Silhouette Sunday--San Francisco Giants Poncho

Last Halloween, my husband and daughter went to the San Francisco Giants World Series Parade (because they won the 2014 World Series!!!!  Woohoo!!!!).  They knew it was going to be rainy so they went and bought some cheapy ponchos from Sports Authority the night before...luckily they were orange!

But what is going to a parade to celebrate your team if you can't show off your Giants gear?

They came home and my daughter asked if I could make her a stencil with my awesome machine (the Silhouette Cameo) so they could spray paint the SF logo on her poncho.  I told her I could to better and cut and stick the logo on it!

At that time, I still had not purchased any vinyl...I only had some black Con-Tact paper.  I searched for the SF logo and did some button pushing (seriously, it is still a trial and error for me) and voila...

It lasted the day...but it did start to peel off in some spots--not sure if that is due to it being Con-Tact paper and not vinyl or if it had to do with the cheap poncho.

Maybe I should have made the MVP-Madison Bumgarner a cooler poncho! :)

Thank you for looking!

Silhouette Sunday #1--Littlest Pet Shop

*With the new year, I want to try out a new weekly (hopefully) blog post.  On Thanksgiving in 2013, I won a Silhouette Cameo--I still cannot believe it!!!  I try to use the machine, but normally my desk is a mess.  Also, I don't want to spend a ton on cuts since I bought a whole bunch of Cricut cartridges that I never use :/  But with the Cameo, it is so easy (not really easy) to find cuts or logos online and make them into cuts.  I say not really easy because it usually takes me a while to remember how to get it to cut what I want :)  Well...without any further ado...my first Silhouette Sunday.

My 6 year-old niece just started to collect Littlest Pet Shop figurines, but she also has a 6 month-old sister that is going to be crawling soon.  So for Christmas, I wanted to get her a box to keep her "pets" in, but I wanted it to be personalized...I thought what perfect way than to use the Cameo to make "Ava's Littlest Pet Shop".

Now, I am not sure if this is actually legal to do, but here is what I did...shh!  I found the logo to "Littlest Pet Shop" in PNG form and saved it to my computer.  Then in Photoshop Elements, I deleted the 'shadow' and colored the 'Littlest', 'Pet', and 'Shop' black (I don't know if you have to, but it makes it easier for me in the Silhouette Studio).  I am not really sure if you can do this in the regular Studio program--I have the Designer version just for things like this.  So I pressed a bunch of button in Designer Studio and finally it was a cut!

Because I am kinda cheap (haha!), I ended up just getting black Cricut vinyl at Michaels...I don't need a bunch of colors and I think I will use the black more than if I got pink or another color.  This was my first time using real vinyl...I have used Contact paper before, but this seems a lot sturdier...I hope it lasts for her.

After I resized and cut "Littlest Pet Shop" to fit on the top of the box, I realized I forgot to add 'Ava's' :(  That is why 'Ava' is on the side of the box instead.

Thank you for looking!  I hope to inspire people to use their Cameos as well in this new year! 

Christmas Mason Jar (with car)

Ever since I have been looking for ideas to make "snow globe" mason jars, I have been waiting to make one similar to this one from "It All Started with Paint".

It took me so long to make because I couldn't find a vintage car....all they sell are race cars!  I looked online and all I could find were cars that would cost a minimum $10 with shipping...no thank you :/

Then my daughter told me I should look through my son's box of cars I had in the garage.  I was doubtful since he mainly loved construction trucks.  But I did find 2 possible cars I could use.  One was a 50's car, but I felt it was too "lowrider" for me hahaha.  So I picked this bug...

It did need a paint job though.  I went to Michaels and just picked up Martha Stewart High Gloss Habanero.  It took a few coats to cover up the graffiti art on the car, but it was worth it.

The tree is a bit big, but I love it!  (The picture doesn't do it justice--it is red not pink.)

Thank you for looking.

Christmas Trees In A Jar 2.0

Back in September, my friend Liz hosted a Craft Day. It was so much fun that I got little done, but my friend Jossie brought jars and gold deers for us to make some cute holiday scene mason jars.  That day, I only glued the deer and added some foam snow, but when I got home, I found my deer had come undone :/

It took me a few weeks to complete, but little by little, my mason jar snow scene was almost perfect.  There were a lot of trial and errors along the way.

While working on my jar, I looked for instructions to make mine look like the ones I found via Pinterest, but I found little instructions...so I thought I would share my step by step process.

First I found some trees at Michaels in the Christmas section.  The package came with 1 "large" tree, 2 medium trees, and 5 small trees.  At first, I was only going to use the large tree, but my deer would not fit inside with the tree, so I added a medium tree to my jar as well. 

I really wanted the trees to looked snowed on, so I added some white acrylic paint to the mostly green trees.  I also used some spray glue then sprinked some gold glitter and white crystal glitter for some pop.  

The width of both trees was squished too tightly in the mouth of the jar...so I found some foam I had laying around (yes, because you never know when you need foam!) and glued it to the lid.  I let it dry overnight.  The next day, I went to put my trees in the jar and D'oh!  the large tree was too tall! ha ha ha and the jar wouldn't close.

So I carved into the foam enough to shorten the tall tree without chopping it down.

(Not pretty but it worked!)

I thought I was done and added some tiny foam balls (I got at the Dollar Tree) to the jar (see first photo), but I didn't like that the balls were sticking to my trees and the jar!  boo!

I sometimes have OCD tendencies and I spent an hour and a half (while watching 2 episodes of Bones...multitasking makes me think it wasn't so bad! ha ha) pulling the foam out of my trees!!

Another trip to Michaels to find some better looking snow.  And the 2.0 version was a success!

At least I think so :)  Thank you for reading...I hope I inspire you to try your own mason jar scene :D

Fleur de Lis Mini Album (surprise winner!)

My kids and husband laugh at me because sometimes I "heart" every single photo on my Instagram feed.  I like the pictures because they are always awesome!  Sometimes I don't even read what the photo is about.

So a few weeks ago, I did my normal...'I will like this photo without reading the caption' and the next day I see that I am tagged in this photo:

What???  I didn't even remember entering a contest.  Normally, on Instagram, you have to tag people to win stuff or repost the picture and hashtag and tag the contest coordinator.  So this time I had to look to see what I won.  It was a cute Fleur de Lis wood mini album from Genuinely Jane Studios.

Luckily, my kids went to a high school where the fleur de lis was their emblem--otherwise I would have felt bad for taking the prize. :/

I knew right away that I would decorate it and put their first day of school for each year they were in high school.  I could have just used the book as it was, but I decided to take it apart and only use 2 of the "pages" as the cover and the back.  Then I traced them to make inside pages in the school colors (orange and blue).

After, I painted one wood cover blue and the other orange.  My local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Island, carries 12 x 12 paper with the local high school names and logos and coordinating paper. So I covered the front and back with that. 

After all the work of tracing, cutting the odd shape, painting, and using an exacto knife to trim around the paper I covered the front and back with...I was pretty much done...I was at the point where I just wanted to finish it.

So here is my pretty plain mini album...maybe someday I will go back and embellish a bit more...maybe.

I can't believe it is ending soon!  My daughter was a sport and took a selfie on her first day of college for me, but I am sure my son will "forget" if I ask him.

Getting Crafty with my Craft Supplies

For the past few years, there have been misting products in the paper craft markets, but I never got into them.

At the Expo, my crop-mates were talking about their Heidi Swapp Color Shine purchases from Michaels.  That is when I thought--what am I missing?

The next day, I went over to Michaels to check and see if I could grab a Gold Lame version, but my Michaels was out.

So I hit the internet to see if I could make my own version of Gold misting with the Acrylic paints I had on hand.

I found different recipes and I thought I had the perfect one.

~cleaned out a bottle that had previously contained stamp cleaner from CTMH (I do not know this consultant, I just found the link to the spray bottle)

~added 1/4 of the bottle with water (I used purified water)

~added alcohol to make the bottle 1/2 full

~added Apple Barrel Pure Gold Acrylic Craft paint

It was kinda watery...the recipe I found used straight-from-the-tube acrylic paint.  I think Craft Acrylic paint has more water to it.  So I had to add paint up to the rim of the bottle.

I think if I were to try it again, I would first put the paint in, then only add a little alchol at a time until I like the consistancy and I would skip the water all together.

It might not be as misty as the ones from the store, but it works for me :)  I've used it a couple of times already and I like the effect. 

Above, I masked the paper with some letter stickers, sprayed the mist, then removed the stickers.

This one, I used some Heidi Swapp resistance paper (courtesy of Crafty Jossie). 

I am wanting to see if I can find some more small spray bottles at the dollar store and make some other colors soon.

Craft Room update

It has been a few months since I started to rearrange and paint my Craft room.  So far, I have only completed about 1/2 the room.

Here is a look at the first completed wall.

All of the items hung on the wall are repurposed (hopefully I will blog the transformations I made on the boards).  The desk was here but I did finally add some handles.  My husband uses the desk sometimes when he is on a conference call for work, but for the most part it is all mine (and most of the time it has mail piled high--the magazine holder isn't usually as clean either :p)

Here is the before...

The calendar white board and cassette (now stamp) holder did not change, but were moved.  I have previously blogged about how I repurposed the cork and magnet boards from Target.  Gone is the fax machine, but now we have a much larger desk hogging printer that has fax capabilities as well, as you can see from the 2nd wall that is completed.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), this wall has the door and my tiny window, so it didn't take too much time to complete this wall :D  {I didn't shut the door because the back of the door has not been painted (it should have been painted way too many years ago, but we always forget it isn't painted on the back).

It feels so much cleaner and less cluttered.  You can see from the before picture that the right wall doesn't have all that stuff on it--woo hoo!  But that wall has a few more touches to add before unveiling it.

Being Crafty and peeks into my new space

I am finally using my craft room for it's main purpose, to be crafty!

While I am redoing my area, I am trying very hard not to spend that much money to revamp it.

Years ago, I bought 2 cork boards and 2 chalkboards from Target (only 1 of each pictured).

In my yellow room, I used black and white accents.  But I figured in my white room, I wanted a pop of color.  I have seen lots of turquoise rooms and that color just went well with the white walls and the already black items I had, so I decided to use some of the acrylic paints I had on hand (maybe someday I will share that collection of paints!).

First, I took off the hooks on the back and unhinged the cork & chalkboards from the frame.

I painted the cork board turquoise (just the normal "flat" acrylic).  I use foam brushes (cheap and reusable, but disposable).  Depending on the color you want to obtain, you will need to let the first coat dry before applying the next coat.  I used 4 coats to get the color I wanted.

The frame around the cork board was going to stay black, but I added 1 coat of black gloss since it was kind of dulling.  (good thing acrylic paints are water soluble and that will wipe right up from my desk.)

The chalkboard itself is going to stay black, but the frame was painted turquoise.  This frame takes a few coats.  First with 2 or 3 coats of the normal "flat" turquoise, then 1 final coat of a gloss turquoise. (I swear this paint isn't as blue as it is coming out in the pictures!)

The final result

(blah!  The color cast in this room still sucks.  I could have taken out my SLR, but I just took this quicky photo and did a little editing--close enough)

I also took this shoe box out of the recycle bin last week before it was pick up day...

I painted the box black and the lid turquoise.  Each took a few coats of flat acrylic then 2 coats of the gloss.

It now holds all my "Works in Progress"--see I know items will come in handy one day!  My problem is one day never comes ha ha ha.  

I thought I would take a break from showing the stuff I got rid of and do a sneak peek of my new room!

On this episode of Hoarders... (Part 1)

Hello, my name is Linda and I am a Hoarder.  No seriously, I think I am on the verge of being one of those people that keeps everything.  Ok, maybe I won't ever appear on an episode of Hoarders, but I do every so often have to edit myself and unhoard things.

4 years ago, I got my own craft room/office.  The original plan was that it would mostly be a craft room, but there would be a home office desk for my husband--well he didn't use the desk and I pretty much took over.  

Here are the before pictures

Notice the wall shelves and stuff everywhere.  This also is the catch all room.

My Michaels cubes (this door leads to the Garage and a glimpse of my tiny window.

Here is the desk area that is supposed to be for my husband.  In the left hand top corner you can see the ancient fax machine.  The copy paper boxes do not have paper inside.  I take the boxes from work and store things inside...because I have too much stuff!

The garage door again and the corner that has a bunch of boxes--in case I ever have to ship anything...I like to keep boxes from orders I have received.

I hated coming into the room and working in here.  I thought it was the yellow walls (which my husband told me 4 years ago not to paint), so the plan was to remove everything so I could paint it white.  I know so boring, but I have one 35 wide by 58 tall window in this room and I love light!  Even with the 4 can lights and fan light--I hated the color cast.

As I was taking everything out of my room and removing the items from the walls, I realize that it wasn't really the yellow that made the room so dark it was all the clutter!  Well I had to cover up all the holes with putty, so I had to paint the room regardless.  I just went with boring white called Paparazzi--I loved the name!

Well like the title of the post, I am going to show you a bit of my hoarding...I have plenty to share, but I will break it up.

These are 8 4-packs of Starbucks Frappuccino bottles (that is 32 bottles)

I had seen the cutest altered bottles on 2peas and planned to do the same.  A couple of examples can be found here and here.  Well I never altered them and now that I think about it, why would anyone want to eat candy from recycled bottles?  I know I washed them through the dishwasher, but still.

They went into the recycle bin...I suppose if I ever want to do this, I could just go get another 4 pack--my arm doesn't have to be twisted that hard :)

These aren't that bad...only 6 folders, but my kids are now 16 & 15...they have not liked or wanted to use these folders for over 5 years.  Why did I keep them?  A few look new, so I am donating them to Goodwill and tossing only a couple.

Now these...again, I seen the cutest projects on 2peas.

What are they?  Years and years ago, AOL was sending the boxes with trial CDs inside.  Well the talented ladies at 2peas came up with this and this (among others).  I mean look at the inside of these puppies.

I will never alter these and I know that I will never see them in the mail again, but they went into the recycle bin where they should have gone years ago.

Last picture for today.

These are nice sturdy boxes!!!  But for what?  What am I going to do with them?  Toss them into the recycle bin.  I have to.  They are just taking up space.

I don't know if I could ever have anyone help me do this like they do on TV, but I am letting go of a lot of items.  I am taking the "if you haven't used it in 3 years, you don't need it" approach.

I can't wait to share some of my other collections of items :)

Apron Challenge

This year, our company holiday party was a team-building party.  We cooked our own meal at a local restaurant.  To go with the theme, the Secret Santa this year was to make your person an apron.  We all started with the same plain apron.

(ugly color to match anything with!)

Before we picked names, I totally had an idea for some of my co-workers...but of course I didn't get anyone that I had an idea for.  I picked our receptionist and I was having a hard time thinking of what to do.  I really didn't want to do a football theme--her son plays Pop Warner Football.  I knew I wanted something girly and cute for the apron.  Then I was inspired by these aprons I seen at Scrapbook.com

And then it came to me.  Earlier this year, she was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer--she went through treatments and was out for a few months.  She got the call that she was free from cancer!  YAY!  So I googled the ribbon for Thyroid Cancer to see the colors.  The colors are turquoise, pink, and blue--not a very good color combination, but I would somehow get it to work.

I had the idea of going to Joann's buying some cute material (they have to have something with turquoise and pink, right?) and borrowing my mom's sewing machine.  Then I remembered, I don't know how to sew!  ha ha ha.  I went to Joann's and was so clueless about how I was going to pull it off and they didn't have anything that had turquoise and pink together.

Instead, I bought some really pretty turquoise ribbon,

 some brown ruffly ribbon,

 and a few hot pink flowers.

  I then ordered a survivor ribbon pin from Choose Hope to tie it all together. 

 I thought I was a shoe in to win!

But the plan look took over the thoughtfulness of the apron.  Oh well.  I know that of all the aprons that were made, I think she will actually be able to wear hers to cook :D

Here is the one I was given (with a hat)

She photo shopped my face into a picture with Guy from the Food Network Channel.  We watch that channel at lunch sometimes and he is always on.

I had fun making it and we all had fun looking at how creative everyone was and what they came up with for their person.