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Hands Occupied

Colorful knitting, crochet, latch hook and macrame from craft book author & designer Heidi Gustad.

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How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign

April 15, 2013 Leave a Comment

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

I got to learn about a lot of new craft products and tools at the Craft & Hobby Association conference in January, but probably my favorite find were FloraCraft’s new styrofoam tools. I never used to know quite what to do with styrofoam beyond using it as-is out of the box to create cute wreaths and such. Today’s project was created with the help of these new tools, some graphic design software, and a bit of craft paint. For now, this home-sweet-home accent lives on my living room mantle, but I plan on hanging it on my font door soon.

Supplies

straight pins
scissors
clear tape
12″x12″ styrofoam sheet
Styro Cutter® Plus
a scrap of corrugated cardboard
this pattern
styrofoam tuck & scribe tool
acryllic craft paint
paint brush

Directions

Begin by printing out this pattern (make sure that you’re printing one page per standard 8.5×11 sheet of paper), cutting out the four pieces and taping them together. Pin the pattern to your styrofoam sheet with straight pins. Plug in your Styro Cutter Plus and let it heat up – it heats up quickly, kind of like a curling iron, but it gets up to 410 degrees. Be very careful when you use this tool. It’s a great tool that I really like, but you need to handle it with care.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

When the tool is fully hot, begin tracing around your pattern. I found it was easiest to cut it out in sections, rather than all at once.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

As you go, some melted styrofoam will build up on the Styro Cutter Plus tool, and simply running the tool over a ridge in the cardboard will easily clean off the residue.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

When the outline of the cabin shape is all cut out, set aside the styrofoam pieces, and remove the pattern from the styrofoam.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

Cut out the letters that spell out “home sweet home” carefully, creating a stencil. You can leave the middles of letters like “e” and “o” in, as shown. Center the phrase on the styrofoam and secure several straight pins.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

Paint over your stencil, being careful not to get paint under the stencil, affecting the legibility of the letters. Since you’re painting on styrofoam, rather than paper or fabric, the paint won’t run under the stencil like it could with those other mediums. The one drawback of the styrofoam in this case is the fact that it takes a few layers of paint to get good color coverage. FYI :)

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

Let the paint dry completely before carefully removing all pins and peeling away the letters. Next, grab the tuck and scribe tool and squish down the unpainted styrofoam with the rounded end. This adds some great texture & depth to your sign. When you get to letters like “e” and “o”, leave the middles un-squished.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

When you’ve finished squishing down all the letters, paint the un-squished middles and let dry. You can do this word by word or all at once, it’s up to you.

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied

How-to: Home Sweet Home Cabin Sign at Hands Occupied
The styrofoam and styrofoam tools used in this tutorial were provided by FloraCraft. 

Filed Under: Home Decor, How-to Tagged With: crafts, diy, floracraft, home decor, home sweet home, sculpting, styrofoam

About Heidi

Heidi Gustad is a craft book author, designer & creator specializing in yarn crafts like knitting, crochet, latch hook & macramé. Her first book, Latch Hook: 12 Projects for the Modern Maker, is out now.

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Heidi Gustad from Hands Occupied / Craft Book Author and Knitting, Crochet, Latch Hook and Macrame Designer

Hi! I’m Heidi (she/her/hers), a craft book author & pattern designer specializing in knitting, crochet, latch hook & macrame. Really anything with yarn! ❤️  My work combines vintage and modern design elements, featuring bold colors and graphic motifs.

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Learn how to do the magic loop method for knitting Learn how to do the magic loop method for knitting in the round in 90 seconds. / Using the magic loop allows knitters to work in the round with a single, long circular needle at a range of circumferences. 
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Finally organizing & putting the finishing touches Finally organizing & putting the finishing touches on my home studio. After losing my studio space last fall, it’s feels really great to *occupy* this new space all the way. 😉
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I started by removing general clutter & returning straggler supplies from various WIPs, videos & design deadlines to their homes. Next, I hung a third peg board in the space - this one is mostly for display and less for organizing tools or projects. For the first time ever, I’m displaying projects from my book, plus a couple other faves. (The best thing about designing more yarn crafts besides knit & crochet is that I have some really fun -and delightfully pettable 😆- samples around.) I finished by adding a square dowel to my small supply storage tower to keep it from tipping over, plus re-arranging and de-cluttering the closet. 
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