Shark…day!

Me, my husband, my sister and our friend were watching River Monsters last night, and the episode was about sharks. Now, if you know me, you know I’m OBSESSED with sharks. I’m equally obsessed as TERRIFIED. I will not go swimming in the water when I go to the beach, even when I went to Hawaii. Honestly, I’m completely content with sitting on the sand and watching others in the water. On our honeymoon in Hawaii, I sat and watched people surf for over 2 HOURS! No exaggeration! My husband went to the bar to watch a football game and I said “no problem, I’ll be here!” and there I was, 2 hours later. As terrified as I am of them, I can’t stop looking for one when I see an ocean. Whether it be in person, on tv, or pictures, it’s like a sickness, I don’t even realize I’m doing it! We were actually going to do the cage shark siting thinggy on our honeymoon, and I’m SO MAD we didn’t. I know, people look at me like I have 2 heads when I tell them that after telling them how scared I am of them, but we would have been in a caaage, nothing would have happened. I don’t even know why we didn’t, but I do know that next chance we get, we WILL. Anyway, watching River Monsters made me think of Shark Week and how ECSTATIC I am for it to come! I’ve decided that I will be having a party this year, and I’ve already pinned a butt load of stuff to my new Shark Week Party board :-D. Seeing all that stuff on Pinterest made me want to make something right now though, and so I immediately thought of freezer paper stencils. What can I make though?! Ahh a bag! Then a shirt! Then a necklace! Yessss! So that’s what I did. It was very hard to go to sleep last night after I wrote down my ideas.

So I started with the bag. Remember my “like a rolling stone” shirt? Well, I looked up a shark silhouette on Google, and traced it onto my freezer paper from the computer, just like I did in that post. Then, I cut it out using an Xacto knife.

 

Then I ironed it on. It won’t stick completely, but enough that it won’t move around while painting.

 

I did a dark grey paint. Because it was acrylic paint, I added some fabric medium. I always try to paint inward so the paint doesn’t get under the stencil.

 

Because the canvas was kind of thick, the paint bled a little bit around the edges.

 

So I just touched up the edges with some paint on a dull Xacto knife that I keep for things like this.

 

Came out perfect! Using the same concept, I sharked up a shirt. I actually wanted to see if I could use the same stencil even with paint all over it, and it worked! So excited! Because some of the other stencils I’ve made take A LOT of time to cut! So knowing I can use them over again made me a very happy camper :). I just put some scrap fabric over the stencil and ironed. The shirt was a lot easier than the bag, because it was plain ol’ cotton, so nice crisp edges.

 

Now, onto the necklace! I made it out of polymer clay (I know, I’m obsessed) I started by rolling out a little piece of clay. I probably made it 1/8in. Using the same shark silhouette, I cut a tiny one and placed it on top of the clay making sure that it won’t move around. Then, I cut it out very carefully with my Xacto knife.

 

Using a sewing pin, I poked a little hole in the top fin for a jump ring.

 

I baked him  for about 15 minutes at 275F, and once it cooled, I filed any shark or ragged edges down using a buffer block.

 

All that was left was to make a wire wrapped ring for a chain to go through, and it was all done!

 

So there you have it! I got my shark fix for the time being….but I can’t wait for my Shark Week party!! I even have a countdown on my Facebook. 🙂

 

How about you? You obsessed with sharks as much as I am? Excited for Shark Week?!

 

duh duh….duh duh….duh duh duh duh duh duhduhduhduh…Until tomorrow!!