Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

How To Make a Stop Motion Video for Instagram

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

How to Make a Stop Motion Video For Instagram

Instagram is probably my favorite social media platform, especially when it comes to promoting my etsy shop, Barnacle Designs. Facebook has become so huge and unpredictable; Instagram feels more like I'm interacting with friends. Friends who I've maybe never met, but who are like minded about how great handmade is and who don't mind having me as a crazy stalker person.

 Awhile ago I decided to try my hand at making a stop motion video to post on my feed. It got a lot of views and likes, so here I am sharing how to do it with you. My video got about 50% more views than my usual posts, so I think it's worth it to bust out your creative director side and give it a go.

 This is the stop motion video I made showing off a zipper pouch from my etsy shop.
Here's whatcha you're gonna need to make one yourself.

 1. iphone camera
2. the "flipgram" app downloaded on your phone
3. little iphone tri-pod to stabilize your phone
4. remote camera shutter
5. items that will be in your video
6. some kind of background, I just used a white poster board

 Fancy! I bought the tripod and the shutter at Target, and they were each under $10. These two little workers keep your camera absolutely still while you photograph, and keep your camera exactly the same distance from your set up as you are taking multiple shots.

 Once you have this set up, it's just a matter of taking a ton of photos, yelling "show me sexy! show me fierce!" and moving your items no more than 1/4 inch after each shot. 

 Some things I learned along the way that might help you:

 *Set everything up in an area with really nice natural lighting. You want all the photos to have consistent good lighting and you will have WAY too many photos at the end to have to edit them all for brightness. That would be so yuck.

 *Plan your beginning, middle and end before you start shooting. Flipgram will load all your photos into it's "reel" in the order you took them, and while you can reorder them, it's easiest if you take your photos in the order you want them.

 *With that in mind, delete any unusable photos (say because your hand is in it) as you go.

 *Only move your items a tiny bit between each shot. More photos with smaller increments of movement will make a better finished video than less photos with bigger jumps in movement. Aim for about 1/4" in distance moved. I ended up using 120 photos for a 25 second video, that's about 5 photos per second!
*Here is a collage of some of the 18+ photos of the earplugs "walking" into the zipper pouch.

*Make a tiny mark on your background surface to use as a, well, mark for your items. In my video I made a small pencil dot on the poster board that appeared as the front and center of the frame when I looked at the camera screen. As I moved items around the circle I made sure the item in front at the time touched my dot. This kept the whole thing sort of centered throughout the video.

 *Take multiple shots without moving anything if you want there to be a pause in the action.
Once you've taken all your photos:

*When you open flipgram it will walk you through setting up your new video. The most important option you have is adjusting the speed, it looks like a little slider with a bunny icon. 

*In my opinion a video for instagram should be no longer than 30 seconds and even shorter is better. Increasing the speed is mandatory as it makes your stop motion look smoother and makes your video shorter. Your goal is to make people want to watch your video again, not wish it would get over.

*When you load your finished flipgram onto instagram, you can actually use the built in editing tools to edit all of the photos in the flipgram at the same time. Way cool! And much easier than editing them all individually.

And there you have it. If you have any questions ask in the comments and I'll get back to you, and if you make an instagram video tag me @barnacledesigns so I can check out your ah-mazing work!

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How to Reupholster Stanley Dining Chairs Part 2

Friday, April 8, 2016

In part one of this tutorial I showed you how to take a chair apart and prep it for reupholstering. Today I'm going to show you how to put it back together. 

 The scoop on how I painted the table is here. 

 I am trying to blog more purposefully lately and I keep asking myself what I'm hoping you get from this blog post. I hope that you'll come away feeling like having a nice room, with furniture that you love, is an achievable goal even on a small budget. Whether it's reupholstering chairs, painting a table, or creating a small still life, I want you to feel like you can do it! Without setting foot in Pottery Barn (unless you want to).

 Of course there is nothing wrong with new furniture, but I absolutely love up-cycling old things. I love having a space that no one else has and putting my own creative stamp on my home. There is a tremendous satisfaction to be had from doing something yourself, from feathering your own nest. Plus, when it's time to get spendy I'd way rather do it on a fantastic piece of art than on a chair. 

 So, if you're still with me, let's get to upholstering!

 I began with the seat. I cut out the top part of the seat, inside the piping, and used this piece as a pattern for my new cover.
Pin it to the fabric and cut around it leaving about a half inch for a seam allowance.
There are a lot of chairs where you can just cut a large piece of fabric, wrap the seat and staple it to the bottom. My chairs are more structured. From here I needed to cut a six inch wide strip of fabric the length of the perimeter of the seat and sew it on. I'm calling it the "seat edge piece." Here is a diagram to help explain what I mean.
Pin the seat edge piece to the seat with a piece of piping sandwiched between them. Sew the ends of the seat edge piece together first, then sew the seat edge piece all the way around the edge of the seat piece.
When that is done you put the piece back over the wood piece with the cushion on it and staple it into place.


As you staple work back and forth stapling on opposite sides as you work around the piece. Only pull your fabric taut enough to be smooth, if you get too energetic and pull the fabric really tight the staples will rip through the fabric. You want the fabric to have enough give that when someone sits on it the fabric doesn't rip through the staples. Which we hates.
After the seat cover is stapled on, lay piping all around the bottom edge and staple that on.
This next photo shows how to hide the ends of the piping. I like this seam to be at the "back" of the seat.
 Now trim all the stray threads and screw the seat back onto the chair frame. 

 It's time get a diet coke and tackle the back.

 Here is your bare back.
Lay a piece of fabric over it and trim to roughly the size of the opening.
Begin stapling it to the frame working back and forth stapling opposite sides as you pull the fabric just tight enough to be smooth but not so tight that the staples rip through the fabric.
For my chair these staples needed to be on the inside of the channel. Pay attention to how the original fabric was attached on your chair and use that as your guide.
Trim the excess fabric close to the staples leaving about 1/4 inch all the way around.
Lay the foam padding on top.
And lay a piece of fabric trimmed to size over it.
Begin stapling the fabric to the chair frame. For my chair this is where I needed my long nose staple gun because I needed to get the fabric pushed into the channel and stapled there.
 The same as before, keep the fabric smooth, but not too tight or the staples will rip right through the fabric. Work around the chair doing opposite sides, so one staple at the top, then one at the bottom-one on the left side, then one on the right. Until you're done. Use lots of staples because if anyone ever tries to take this thing apart you want them to have just as many staples to remove as you did!
Cut off the excess fabric.
Now it's time to hot glue piping all around the edge to cover the staples and make it pretty!

 For this you need to trim the piping as close as you can to the stitching.
And start gluing it around with the high temperature hot glue. My fingers got burned a bunch doing this. I don't know what to tell you except be better than me.
I tried to get a close up photo of how I hide the ends by tucking them straight into the seam. I do it at the bottom middle of the chair back so all the seams are "lined up" with the ones on the chair seat.

 Now remember that before and after?
So satisfying! Now just trim all your stray threads and be amazed with yourself!

And as always, I would be thrilled to answer any questions you have about this project.


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How to Sew Blackout Curtains-DIY

Sunday, November 16, 2014


Hey! Guess what? I made blackout curtains! I did it. I did it! I did it! YAY! I am super excited to share how with you because if you want to buy a single blackout panel from PBTeen it will cost you a cool $80 for one panel, but you can make four of them for about $75! All you need is a little belief in yourself and the ability to sew a semi-straight line.
tween girl bedroom makeover

This is a project I took on as part of Ellie's room makeover. You can see my plans for her little room here, and how I refinished her dresser here. The girl has to have complete and utter darkness in order to wake up happy so blackout curtains were a must. Previously she would drape extra blankets over her curtain rods to block out the light. So fashion forward I tell you. You can see some of her room in these curtain pictures; by Wednesday I'll hopefully be finished and have the full, wait for it, reveal. 

I looked at a few different tutorials online and the one I really followed was this one from A View Along the Way. It is very clear and well done.

I'm so happy with how these came out I'm looking at every window in my house with a critical eye wondering what fabric would look best as a new dress for them.

So if you're ready to make your own blackout curtains, let's get cracking!

I do everything with a sort of casual approach, I hope that doesn't bug you. Don't stress out when you're making these; you can do it! And all mistakes are fixable.

So first, cut your fabric. Ideally you should cut your fabric 4-6 inches wider and 6-8 inches longer than you want your panel to end up. I, on the other hand, got excited and immediately cut my fabric to almost exactly the length I wanted my panel to end up. But after a brief moment where I thought I'd have to stab myself in the eye with the scissors, I realized I'd just have to make do with smaller hems. And it worked out fine.

Lock your dog in another room and lay your fabric out on the floor if your panels are too long to cut on a table.

Next cut your blackout lining a few inches shorter and narrower than your fabric panels. I cut mine 6 inches shorter and 4 inches narrower.

Fold up a hem on the bottom edge of your fabric, iron it, fold it again, iron it and sew it with a 1/4 inch seam allowance. I was trying to make my hem as small as possible since I was an over eager cutter, but if you cut your fabric 8 inches longer than your finished panel you can fold up a two inch hem and then fold it again taking up four inches total. It will look nice and professional. Are you following? Great!


A 1/4 inch seam allowance is basically when you put your presser foot right against that fold and follow it for the whole seam. It makes it easy to sew straight. You will see that I didn't bother pinning. I also just eyeballed what an inch hem looks like and folded it without measuring. I like living on the edge that way.

This is quick and dirty curtain making my friends. Not really though, it actually looks very good. I just hate spending a million hours trying to make everything perfect and then being hyper aware of every uneven hem or crooked stitch; instead I like to eyeball things and remember that the curtain police probably won't come check on me. 

Okay next hem your lining fabric again using a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Now you have a hemmed curtain panel, and a hemmed lining. Lay them right sides together and line the left edges up together. The right side of the blockout fabric is the side that is a little bit soft and fuzzy; the wrong side feels like rubber? It should look like this. Go ahead and pin it and sew the edges together.
Next you need to take the right edges and pin and sew them together. The fabric panel is, obviously, bigger than the lining so the fabric will be loose. It's okay, just go with it.
After both of the edges are sewn together, you get to do the fun part...turning the whole thing right side out! It will look like this:
Kind of smooth and straighten it so that there are equal amounts of fabric on each side of the lining. Be excited! It looks like a real, professional, blackout curtain panel! Iron it up.

At this point you could simply hem the top and then hang the panels using curtain clips like I did with my kitchen valance. 

If you want curtains hung with back tabs you can cut 2 1/2 inch lengths of grosgrain ribbon to use as tabs. Double fold down the top of the panel and iron it. Slide the ribbon pieces under the edge of the hem and pin them. To get even spacing I put one tab at each corner, then one in the middle, then eyeballed the two tabs in between the middle and edge tabs.


Now sew the edge down securing the tabs as you do.
Now sew the ends of the tabs down. I went across, backwards, and across again.
And finally, trim the loose threads and hang that beautiful curtain up! After you make the first one you'll be amazed at how easy it was and probably, like me, excited to make more. Cheers!
Linking at DIY Show off and Under the Table and Dreaming - what a great name! and Huckleberry Love

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Free the Paint

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Hi friends! If you are here to learn about painting tile with chalk paint I just repainted my entryway tile and have a post with all the how to's and tips here.


Back in December I finally painted my entryway. I used Annie Sloan chalk paint on the floor (crazy right?!), and free paint on the walls. Actually, this little entryway has taken up more than it's fair share of space on the blog as I keep trying to get it just right. But since I posted plans, I figure I should share what I did-especially since I learned an awesome paint secret which I will now share with you...how to lay your hands on some FREE paint!

 Yes friends, FREE. My most favorite price in the whole world.

My brother told me about this trick. It is going to the dump and taking paint that people have dropped off to be recycled. 
Here's my brother Paul introducing me to the glories of dump  paint.
At our facility there was a whole room full of partially used gallons and quarts of paint that people had dropped off. I went in knowing that I wanted to paint the entryway a darkish blue/grey color, and that I would need about two gallons of paint to do it. I was also on the look out for white trim paint.

 Here is the only real "rule" you need to remember: **When you mix paints, use matching finishes** For me that meant choosing two nearly full gallons of white-ish flat interior latex and then several quarts of blue, black, and grey flat interior latex. See what I did there? All flat interior latex. No mixing oil with latex or flat with gloss. For more painting tips check out my "Painting guide for the lazy and non-critical."
I took a whole box, hey, it's free!
I also took several quarts of white semi-gloss trim paint. They were all different brands and slightly different shades of white-no worries as long as the finishes match. At home I mixed the two gallons of white together in a big 5 gallon bucket and then started mixing in the quarts of color. I ended up using a whole quart of black to get the color as dark as I wanted.
Once I had a color that I was happy with it was a just a matter of painting as usual. But for FREE!


 As you can see,I have not yet wall papered the stair risers-but I still plan to (when I win the lottery). *I finally did the wallpaper, you can see it here.

 On a side note, I have not loved the orange entryway tile since we moved in so I decided to paint that too. Sometimes I paint unusual things on the principle that I can't hate it any worse than I already do so why not?

 I used TSP cleaner to clean the tile really well first. Then I used two coats of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and one coat of ASCP Floor Lacquer. You can see how it looks in the pictures. I'm super happy and it has held up perfectly! Yay. No more orange floor. 


 Orange sweater yes, orange floor no. I'm a HUGE fan of ASCP, if you want to see more chalk paint project you can check these:
I'm linking up at

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