Bobleo Gets Crafty
Remember when I said I'd be filling you in later with all the Christmas craftiness? Well I'm finally coming through! Bobleo wanted to make his soon to be brother in law, Geoff, something really special for Christmas this year. Geoff has recently become quite fond of Cornhole. For all of your with your minds in the gutter, you are obviously not well traversed in the current tailgating fads. It turns out that Cornhole is a carnival game turned tailgating game that has parking lot sports fans and drunken college kids all a flutter. Cornhole even has its own association. Anyway, Cornhole involves a bunch of guys throwing their sacks into a hole... (This just gets worse.) Geoff has been carrying his official Cornhole sacks around in a grocery bag, so Bobleo decided he needed an official Cornhole sack carrier.
To the craft cabinet! After a trip to Joann Fabrics, and about six million hours of brainstorming, we decided to try our hand at silk screening. Being stubborn DIY addicts that we are, Bobleo and I decided to forgo the tiresome all inclusive kit with instruction. "We can handle this," says us. So we bought ink, and a screen, a squeegee thing, and headed back to the fabric store to make our final purchases: fine mesh rayon (more expensive than one may think - but since I am sooo smart, I raided the remnants and found a treasure trove of deep discounts), duck canvas, a few yards of corn printed fabric from the seasonal discount section (hooray for thanksgiving leftovers!), and some hemp twine.
Back at base, we quickly realized that most of the world uses photo emulsion to create their silk screens. Since this bag was getting to be a pretty pricey project as it was, we decided not to go back to the art shop for the photo emulsion fluid (which would have been included in the KIT btw) and to go with the ghetto fabulous technique of mod podge blackout stenciling. I drew a corncob to Bobleo's specifications, scanned it into the computer, cleaned it up and added text: "Cornhole. It's not what you think." (This is actually the official slogan of the cornhole association BTW) Next, Bobleo traced the design onto his screen, and ever so carefully applied 3 layers of mod podge to the blacked out areas.
It took FOREVER. During the hours that Bobleo labored on his mod podge screen we realized one reason WHY the rest of the world uses photo emulsion. Ces la vie.
And the moment of truth!! Bobleo takes the plunge, applying the ink to the stencil.
We used a clamp to keep the stencil steady and bit our fingernails until we lifted it off. A couple of letters smeared, (we suspect faulty mod podge) but otherwise it looked great!
After it dried we set it with an iron and then I sat down to sew the bag together. The corn fabric lined the inside, and the green duck was the outside.
Here's Geoff with the final product on Christmas Day.
That boy sure loves him some cornhole.
