My very first post! DIY tutorial: Monogrammed Jewelry Dish

I'm very excited to finally get this blog started! I've been thinking about starting my own blog for almost a year now, and I have finally bit the bullet and decided to give it a try. I find myself having 'craft time' as often as possible, I just haven't documented all of my creations until now.

This dish is a super cute way to store little trinkets- I just plan on using it for the jewelry I use on a daily basis.  The inspiration for the tutorial came from the Belle in the City blog that I found on Pinterest.  You can visit her tutorial here: http://werejustlikeyouonlyprettier.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html.

All you need is:
A dish or plate (I got mine for $1 at Dollar Tree)
Acrylic Paint that is safe for glass/ceramics (I bought Multi-Surface craft paint from Martha Stewart for $2 at Michael's)

Color: Pink Flamingo

A paint brush (one medium size, and one small one)
A clear acrylic spray paint to seal everything (Mine is Krylon from WalMart for around $4)
A regular white acrylic paint (Should adhere to the multi-surface acrylic for the monogram, mine is just Craft Smart from Michaels. It works well and is super cheap!)
Your own creativity!

First you're going to want to clean your dish with soap and water.  The paint also says to rub your surface with rubbing alcohol, but I didn't have any on hand so I had to skip this step.  Next you're going to want to figure out exactly where you are going to paint the main color.  You could tape this with painter's tape if you are wanting a square or something with straight lines, but since I wanted a circle, I decided to trace a circle onto my plate with a washable marker.  I just turned one of my cereal bowls upside down to get the size circle that I was looking for.

I just used a pink washable Crayola marker to trace my circle

Next, you are going to very carefully paint your first coat within the lines.  Paint quickly to get an even coat so you don't get any little bits of dried paint running throughout the wet paint.  This doesn't look cute at all, I unfortunately learned this the hard way and had to start the whole thing over.

The brush I used, and the paint after one coat.

You're going to want to let the paint dry before you apply another coat.  The paint says wait an hour, I didn't wait that long.  You can also use a blow dryer on a cool setting to speed this process up. I did this after the second coat to speed things up a bit.  Tip: Paint with really light brushstrokes just in case the under layer isn't fully dry.  That way you wont end up with the dry paint flakes that I did the first time. You can paint as many coats as you like- just paint until you are satisfied with the color.  I did 3 coats to get a really opaque base to put my monogram on top of.

The next step is what takes some creativity.  Drawing your own monogram can be a little tricky, but it just takes a little practice and you will get the hang of it. Everything I own that has a monogram on it is in the script interlocking font, I absolutely love this look and can sketch my own monogram in this font in 15 seconds.  But after seeing Belle in the City's circular block monogram, I was intrigued.  I liked that it was different and decided to give it a go.  I had never drawn my monogram in this font before so I used Google images to find a template to sketch my own. I sketched my own a couple times on a white sheet of paper to get the hang of it before I tried to on my dish.

Use this to find your own personal monogram!

My block circular monogram on the left and my interlocking one on the right.

Before I explain how I did my monogram I am going to tell you all- IT WOULD BE MUCH EASIER TO USE A COLORED SHARPIE TO DO THIS!! The paint was hard to use and took an extremely steady hand. It ended up looking ok but it took many coats and more time than I wanted to spend on it.  Belle in the City used a silver metallic Sharpie and I think hers turned out really cute.  If I decide to do this again, I will definitely be trying out that method.  (I think it also creates a much cleaner look.)

I didn't know what to use to sketch onto my plate, luckily I had a white-ish paint marker in my craft supplies, so I used that.  I tried to lightly sketch a rough draft of the monogram and kept tweaking it until I was happy with what I saw.  It did NOT look pretty at this stage but that didn't matter. 

First stage- when sketched with paint marker

Next I took my white acrylic paint and started painting in the lines with a smaller paint brush. The first coat was not pretty.  Neither was the second.  I used the blow dryer again in between coats to get it dry quicker.  Finally, after the 3rd coat I was happy with how opaque the white was.  But I didn't like how sloppy the monogram looked.  It was thick and the lines weren't really clean.

After 3 coats of the white paint.

I realized I could fix this by using the pink and very carefully touching up all the places that needed it.  I used the same brush, but mainly tried to use the edge of it to get a clean line.  This process took some TLC and it was tedious.  But after this stage I was FINALLY happy with what I saw. 

After touching up with the pink around the edges.

After that dried all that was left was to seal it with my Krylon Acrylic spray paint and then it would be ready for jewelry! To spray the plate I just put it on a plastic bag to protect my floor and coated the entire plate with a thick coat.  I let it dry for about 15 minutes and then blew it dry for a couple just to be safe- you can wait longer if you'd like. Then it was ready for use! (If you want to do more than one coat of the sealant follow the instructions on the bottle.) I really love how it turned out, I have it sitting on the side of my vanity table in my room now.  I think it's a nice way to make my jewelry  look organized and neat.

The glossy finish comes from the acrylic sealant.

Finished product :)

So, that's it for my first blog and tutorial!! I hope you all enjoyed it and I hope every step is clear. I also wanted to add that this dish could be really cute just as a decorative plate- you can get a plate stand from Hobby Lobby for like $3, and then have it on display wherever you like.

Please subscribe to my blog if you want to see more tutorials and much more,  I will be updating as often as possible and I would love to get feedback. Leave comments, and have fun trying this! Can't wait to see everybody else's versions :)

Catherine

CHIC.CLASSY.CHEAP