I actually ended up adding a few more buttons as things were glued down.  Before I started my red and black buttons I let my green buttons dry for a bit so they wouldn’t move to much when I picked up the red and black buttons.  Once everything is glued down let it dry.

Step 3: Sewing – Yup we are going to sew the buttons on.  I have seen button art where the buttons are just glued and if you want to do that go for it – you may want to use a different kind of glue though instead of elmers.  I am sewing my buttons for two reasons – 1 – It will secure the buttons so they won’t fall off and 2 – Because it looks so dang cute!  To sew you need to remove your fabric from the frame and untape it from the cardboard backing.  Remove the cardboard backing carefully.  On mine the glue seeped through a bit and I had to gently pull the fabric from the cardboard.  Be careful though because those buttons can fall off easily if jostled around too much.  They are just glued on temporarily until we sew them.

 I used the same color of embroidery floss as button and began sewing on.  Sew cute! (pun intended) J

Isn’t that adorable!  Now put your piece back on the cardboard backing making sure to center it.  You will be taping it again but you will want to do a better taping job this time.  Now just hope no one looks at the back because the back is ugly!

Put back in the frame and admire your handy work!  I still thought this needed something so I grabbed some black letters that were self adhesive (thickers) and spelled out the word picnic.  

I hope you all like this project as much as I do!  Thanks for having me guest post today, Kelsey!  I would love if any of you would love to come visit me at Idea Cupboard!