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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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handsoccupied

Craft book author, designer & creator specializing in yarn crafts like knitting, crochet, latch hook & macramé
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If only knitting a whole project took 39 seconds… 😮‍💨 
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In this video, you can see how the Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern knits up - two flat panels, one with intarsia, both are blocked, and then they’re seamed. Find the pattern on @hi.ravelry & my website, just search Intarsia Flower Pillow. 🌸 
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P.S. I’m really smiling in this video while seaming the pillow, so I guess I’m proving last week’s claim that I truly enjoy that sometimes-dreaded task. 😆🫣
In knitting, a Left Lifted Increase (LLI) lets you In knitting, a Left Lifted Increase (LLI) lets you add a stitch in between two columns of stitches that leans to the left. Similar to an M1L, LLIs allow you to increase nearly invisibly.
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To learn more about lifted increases, including when to use them and how they differ from Make 1s, head to the 🔗 in my profle. 
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Have you ever used lifted increases? I used M1’s almost exclusively for a long time when I needed to inc between stitches, but when I designed the Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern, I needed something that would allow me to increase a lot near my cast on, and M1’s resulted in edge curling. The more you know! 🌈 
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Yarn: @lionbrandyarn Wool Ease from my Stash / Neddles: @boyeyarncrafts - Just remembered these are the needles I learned to knit on at age 8. 😂
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#handsoccupied #knitting #learntoknit #howtoknit #sweaterknitting #knitinspiration #knittersofinstagram #liftedincreases
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Lessons learned: 1️⃣ Trying to knit around 2 toddlers, 2 cats & 2 large dogs is pretty hard. 2️⃣ I learned during water color time that pink and black make “colorful black.” 🩷🖤 3️⃣ Toddlers do NOT care about your rainbow sorting of their toys. 4️⃣ Toddlers are very good at finding mischief in a very short amount of time, what a surprise. 😂
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Weaving in ends & seaming with mattress stitch are Weaving in ends & seaming with mattress stitch are both so useful for garment knitting! But for me, weaving in ends can feel like a chore while the latter feels like I’ve successfully done magic. 🧙🏻‍♀️ Does anybody else run into this phenomenon? Are you the opposite? Any theories as to why they feel different? 
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In this video, I’m finishing my brand new Intarsia Flower Pillow. 🌸 I’m working with @universal_yarn Uni Merino & the pattern is available at the 🔗 in my b1o. 
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#handsoccupied #intarsiaflowerpillow #intarsia #intarsiaknitting #knitting #colorwork #knitpillow #knittinginspiration #knittersofinstagram
I independently released a knitting pattern today, I independently released a knitting pattern today, my first in 5 years! The Intarsia Flower Pillow is a 16” (40cm) round pillow knit with an intentional combination of intarsia, stockinette, garter and seed stitch. This pillow has everything you need to level up your intarsia technique while also knitting something you can use. 
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This pillow allows you to practice knitting intarsia while simultaneously increasing and decreasing. The Intarsia Flower Pillow pattern was designed to be a little knit-nerdy for learning and a little cute, arming you with many of the skills you'd need to knit an intarsia sweater. 
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Intarsia Flower Pillow is available in the Hands Occupied Sh0p and on @hi.ravelry . You can read more about the pattern on the bl0g, the🔗 are where you’d think.
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YARN: @universal_yarn Uni Merino in Antiquity, Fjord and Conch / NEEDLES: US 2 (2.75 mm) / PATTERN: Intarsia Flower Pillow by Heidi Gustad
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