Stencils and Sparkles…

Waiting, waiting, waiting and hoping, hoping, hoping for travel dates asap! SOOOO ready to bring our boy home! In the mean time…this momma is stirring up the crazy with the crafty:). I declared the day “stencil day” and we had such fun putting Africa on…literally…ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we could imagine possible.

To make your own stencil you will need:

X-ACTO knife
picture of what you want to stencil (I chose Africa—just googled “Africa template” and “picture of Africa” and saved it to my computer. Then opened it up in Word and made it different sizes and then printed off)
permanent fine-point marker
acrylic paint
stencil brush
stencil paper

1. Find picture or template of design you want to stencil and save it on your computer. Open up Word and open the file and copy it on paper. If you want, you can make it different sizes and print off.
2. Lay stencil paper OVER the design and trace it with your permanent pen.
3. Carefully cut design out using a small X-ACTO knife
4. Using double sided tape–adhere stencil to item you are stenciling so it does not move while painting.
5. Using stencil brush, dabble paint carefully on fabric making sure it seeps through fabric (helpful tip: put a piece of cardboard paper in center of clothing if stenciling fabric so it doesn’t seep through back)

6. Immediately and carefully remove stencil and allow paint to dry.

Here are some of the fun things we stenciled…

A shirt for momma to wear with her white shorts…don’t ask me why but for some reason I have a lot of white shorts…funny for a momma of 4 to have I know…but some how they stay white:) So…something new to wear them with ($8 top from Target)…

And then I made a few baby gifts for some of my adoption momma friends…one thing I LOOOOVE having from Frankie baby now that he is a toddler–is a simple small bag to take to church with us. These fit a sippy cup, a diaper and travel wipes perfectly! (These will go out in next weeks mail with a few African treasures inside…our woodcraft teacher in Zambia is carving away this week for me;)

Two of my adoption momma friends have WEE BABIES they will be bringing home. And there is nothing easier than changing a night-time diaper than having your baby snooze beside you in one of these…

And THEN…I started scanning the house and got completely OOC (that’s Out Of Control people;). Ok…don’t think I’ve lost it…or maybe I have but sweet baby Sara got stenciled…
Hey…I mean, we all have Africa on our hearts here…so it’s fitting our baby dolls join us;)

And speaking of crazy, we have added a member to our crew this week (and this week only) and I am proud to tell the Elphick family that while you all are kickin’ it on vaca…your Sparkles IS STILL ALIVE…
This poor fish may need therapy after leaving our home…he was almost caught once by Frank…his container of food was poured out by another playdate friend (but swept up nicely back into the container with a Melissa & Doug wooden miniature family broom) and we only forgot to feed him one day. Obviously the Young’s don’t have pets…and it’s questionable whether we are qualified to babysit them as well. Seriously, we have enjoyed Sparkles and if his tank didn’t require cleaning…we just might get one ourselves;).

OK…you guys stay dry (been raining in the South) and say a prayer that we get our TRAVEL DATES SOON! I’m sooooooooooo stinkin’ READY!

XOXO…and happy stenciling:)

Andrea