Category: Transformation

Finding Hardware

What are your feelings about sharing a garage/shop with someone?

I find it frustrating! I have my office/craft space organized with containers that are labeled with its contents. So even if I have containers down I know exactly what’s in it at a glance. And it’s super easy to put away and clean up.

The garage… I so wish, with every wish available I could send my family away for the weekend to organize it and find an official home for everything. And you can guess it. My problem is that my husband has a way he wants it and our two ways of organizing a work space for repairs, large projects, and keeping our hand tools are two very different ways of thinking. The funny part is that more times than not, it’s my husband who’s coming to me to find a specific tool. And yes, I keep my own stash of hammer, screw drivers, and allen wrenches that I zealously guard like my fabric scissors. If you touch them, you better put them back where they belong, LOL.

And if you’ve built anything for any length of time, you know how hard it is to find screws, nails, and washers specific for your project. God Bless my Husband, but he has that garage that we’ve all seen our grandfather’s have: screws in a coffee can, nails in jars… they may have a home but you have to dig for the style and size of hardware that you’re hunting for.

So for my husband’s birthday this year, I had my boys help me build my husband a caddy to separate all those pieces of hardware into an easy to access place that you can quickly grab without feeling like you’re sorting through that bag of unmatched socks. And Bonus for my bragging rights, is that I sourced everything for this caddy from our garage.

This caddy is perfect for a garage, craft room (of all types), office, or anywhere you need to space save and easily access anything. While you’ll see I labeled these specific for garage hardware, you can take this idea and run with it for crafting. Instead of nails, label it buttons. For a Teacher’s classroom, instead of tacks, label for push pins. Change bolts to paper clips. You can completely cater this project to anyone and their passion!

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Here is everything that I used:

  • Wood Box
  • Hammer
  • Tack Nails
  • Hand Sander
  • Black Wood Stain
  • Acrylic Paint with Brushes
  • Glass jars
  • Electric Drill with Drill Bit
  • Nuts and Bolts (small)
  • Size Appropriate Wrenches
  • Vinyl
  • Hardware Labels
  • Weeding Tools
  • Transfer Tape

The box that I used is a wooden box (about 12″ by 8″) that’s very similar to a cigar box with sliding lid. The lid was missing and one of the long sides was about to fall off. So I just removed the lid and nailed it to the top of the box.

One reason why I wanted to reshape the box was to have a little hidey shelf, in case my husband wanted it. You know the little objects you want to put in a safe place, but usually any counter space is a place prime for losing the thing you want to put in a safe place. So here’s a safe place. This box was rough, because it wasn’t meant to be decorative. I sanded the box on all sided before staining it. Yes, it maintained the rough look and feel. But I also fully appreciate the rustic aesthetic.

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While the stain dried, I cleaned out my fridge from all the jars of pickled items. I’m not a pickle eater. Nor am I a fan of pickled vegetables. BUT my husband loves them. And my fridge door is where I sourced this collection of empty jars for this project. (I was not about ready to take from my canning jars, although I’ve seen people use canning jars for their hardware holders.)

After the jars were washed and I found which ones were similar in size, I placed them on the underside of this caddy. The smallest jars I put on the shelf. And I went back and forth if I wanted the row of two or the row of three jars to be in front. I chose to put the set of three in the center just for symmetry. Plus, I knew the screws were going to go in the larger jars. And other than the nails, these are the most sought after hardware in my house. So I put those in the front to make it the most convenient to grab.

While the jars dried, from their scrubbing, I set the kiddos up for painting the caddy. They got a bit distracted and wanted to play instead of use tools, but they dropped everything to paint for their dad. And since my husband loves their art, I sacrificed my want to keep the wood stain, which was my favorite part. But I kept the underside stained so a piece of me was still there.

I’m showing you this step, because you can make your caddy however you favor it. You can keep it clean and upscale. Or you can make it very family orientated. There’s no wrong way to make this caddy.

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During this drying time, I cut out my labels with my cutting machine and assembled the layers ahead of time. That way when I was ready to apply theses labels, everything was lined up and ready for a simple peel and stick on the jars.

When the jars and the acrylic paint dried, I grabbed my drill, nuts, bolts, and jars. The first thing I did was drill a hole in the center of the lids. (If you are opting to use canning jars, make sure the lids you choose to use have already been used to preserve your food. That way you still have good canning lids ready to use in the future.)

After you are finished drilling, place your jars on the caddy in the exact places you want them. This pre-spacing is very important, especially when you have rows of jars next to each other like I have on the center and right side. I didn’t want the row to go over the edge, for esthetic reasons. If you have all your jars the same size and they second row comes over the edge, it’s okay. You may want to consider painting the jar lids to keep a uniform look. But the placement is also important because you will find that your jar lids are a smaller diameter than your jar sides. So by pre-spacing your lids, you will make sure you can screw your jars into your lids and not have an issue with the box sides or the shelf.

While you hold your lid in place, drill a hole through your caddy. When you hold is completed, you thread the bolt through the caddy and the lid and secure it with the nut. Hand tightening the nut and bolt will not be enough. You will want to tighten them with a wrench. This is most important if your bolts are short and if you want to be able to (un)screw your jar without holding onto the lid.

TROUBLE SHOOTING: If you find it difficult to keep your lid in the correct place for drilling, without moving, here are a couple of ideas you can use to assist in keeping your lids in place. Before drilling, use masking tape to tape your lid down to the caddy. Another option is to use a hot glue gun and place a circle of glue around the center of the lid. Be careful not to glue the center. You don’t want to drill through glue.

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Once your jar lids are all secure, you’re ready to label!

To get labels to stick with the most success, clean your jar with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol. This will remove any oils, dust, soap, or anything else that could cause your vinyl to not secure cleanly to the jar.

It is crafter’s choice how you want to add the labels. You can place your jars on a work surface and apply them off the caddy. Or you can apply the labels while on the caddy. I chose to have all the jars attached to the caddy because the only jars that were a perfect match were the three that put in the center row. They were from the same company of pickled vegetables. All my other jars were different sizes, but very similar in measurements. However, if I applied my labels off caddy and centered them on the jars, then none of my labels would have lined up. However, with my jars on caddy, I could get the labels to line up near perfectly and give the illusion that all my jars are matching. The exceptions of course are my small jars in the back (washers and nuts). But those are tiny jars hidden in the back and completely understandable why nuts would be larger than washers.

However, if you’re the personality type that is bothered by things not absolutely, perfectly matching, then please ignore my chaos here. Work to your strengths and show us the beauty of our symmetry and perfectly lined labels. I love watching your work. But if you’re the type that can’t get things to line up perfectly, know that there are ways of lining things up even when your jars are millimeters off in their heights.

Mounting the Hardware Caddy

I’m sorry I do not have a picture of this for you today. We’re in the process of reorganizing our garage and we’re not sure yet if we’re wall mounting or rack mounting this caddy. I will update this post when we get that project finished, so you can see how you might choose to mount your caddy.

The one thing that you need to be aware of is how gravity is going to work when you have the jars filled with their hardware.

Remember, I organized my jars so that my heaviest and largest jars are on one side. If I install with screw jars forward, all the weight and pull are going to be forward. So I will need to compensate. If I install the screw jars in the back, toward a wall, there will be very little compensated needed because the center of gravity will be near the wall and negligible.

For wall mounting, I would want to have my screw jars forward and screw the back side of the box into the wall, with a screw in each corner of that board. Preferably I would want to screw the caddy into a stud, because that will carry the weight beautifully. If it’s impossible, hit at least one stud (which I would center the caddy on and put in an additional set of two screws, in additional to the corner screws). If all I have available is drywall, I will definitely put in wall anchors and drill the screws into those. That way the weight of the hardware will not weaken the dry wall and pull out of the wall under too much weight.

If we choose to go with mounting the caddy on our rack, I will do that using conduit bracket mounts. I will use at least three brackets on the screw jars side. That way, the weight of the screws will pull straight down. there will also be a bracket or two on the back just for stability purposes for when the screw jars are removed, and the center of gravity changes.

Another option for rack mounting is to use a block of wood. The caddy (jars removed for installation) I would put on the bottom side of the wire shelf, with the block of wood on the top of the shelf. Then drilling a screw through the open space of the shelf into the block of wood. This option is not the one I would personally go with, because it doesn’t work with how we use our shelves in the garage. But I did want to mention it because the caddy can be screwed into an existing shelf that you might have.

While there are many ways of installing a caddy like this, I want to put out one more idea. If none of the above work for your situation, you can add wall mounts to the back of your caddy. There are all sorts of alligator grip picture hanging mounts that you can use. With a trip to your local hardware store, you can find picture mounts that can hold portraits up to 50 pounds. That is over kill for this project, but I want to mention that this is another option that could work for you.

Please send in pictures or let me know who make this for. As I mentioned, this example of a hardware caddy I made for my husband for his birthday. But this is perfect for a Father’s Day gift, Graduation gift, something for a teacher, crafter, or even just as another option for home organization.

Files used for this project:

You can find Hardware Labels here.

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Meet Frankenstein

Honestly, I should know better! Names have power. And the last time anything was very aptly named in my family was when my sister named her goldfish Sushi. It ate all the other fish in the tank.

I should have known that naming a starter Frankenstein was going to be a wild ride. But I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Today is the last day of this miniseries talking about yeast and bread making. I wanted to finish with my experience in making a Gluten Free alternative for in those who cannot keep a starter with flour, because of dietary restrictions. Because everyone should have the opportunity to keep a starter that meets their needs.

When I told my Mother in Law my plans for making a starter (my original flour starter), she was so excited and told me that I had to make a potato starter. She remembers having one from when she was a girl, but couldn’t find her recipe. And her memory was very limited in that process. She heard me out with my flour starter and insisted that it was just as simple and the same to make it from potato.

Of course I tried to verify everything she described with what everyone else has posted on Pinterest. And no, what my Mother in Law told me was different from what everyone else is doing. I’ll save you the search, unless you want to go down that rabbit hole. The rest of the world is making their potato starter using instant potatoes.

If you have a potato starter and use instant potatoes can you humor me and check the ingredients on the side of your box?

If you are comfortable with everything you see there, then I won’t say another word on that subject. Keep your starter healthy and keep making that glorious bread in your kitchen!

If you see anything there that you might not have been aware of or want to move toward a starter with fewer ingredients, you can transition your feed to using just a potato. I’ll show you how.

The Set Up

The little bit of information that I did receive from my Mother in Law was that the potato start from her childhood was just a boiled potato mixed with water.

Believe me I know exactly what you’re thinking! I thought the same thing.

There was not enough information to start with. What do you do with the potato? …I won’t bog you down with the list of questions that I had. Even with a degree in history, and having professors who assigned me to make food from out of circulation recipes, I had high hopes of finding some old recipe to work with. And all I had in the end was boiled potato and water.

BUT I wanted to make this experiment, with the thought in mind: How do you make yeast start with just what you can find in your pantry or garden?

It was a what-the-heck moment. Let’s do this thing!

I grabbed a potato, peeled and cubed it. Put it in a sauce pan with water and cooked that potato like I would mash potatoes. Only this time the seasoning, butter, and milk stayed where they were. Once the potatoes were soft, I removed them from the heat and reserved the water I boiled with. We all know that when you cook, all vitamins and nutrience end up in the cooking water. And I had no idea if the potato or the water has the stuff I want. (Also there’s the side objective of trying not to waste resources.)

And here is where I ended up with two potato starters. I didn’t have faith in my Mother in Law’s lack of directions. (To be fair, she hadn’t used this method in many decades and probably thought she never would.) So I chickened out and took Method Two. But the next day I decided I was doing myself a disservice by not attempting my Mother in Law’s way. If it failed, at least I had the other starter to fall back on.

METHOD ONE

  1. Mash the potatoes. In hind sight I didn’t mash them as smoothly as I wanted. The chunks are very obvious. But rest assured, even if your potatoes are chunky, you will still get healthy and viable starter.
  2. Mix in some of the cooking water. This is going to be a wet starter. So think between toothpaste and stew consistency.

I named this starter Carolyn.

METHOD TWO

  1. Mash the potatoes. In hind sight I didn’t mash them as smoothly as I wanted. The chunks are very obvious. But rest assured, even if your potatoes are chunky, you will still get healthy and viable starter.
  2. Mix in some of the cooking water. This is going to be a wet starter. So think between toothpaste and stew consistency.
  3. Add a couple Tbsp of starter from an established yeast.

I named this starter Frankenstein.

Why would Method Two work?

When researching about starters, you learn that you can turn a gluten based starter into a gluten free starter by slowly changing its food source away from being wheat based to your GF flour of choice.

I didn’t do the gradual change, because the food source and environment was completely different. So I just jumped all in and went at it from a science lab experiment of inoculating yeast into a new medium.

What if I’m transitioning my existing potato starter from potato flakes to potato?

The standard method of transitioning starters to a new food source is to feed on the following schedule:

Transition Day 1: Use 75% old food source + 25% new food source.

Transition Day 2: Use 50% old food source + 50% new food source.

Transition Day 3: Use 25% old food source + 75% new food source.

Transition Day 4: Use 100% new food source.

All the transitioning experts assure their audience that even with a gluten starter transitioning to gluten free, the more you feed the starter without the gluten food source, the more your starter transforms into gluten free. If you are GF by choice, you are good to start using your transitioned starter after day 3. If you are GF for medical reasons, then there comes an educated decision based off of your sensitivity. If you are very sensitive, and know your levels, you can do the math to determine what an acceptable amount for consumption is. Your bread recipe is going to have a yeast to flour ration, giving you an overall percentage. On Day 4, there is potentially a 62.5% gluten level in the yeast. Day 5, that drops down to 31.25%. Day 6, 15.63%. And so on. Now if your bread recipe keeps the baker’s ratio for bread making (2% of flour weight), Day 4 has a potential gluten amount of 1.25%. Day 5 has a potential amount of 0.63% in the bread. So you can see how this is an educated based decision of what is acceptable for your body.

Please note: I have not transitioned a yeast to a new food source other than what I did to Frankenstein. So I have no idea if Frankenstein is what’s normally expected, or just some fluke that succeeded. And Frankenstein I didn’t transitioned at all. I just dropped flour based yeast in a room temperature environment of potato and water.

Picture 1 is Frankenstein. Picture 2 is Carolyn. These are just my starting point, pictorial references. So at least you have something to compare your potato starter with.

As a time saver for feeding, I boiled a couple of potatoes at the same time. I saved the left over mash and cooking water, and kept them in the fridge. When I was prepping for a feeding (twice a day) I took the mash and water out about an hour ahead of feeding time, so it could come to room temperature.

Day Two

I continued with a 2 time a day feeding of potato mash and the cooking water.

What I did not count on was Frankenstein (picture 2)!

Let me give you a close up on two of pictures in the set. In the above picture (picture two, top row, second from the left) you will notice that Frankenstein had clear striation between solid and liquid. When I placed a scraper in and gave to couple mixes to reincorporate the components for a feeding, I got Picture 1 (below). Frankenstein was alive!

I have never seen this kind of reaction in my life, especially in the world of yeast. This yeast, I called Frankenstein, was going crazy! In fact, Picture 2 (above) is the still of what I saw. There was movement in the jar that was very reminiscent of a lava lamp.

I mention all of this because if you decide to inoculate you potato start with another start, just to get active yeast from the get go, and you see foaming activity like this know that you are not alone. It happened to me and I have the photographic proof to prove it. The smell is standard for starter. It’s just the yeast activity that is the only difference.

What I fed Frankenstein and Carolyn were the same potato and cooking water. The only difference between the two starters is the origin of yeast. And that yeast came from my AP flour based starter, which never acted this way either.

Day 3

Continue with the 2 times a day feeding of potato mash and cooking water.

The activity with Frankenstein was still happening, but to a lesser level. Here are some pictures to show you where that starter was. I don’t seem to still have pictures for Carolyn.

I stopped taking pictures of Carolyn on Day 3 because I had some research to do.

If you remember from Valuable Resources, I mentioned things to look out for when keeping a starter. Your starter should never have mold, spores, or color on top. Neither should it have an acetone smell. On Day 5/6, I posted on Facebook, how Carolyn started smelling like butter.

Freddy is my flour starter.

I’m going to pause here and just let my post communicate what happened to my 100% potato start.

Here’s what happened, Carolyn was well on the path of turning herself into vodka. This will be a common problem, correcting Diacetyl, when you have a potato starter. This is because its potato based, not wheat based.

What I learned from Carolyn, and making a starter with next to no knowledge with what you’re doing, is that you HAVE to go back to a source that you know. Yes, I was making a starter. But this problem was not covered in anything written about sour dough starter for bread. It didn’t make much sense to look into the world of vodka making other than the fact that vodka making starts with a potato mash, which is exactly how Carolyn started. And within minutes of looking at sources in the vodka world, I found my answer.

For those curious, what caused the Diacetyl? It could have been a bacterial contamination. Or it could have been that this starter had oxidized. (Remember that yeast has anaerobic respiration.) I happen to believe that this time it was oxidation, because it happened on Day 3 which is when Diacetyl enters production of beer brewing. And all your alcohols have tools to keep oxygen out of your cultivation.

How did I heal Carolyn from Diacetyl?

There were a few options from the brewing and Vodka world. I started with adding salt into my starter (probably about 1 1/2 tsp worth. I guessed the measurement, and added a little bit more than what I thought I needed). This time, all I needed was the salt. The next day the butter smell was gone.

I cannot stress this enough. No matter what medium you use to feed your starter, yeast is a living organism. Every time you open your container to use or feed your starter, always visually check its health and smell it. Your yeast will tell you when something is wrong. And when you catch it quickly, you can tend to your yeast and keep it from going bad on you. It can turn around and come back into health.

Here is a picture of how Carolyn started showing evidence of being healthy and active.

And the Pay Out

Nothing shows the yeast is active and healthy until you produce bread from your starter. This was the potato bread that I made from Frankenstein while I was tending to Carolyn.

Is there a flavor difference between bread baked from Carolyn (100% potato start) vs. Frankenstein (potato started with flour fed yeast)?

I preferred the flavor from Frankenstein. Even though I followed a potato bread recipe, Frankenstein had a blend of flavor between store bought potato bread and homemade sour dough bread. Carolyn produced bread that didn’t taste anything like potato bread. The loaves turned out like they should, the flavor was just off.

To be honest, it’s hard to say if there was something deficient with Carolyn or if the difference I tasted was the true difference between the two different methods of potato starter. This was also the point in time where my life got super busy and I could not keep up with keeping 3 starters. So shortly after baking with Carolyn, I let go of the two potato starters and kept feeding my flour starter.

Final Thoughts

There are several different reasons why making a starter from potatoes is a great idea. For example, I grow potatoes in my garden but not wheat. If I ever came to a place where I could not source the amount of flour that I use (to keep my boys in bread) than a potato starter would be amazing to conserve flour and use up the potatoes I grow.

You can make potato starter from potato and water.

In fact a starter from potato and water can serve double duty by providing the yeast for bread making and for distilling vodka (for all you home brewers and wine makers looking to branch out).

Last week, in Bread Recipe that Hasn’t Failed Me, I mentioned the science behind bread making. In the case of this week’s example, caring for Carolyn required a different science. Sometimes you have to look outside the normal beaten path of bread making, to find your answers. Bakers don’t have all the answers. They are gifted with their knowledge that they’ve cultivated. But there will be times in life where bread making takes you into another field of study to find the answers to the problem(s) you are solving. So be flexible. Don’t get frustrated if you’re searching turns up as a dead end. It takes a moment to stop, breath, and take your thinking down the path that runs parallel to the one you’re on.

Thank you for going down this detour in the creative world.

Conserving resources, making something out of the barest of materials, and using what you have on hand is an art form that needs to be resuscitated in the world that we live in right now. There are options that are still at all of our finger tips.

If there is a method of making something that you want help finding a method of creation (Just like my Mother in Law’s information of taking potato and water to make potato starter) and don’t know where to start, reach out to me or leave a comment below. I want to be creative with you!

As a special bonus, here is a sneak peek to this Monday’s release, 2022 Graduate

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    A Yeasty Fix – How I Can Do That

    […] Meet Frankenstein I talked about the gluten free starter I made and how I had to bring that one back to health. That […]

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Extended Life or Heirlooms

Part 3 and Finale to Make A File Do More

To end this series on Make A File Do More, I want to switch things up a little bit. Instead of a file, I want to focus today on how to make a Statement Piece work more for you.

This is particularly important for DIY Brides. You do everything you can to make your budget stretch the farthest for you. And the best way you can do that, is incorporate as many décor elements into furnishing your new home.

Instead of using cut flowers, for table centerpieces, use live flowers. When the wedding is over you can then plant the flowers in your flower beds or planter boxes.

For your entryway table incorporate lighting from unique lamps that can be used for your bedside lighting. Mind you, I’m not talking about your standard lamp. Use lamps that have character. Think along the lines of art deco glass, stain glass, jet beads, frosted glass orbs, or even something that reminds your guests of Chihuly glass art.

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In this case, I want to show you how you can take a piece of art and reuse it over and over again.

Maybe you have a loved one who gifted you a needle point, painting, hand drawing, or other memorabilia. And you want to honor that loved one. Use it as part of your wedding décor. And then after the wedding, you can use it, or give it a place of honor in your home. This is particularly true with beloved items that are placed in a shadow box. You can use a removable vinyl on the glass, with a wedding or love quote. Then when the wedding is over, you can remove this vinyl detail and use the item as a more day to day item.

I’m going to use this painting.

For a wedding or anniversary setting I have this quote, Better or Worse. It can be used on any number of table type settings. It even works for centerpiece arrangements. (If you find a collection of quotes you love, you can have a different quote at each table. Then after the wedding you can have a tile work collage of quotes on a focal wall in your home.)

As another option, for after the wedding, is a seasonal display that so many crafting groups create year round; whether coasters, seasonal blocks, seasonal tiered trays, or another format.

I have not yet pulled out my Easter decorations, but I did make a spring pennant to drape over the top. And once I locate my kiddos’ Easter baskets and other décor items, I have the perfect backdrop for a spring and Easter Display.

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So whether you are looking to make a cut file have an extended life in your crafting season, use one item over and over again to bring cohesion in an otherwise eclectic event design, or finding a way to bring added life to items that may otherwise have no life with your family after an event, DO NOT be afraid to think outside the box. Be unique. Find ideas and ways of giving décor items and crafts more life instead of being disposable. We don’t life in a society that talk about heirlooms anymore. But this was a part of life with the generations before ours. We all dream of things we make being passed down to those who come after us, as living memories. Maybe we have items that will. But the one thing that is completely in our control is giving as much life and purpose to things that we celebrate our milestones with.

The file used today, Better or Worse, is perfect for all of your wedding and anniversary needs!

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Don’t Throw That Out Yet!

It doesn’t matter if you’re an Artist, DIY Bride, Crafter, or a Just Because-er, you will create something and there’s just nothing you can do to save that project from the junk heap. Sometimes we get wrapped up in our own emotions of wasted time, wasted materials, dashed dreams of overextended ambitions, and everything else, that we forget even the Master Artists had unsuccessful projects.

If you’ve spent anytime in art history classes, or been around artists long enough, you probably already heard about this. All the Greats recycled their canvas. That’s right! Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso, I could go on and on… they all painted over something they created before. The lesson that we can take from this is that we can create over something that we tried to create before.

Failed attempts vs Final product

This was a wood block that I had to give up on after running through Plan A to Plan F. That’s right, I tried to correct and original problem five other times! Am I stubborn? Yes. Am I determined? You better believe it. Do I succeed at everything? No. But, I give myself permission to set aside what is clearly not working. For this particular project, I discarded about 16 hours of trying to make it work and grabbed a new blank. In less than an hour, I executed my main vision without having to go through another plan letter. Sometimes scrapping a project to start over on the same vision is completely necessary. And that is when your success comes.

Here is where things get good for this block of wood. Even though I had painted it on all sides (in a color I don’t usually work with) there are ways of recovering materials and reusing it in something completely different. I had fully intended on sanding the glitter and acrylic paint off, but inspiration hit and I really didn’t want to waste the time of stripping the wood for a clean base. Instead I challenged myself with this cotton candy pink by adding black, blues and purple to the pink and creating a base that gave off a vibe of sunrise or sunset. And that in turn inspired the three variations of Darkness To Light. (Click here to see all three!)

What is amazing about blending colors and adding textures into your paint is that you can cover over even the raised text from stencil painting and the glitter. Acrylic paint doesn’t cover glitter at all. It always manages to shine through. So if you decide to not go with glitter ontop of a project you previously used glitter on, I recommend taking the time to sand the glitter off. I’m sorry I could not get a picture of the glitter coming through (I gave up after 30 attempts), but my oldest son kept playing with my lights to get the glitter to sparkle. So if you know kids, when they play with lights you know the glitter is still there. However after much finagling, I was able to get one angle where my camera did finally pick up on the raised lettering. But unless I point out stuff like, most people I know pretty much never pick up on the fact that I reused this wood block.

The raised letters are right here on the bottom just above this cloud line.

Normally at this point in a project I spray a couple of coats of clear acrylic spray over the top. It seals in the paint to it doesn’t transfer paint when you knock it against something. And I love using HTV over paint. I get a better end product with it and the vinyl stays on without lifting. (Permanent vinyl tends to lift when you have higher humidity levels.) The clear acrylic spray also smooths out your surface, making it more flat when you adhere your vinyl. Coming up the next few shots, you will see what the raised textured acrylic paint did to the vinyl. But this is something that spray acrylic and HTV really does overcome.

Instead of my usual route, I went with the unsealed acrylic paint and permanent vinyl. Going into this, I knew that there were a few obstacles that I was going to have to overcome; transfer tape stripping the paint off the wood block and the vinyl not adhering to the uneven surface.

Transfer Tape Stripping of the Paint

This is the #1 problem most crafters complain about when they work with paint and vinyl! You will find it everywhere, on every forum where people are asking for help. You will get the standard answers of use a transfer tape with less tack, use transfer paper, use press and seal…. I’m telling you that you don’t need to do any of this! The reason is that the problem isn’t the level of stickiness. The problem is that you’re pressing your transfer material onto your paint with the same force that you’re using to adhere your vinyl. Both have tack. They’re both going to stick. So please don’t spend more money chasing a solution that is still going to be part of the problem. I know because I’ve tried all the different tack and I still pulled up paint before I learned this.

Solution: DO NOT burnish your transfer tape with your vinyl.

Instead: gently lay your transfer tape in position and very lightly press it to your surface. The goal here is keep your vinyl in position while you use another tool to press down ONLY on the vinyl. With Darkness and Light being larger letters, using my fingers was enough to transfer the vinyl. For my thin letters here, I used my cutting machine’s scoring tool. This gives the ability to press down as hard as you like. You will not adhere your transfer tape to your paint. And you’re not going to scratch your unprotected paint either. Absolutely none of my paint peeled or flaked off. You can zoom in on the following pictures and see for yourself. All of my built up layers of acrylic stayed the same as they were before I applied my vinyl.

Vinyl Adhering to an Uneven Surface

There’s generally two problems under this category. One actually getting your vinyl to adhere and not lift (you’re not going to get a complete seal). The other problem is purely cosmetic, you’re not going to have that glossy (or matte) smooth finish.

For the cosmetic, unsealed raised paint is never going to give you a flat smooth vinyl esthetic.

As I stated earlier, there are ways around this. But the way that I painted and left it unsealed…this is what it looks like. If you choose to work with vinyl on an uneven surface and want to try for the perfect finish, I recommend finding an appropriate sealer to help minimize the highs and lows of your surface and then aim for placement to go where there is the least amount of height disparity. Chances are that you’ll probably still won’t get that flawless look, but you’ll get close. Just remember that the more layers of sealer you put on top you will have to allow more than enough time for it to fully dry or cure before applying the vinyl. Vinyl needs to have a dry surface to adhere to because your sealer has to breathe to dry/cure. (This is most definitely not the project you want to use the wet method of applying vinyl. Save that for a glass or plastic surface that don’t need to breathe.)

That being said, there is a solution to maximizing the potential of your vinyl adhering properly.

Once you’ve removed your transfer tape, go back through and reburnish your vinyl. Transfer tape hides alot. You never see what is not fully burnished until you remove the transfer tape. As you can see here, there was plenty of places where I didn’t press down on the vinyl enough the first time, or because the text is so thin the transfer tape pulled some of it up. In reality, for this project it was both of those things.

With nothing protecting my vinyl, I didn’t want to scratch or crease it with my scoring tool. So I flipped my tool over and used the other side. It is wider than my thin text, but it also didn’t have a plastic seam running down the middle. So I had a smooth surface to go back over my vinyl and burnish it again without fear of scratching my vinyl or my paint for that matter.

Here is the final project!

I’m sure that the question will be asked, “Did your vinyl lift?”

At the time of writing this blog, my vinyl has sat untouched for over 48 hours and looks the exact same as the finished project picture above. I have every reason to believe that I’m in the clear and the vinyl will stay as is. You are more than welcome to ask in the comments below for a future check in. I’m more than glad to fill you in on the status.

I am going to add one observation I’ve had with vinyl though. Where you put your project is totally going to effect the longevity of what you made. For example, I have bathroom art which has vinyl on top of acrylic and were sealed. the two pieces that I have in there, the vinyl on the piece nearest the shower lifted after 6 months. So much so that I had to apply some glue underneath to keep the vinyl on. The glue solved the problem and I haven’t had lifting since. The piece that is about two feet further away had one small piece lift, but not enough for me to get glue in there to reattach it. Since the same vinyl was used on both pieces, I know it wasn’t the vinyl itself. It was the humidity from being close to the shower. Vinyl does not like humity. So be aware of where your final placement is going to be. And let that information help you make decisions on which materials you are going to use for your project. Again, there are always solutions on how to fix things. But being aware is so very important for the longevity of your creations.

This was important to point out, because I will never put this Darkness to Light project in my bathroom or near my stove in my kitchen (where it would become exposed to steam). The uneven surface creates little pockets where steam/humidity can come in and loosen the adhesive bond.

Now that all is said and done, I am so happy with the outcome of this recycled project!

The scrapped project brought me so much tears and frustration. I actually hid it in my craftroom because of how many emotions is evoked in me. But it’s transformation brings me so much joy! Sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that there is ugliness and frustration under the new design. It makes me wonder if all the Great Artists felt like this when they painted over something previously made.

Thank you for walking through this transformation project with me. I hope it inspires you not to give up on something that you’ve made that just doesn’t hit the mark on any level. These projects can see new life in a new direction.

Please comment below, sharing with my any transformation projects you’ve made. Or if you’re stuck on something and would like some perspective to help get unstuck. I’m here for you.

See you next week!

Find all 3 Darkness to Light here

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