Be Thankful Banner

Leelou Blogs has a fantastic Thanksgiving Printable Kit filled with all sorts of great printables for Thanksgiving.  I especially loved the Be Thankful banner printable.  Being the crafty person that I am, I saw it and thought to myself, "I'll bet I can make something like that".  It has been a while since I used my Cricut, and I have been itching to make something fun with it.  I pulled it out of the dust bunnies the other night and came up with my own version of the Be Thankful banner. 

As an additional activity for Thanksgiving day, I think we will use clothespins to attach all the things we are thankful for this year.

Halloween Subway Art

I recently ran across MaryJanes and Galoshes and their great Halloween Window Subway Art tutorial.  I just love all the subway art I have been seeing everywhere, and I was inspired.  I just had to make something similar.  I knew I didn't have the right picture frame at home, so I started to troll the garage sales and found this beauty for only $0.50.

With no nicks or scratches, the frame was in perfect condition.  Perfect!  One less step I would have to do.  I recently got the Sure Cuts A Lot software for my Cricut.  Oh my goodness....what have I done without this software all of my life???  I won't ever have to buy a font cartridge again!  I downloaded several spooky looking fonts* from DaFont and got started designing.

Once I was happy with the words, I used my Cricut to cut everything out on cheap Contact paper.  I laid it all out before committing and sticking everything down.

Since it was too late last night to paint my project, I went to bed and dreamed happy spray painting dreams until this morning.  After dropping my daughter off at school, I used Valspar's "Frosting" spray paint to frost the open spaces on the glass.  Then, the hard part, waiting for the paint to dry.  After I lifted the letters off, I was left with a very sticky situation!  Most of the sticky part remained on the glass.  Yuck!  Thank goodness for Goo Gone!  I spent about an hour or so scrubbing all the sticky residue off.  When it was finally off, I gave the glass a good washing and put some orange paper behind the glass and snapped it all back together.  This is the final product...

I apologize for this picture, this project was very hard to photograph!  In the right light, this looks really cool, and I love that I can change the back paper to suit my moods!

* The fonts I used were:  Yard Sale, Juice ITC, Mars Attacks, She Creature, Lunacy More, Trick or Treat BV and Jack Lantern BB

This project has been entered in the Halloween Extravaganza over at The CSI Challenge

Vinyl Wall Art

I know I have been MIA for the last few weeks.  My computer crashed and I haven't been able to access any of my pictures or anything else for that matter.  I won't be able to show you many of my latest projects because all the before pictures are on the computer that crashed.  We are still trying to decide what to do about the computer.

In the meantime, here is a little something I created for my son's room.  His walls are a yummy sky blue to match the blue parts of his Winnie the Pooh bedding set.  The problem is that the only things hanging on the wall are the comforter, which I added ribbon to so it hangs on the wall (I have never used the comforter with my baby!)  The other thing is a super cute Winnie the Pooh sign my mom made when the baby was born.  I adore the book "Guess How Much I Love You" by Sam McBratney.  In fact, it may be my favorite children's book.  My favorite part is the last line, "I love you to the moon and back."  Thus, my inspiration for wall art was born.  Yes, I have seen these kinds of signs all over the place, but I didn't want to just buy something else that would only be used for a little while.  I broke out the Cricut and cut the letters using the Keystone cartridge.  The moon and stars are made using George.  I used vinyl and stuck it directly to the wall.  I love the way it turned out.  What do you think?

I learned several things about making vinyl wall art while doing this project:.
1.  It helps to do a test run with inexpensive printer paper before committing to the more expensive vinyl.
2.  When using transfer paper, the top is VERY sticky, EVERYTHING (especially animal hair) sticks to it, so be very careful where you place it while you are working!
3.  My transfer paper had guidelines on the back of the working surface.  Not very helpful if you can't see them!  I put sheets of white paper underneath my project, then I could see the grid perfectly
4.  The letters do not like to stay put when you are trying to put the sticky side over them, I used very small pieces of masking tape to temporarily tape them to the backing so they would not move while I adhered the transfer tape.
5.  A level is very helpful when determining the position on the wall (laser levels are even better!).

Burnishing to the wall

6.  Burnish, burnish, burnish....then burnish some more.  To the transfer tape, then to the wall.  When you think you have burnished enough, do it some more,  it will make your project go much more smoothly.  The vinyl will not stretch if everything is burnished correctly.

Front Door Sign

I have a cute summery sign hanging on my front door.  It gives me joy every time I look at it.  Unfortunately, my cute summer decor has taken a beating in the harsh Texas sun. 

As you can see, the black words are still dark as ever, but the yellow background and cute ladybugs had faded.  Not wanting to spend the money for a new sign, I decided it was time to do a little face lift on my existing one. 

I taped off all the metal parts and sprayed primer all over it.  While the primer was drying, I rummaged through my cans of spray paint.  I didn't have any yellow, but I did have some dark blue.  It would have to do because I was determined not to spend a penny on this project.  This is a summer sign, so I lightly sprayed the blue and let some of the white primer show through.  While the paint was drying, I broke out my Cricut and cut new words and some ladybugs onto white vinyl.  Once the blue was dry, I painted the ladybugs red and gave them black spots.  Because this hangs on my front door and is exposed to all the elements (including the rain), I used a spray sealer.  Something went wrong here because there are some foggy spots left behind.  I decided that it just adds to the charm and home made look.  Here is my new sign hanging happily on my front door.

The world is good again :)

This project is being entered in the CSI Challenge:  Outdoor Decor

Dollar Store Thank You Card

I just love the wonderful ladies at The CSI Project.  This week's challenge is Dollar Store projects.  As I wandered through the aisles at the Dollar Tree, I was inspired when I walked past the flowers.  My mom sent me the greatest card with a flower and tulle on the front for Mother's Day.  I knew I couldn't do the same thing, but could do something quite similar with dollar store items.  I picked a bunch that had a different colored flowers so I would get the most bang for my buck.  Then, I wanted over to the wedding section for the tulle.  When I got home, I assembled my materials...

I yanked plucked a yellow flower from the bunch, cut a small hunk carefully measured and cut the right amount of tulle and set to work gluing it to the front of the card.  While the glue was drying, I used my Cricut machine to cut a circle for the center of the flower, inked my "Thanks" stamp in black and slapped centered it on the circle.  Once the glue from the flower was dry, I used double sided tape to stick the circle to the flower, and voila....cute Dollar Store Thank You Card.

Just imagine the possibilities of what can go in the center of this flower...As limitless as my stamp collection :)

Mother's Day Cards

I recently got a Cricut machine.  Oh wow, is it ever a great machine!  I have tons of great ideas of things I can do with it.  However, my pocketbook vastly limits these possibilities.  As you are aware, the cartridges are pretty expensive, so I only have 3 of them.  These Mother's Day cards were created using the Jasmine and Home Decor Solutions cartridges.  For the first two cards, I used photos from a recent trip with the kiddos to see the wildflowers (please excuse the blurred images, but I have a strict policy of not letting the kids pictures be on this blog). 

 

For this card, I used tiny colored brads to hold the letters, they are not glued down which makes them loose, and gives a fun whimsical look.

These last two cards were from the kids.  They are two variations on the same idea.

For all these cards, I make a full sized insert with the sayings printed on my computer.  Needless to say, everyone loved their cards, and I had a great time making them and learning about my new Cricut machine.  I can't wait to save up enough money to purchase more cartridges...