But Can She Craft?

Remember the ten tutorials I swore I would conquer?

Well, I conquered one...sort of. It might have conquered me, but I hung in there.

For my first tutorial ever, I decided to make something special for my boy. Therefore, I chose the Subway Art Tutorial by Nina at Momma Go Round.

I learned a few lessons from my first venture in the world of tutorials and I'll share those later, but here's how it went down:

I started to paint my canvasses, three coats just like Nina advised.

Now, all you first timers out there: don't get cocky as you're painting canvas. Anyone can do that and be great at it. A few of the thoughts running through my head during this part of the tutorial were:

man, I'm a great crafter just look at me painting these canvases and they look awesome I wonder what I'll make next who cares it will be so awesome because I can craft! I can really craft man these beautiful canvases are really coming together because I am so crafty

My bubble was soon burst after the canvas painting part was over. I then had to make my letters. Nina used a Cricut machine but I did not have one of those. I took the long way with my letters. I first selected a font (impact) then specified my font size. I inverted with white letters and black background and began.

I had a lot of work in front of me folks. I had to cut each letter with my Exacto knife by hand.

It was during this part that my resolve was being tested. By nature I am an impatient person, always in a hurry and painstakingly cutting the letters by hand was almost enough to say "Screw this! Isn't there someone on etsy who can make this for me?" (*Edit: in fact there is; Barn Owl Primitives; check 'em out.)

Alas, I soldiered on.

I was so proud of myself when my letters were finished. Sure, there was a lot of black on them still and some were worse for wear, but I did it! My bubble quickly burst again when I realized the font I chose was too big and the canvas too small to fit all the words in my song correctly. Well, I'm on Twitter; I can cut down on the number of characters, no problem. It worked out, but I wish I had had the forethought to plan that out better. Now, Toph's song is a little modified but I was too committed to just scrap the thing.

For the first canvas, I placed my letters using a ruler and decided to use Mod Podge to glue them on.  I would soon figure out a better way, but this was my first one.  After I glued them down, I began to brush Mod Podge on the entire thing.

I had my iPad open to Nina's tutorial the whole time.

I learned a couple of lessons during my first round of Mod Podge with the first canvas.  First of all, Mod Podge needs to be sponged on.  The bristles from the brush would come off while I was brushing the Mod Podge on, proving darn near impossible to get them off.  Now, in that canvas, we have a few brush bristles stuck in there for life.

Now that both the canvases were done, I let them dry and inspected them.  Yes, there were lots of imperfections.  Yes, no one in their right mind on etsy would have bought it (not that I ever plan on opening an etsy store).  However, I wanted something very specific and instead of just sitting around and moaning about how no one sells what I want...

I just made it. 

Can I get a holla?

That's why I so proudly look at it in my baby's room:

By the way, the song actually goes, "Where is Topher?  Where is Topher?"  Those were some of the edits that had to be made.

That is my first ever tutorial (followed by someone else to the tee) and the start of a series on this blog called, "But Can She Craft?"

What will I do next?
Stay tuned...



Many thanks to the lovely and talented Nina at Momma Go Round. You want to see more awesome tutorials? Go to her site and follow her! She won't disappoint.






And for giggles, I'm linking up to:



If you're a newbie, you just may learn a little something from me!