Teapot Art

Hi. Welcome to my blog.  It’s called “Court Could Make That”. I wanted it to be “I” instead of Court, you know, to appeal to the every man, but it wasn’t available, so now it’s just oddly-third-personish. I don’t like to buy things that I feel like I could make on my own fairly well.  Also, I like creating. Crafting. Cooking. Whatver.

Now, before you get worried that this is going to be one of those blogs where people make things and post tutorials that are a million pages long, it’s not.  I’m amazed those people can make tutorials that long and detailed.  Sometimes I follow recipes, patterns, and tutorials.  Sometimes, I don’t. 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

When I’m out and about, and I see (or eat!) something wonderful, I tend to ask myself this question: “Could I Make That?”  If the answer is “I could make that” or even “Maybe I could make that”, I write it down (or take a picture of it on my phone) and when I’ve got a free moment, I go to work.

I’m hoping to convince my very talented and creative friends to do guest posts for me sometimes.  So, talented and creative friends, fire up your engines.

Enough rambling!

Let’s begin.

This is a lovely little project I affectionately, but not very creatively, named “Teapot Art”.  There are pictures at the bottom of this post if you just can't stand the wait!!

I love tea. I love teapots. I love teaparties.

Also, I recently moved into a new place.  My walls needed something fun.  I saw some really interesting silhouette art at a shop a while back, nothing too fancy, just black shapes on cream paper in a frame.  They had the usual things, you know, the Eiffel tower, a high heel, etc, etc.  Liked it. Didn’t LOVE it.

Yessir, I could make that (BETTER, even).

Step One:  Gather old frames.  I wanted oldish looking frames painted silver and gold.  I found the big ones at a thrift store and the little ones at the dollar store. I thought about painting them.  I didn’t. You could.  Either way, it would be grand. I just didn’t FEEL like it that day. (maybe I should have called this blog LazyCrafts? Sometimes my crafts and recipes are lazy. No, let us call them “time-efficient”)

Step Two:  Backgrounds.  Cream is fine, white is nice, but I wanted color.  I thought about using pretty scrapbook paper.  I didn’t have pretty scrapbook paper.  I did have a lot of fabric scraps.  I chose three patterns I liked.  A green with little white flowers, a yellow with lots of big flowers, and a nice red check. 

Step Three: Silhouettes. Teapots! Tea cups! Sugar Bowls! Milk Pitchers! I wanted a whole tea service on my wall, really.  I got a sheet of black poster board and cut out my tea things.  If I couldn’t find a picture on the internet to trace, I freehanded it.  If I couldn’t freehand it, I asked my highly gifted art teacher roommate to draw it for me.

Step Three: Assemble!  I hot glued the fabric to the cardboard part of the frame-insides, affixed the silhouettes with a bit of double sided table, put the frames back together and that’s it.

Pretty easy, I think.  There’s not even any sewing in this one! Also, fast. And inexpensive! What’s not to love?  Of course, you may not have a passion for teapots like me. You could do any silhouette you liked! Your pet? Your family? Your car? I don’t know.  The ever-popular Eiffel Tower or high-heeled shoe? ( I admit to sort of liking those.  I know there are more things in France besides the Eiffel Tower.  But wouldn’t that be a pain to cut out?)

Here’s a picture of how mine turned out.  It’s in a corner, which wasn’t my original plan, but it’s just where it had to go in the end. I like it though.  Oh! And that hook thing is a really cute teapot hook I just had to have (99 cents, yay!).  I need something to hang on it, though!  Please excuse my poor photography skills.

Ta-da.  Yes, a little crooked. I fixed it for the next one.

And up close (yikes, window glare. Can you see my lamp?)

The other side

Special Thanks To:

Whit, for drawing my sugar bowl and milk pitcher.

Mary, for some of my fabric scraps.

Whitney, for taking me to the awesome store where I found my teapot hook.

Mom, for helping me arrange them on the wall.

Dad, for hanging them.