Heaven Vinyl Art

This was made for my brother and sister in law in honor of their little Ian.

My friend painted the ombre effect using acrylics and I cut and placed the vinyl.  The canvas is a 12x12 if I remember correctly.  We found the phrase on Pinterest.

Tshirt Vinyl Extravaganza

We had a T-shirt making party the week before Christmas.  This wasn't all of them, but a few with images from our favorite comedy group and a "Snowman" shirt for Mark.  

Hope everyone liked them and that glitter vinyl is pretty amazing.  Brooke will have to let me know how it holds up in the wash.  Love my Silhouette!

Moss Covered Letters and a Ward Christmas Party

 Our ward has fantastic Christmas parties, almost exclusively due to the vision of one very talented lady.  Luckily for all of us, she loves to do this kind of thing and I know everyone looks forward to it each year.  Luckily for me, I was asked to help with a portion of the decorations; a sign for the theme of our party.  The whole evening was based on the book "The Tale of Three Trees".  

I was planning on doing something with forest green cardstock and maybe some gold glitter, but at the last second I stumbled across THIS idea from Uncommon Designs.  I knew that's what we needed to do!

 I printed out each letter on copy paper and then cut them out to make stencils.  I traced each stencil onto cardboard to give the moss some sturdiness.  Last, I traced the cardboard letters onto the back of the moss sheets, cut out the moss, and hot glued it to the cardboard.  Lots of tracing and cutting, but well worth it, I love the way it turned out.  I had 20+ letters to make, each letter was about 10.5 inches tall, so buying the nice wood ones from the craft store was not in the budget.  The cardboard worked great and is a nice alternative if you need more than just a few letters.  

I used coupons to buy the moss sheets (from Hobby Lobby in the floral section) and just used some cardboard boxes that were in my garage.  The whole project cost me about $23 dollars, with some leftover moss to spare.

 The party was wonderful and I think everyone had a great time.  The food was fabulous and the decorations were amazing.  We had a short presentation for the kids including reading the book together and singing some Christmas songs.  Santa came and passed out candy canes.  The rest of the time was spent stuffing ourselves silly with yummy breakfast foods and talking with friends.  A perfect night...can't wait until next year!

 We had several real Christmas trees donated and then given away to families in need after the party.  The whole room smelled like an evergreen forest....mixed with french toast and bacon.

 Hot Chocolate Stand with all the fixings

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Missionary Tag Christmas Tree

 A few months ago, my Grandma had a brilliant idea for her Christmas tree.  She wanted missionary tag ornaments, one tag for each mission served.  We brainstormed a bit and finally came up with the final project above.  So far, we have 31 missions served on six continents, literally all over the world.  These missionary tags include those who have married into the family, couples missions, and missionary presidency callings.  I think about half of my cousins are still in high school or younger, so we have many more tags to make over the years.  We will keep adding to it and watch it grow.  I loved working on this project and am so grateful that my Grandma asked me to participate.

 Each tag was printed on photo paper and made using Photoshop, measuring about 2.5 by 3.5 inches.  I saved my files, so as new missionaries serve, I just have to edit the text and print more of them out.  I cut each tag and mounted them on some thick cardstock using a thin layer of Modge Podge to adhere and seal the top of the tag.  The silver twine is attached with a dab of hot glue on the back.

 The family's first mission was served in 1899.

Scanned photos of my Grandma's finished tree.  I love how it turned out!  

When I mailed off the tags to my Grandma, I added a gold starburst (seen on the right hand side of the picture above) to represent my aunt, Mary Ann, who passed away unexpectedly this year.  We know that she is serving her own mission now, one that knows no country or city boundaries.  A bittersweet Christmas without her here, but we know she would love this tree.

Pink Elephants on Canvas

Found a cute elephant print here and was inspired to make my own version using some pink scrapbook paper.  I used Paper Modge Podge to glue it down.  Don't use standard Modge Podge with regular weight copy or scrapbook paper, it will bubble and not lay smooth. 

 

There were a couple of small spots that still bubbled, but they were almost unnoticeable, so we called it good.

I've been helping my friend pull together this nursery for her little girl for a while now.  As soon as the final touches are complete, I'll take some pictures of the whole room in all of it's pink elephant glory.

The Fort

Nothing like cleaning out the garage and using all of the extra boxes.  The boys have had a great time playing in here over the last few days.

Balloon Ping Pong

Dad had a few late nights at work a couple of weeks ago.  We searched around on Pinterest and saw THIS idea for indoor balloon ping pong.  Genius.  The boys were entertained for the night with balloons and Popsicle sticks duct taped onto leftover Thanksgiving paper plates.

Disney DIY Autograph Book

We recently returned from our very successful and incredibly fun trip to Disneyland!  My boys had so much fun and we are already talking about when we can go back again.  I knew my oldest would probably really enjoy meeting some of the characters and getting their autographs, so before we left on our trip, I purchased a standard sketch book from Joann's in their art supplies section.  It was less than $10 and I probably used a coupon.  I liked this particular sketch book because it was spiral bound for easy page turning and page removal if needed, had a nice hard cover that could withstand being shoved into bags and strollers, and it was a good size for attaching 4x6 pictures to the opposite pages of our autographs.

I used my Silhouette to cut out the word in white vinyl.  The font is Waltograph and can be downloaded HERE, free for personal use.

 While waiting in line for our turn with the character, we would choose the page we wanted them to sign.  I brought along a retractable Sharpie marker.  It was nice not to have to worry about a pen cap and the characters usually have on thick gloves, so a bigger writing utensil is easier for them to manage.  (The Princesses don't have as hard of a time signing, but as you can imagine, my boys weren't terribly interested in seeing any of them.)

Here's Pluto signing our book.  He had the hardest time signing anything due to his large nose.

 After the character signs your book, you can pose for a picture or two.

After we arrived home, I printed off all of our character photos and glued them into the book next to the signature.  The boys love to look through it.  We probably only got a dozen signatures and there are lots more pages in our book.  We are thinking of adding to it throughout the years.  We will add to our autographs with new characters' signatures, but will probably get some of our favorites, like Mickey Mouse, again too.  We can compare how much the boys have grown and have a wonderful book of memories for our family to look back on in between visits.

We Love Disneyland!

Trouble Onesie

Here is my adorable nephew in his onesie that I made him.  He does look like trouble, doesn't he?

Letterpress and Football

 After being sick with a nasty cold for almost the entire month of January, and the first half of February playing catch up because I was sick for so long....I am finally getting around to updating my blog.  As you can imagine, there has not been a whole lot of creating going on, but I was able to squeeze in a few small things:

I got a letterpress machine (the Epic 6) and I love it.  I've only had time to pull it out twice, but I'm hoping to play with it more soon.  I'll post pictures of any cute letterpress I create.  My first time I made these cute but basic "congrats" cards on silver paper using black ink.

We did manage to have some family friends over and celebrate the Super Bowl as well.  Nacho bar and football strawberries (compliments of my husband's new job).  I did not make those football berries, but they look like they would be fun to try!

Gryffindor Tie Necklace Charm

I have a couple of friends that are really big Harry Potter fans.  One recently played the piano for me while I sang in church.  The other is a wonderful babysitter to my boys, heading off to college next month.  I saw these amazing Gryffindor tie necklaces HERE and had to make them for gifts.  I followed her directions exactly and found the tie charm at my local Hobby Lobby.  Unless  you have an extremely steady hand, your lines will not be perfect, but once you put the Dimensional Magic on top, it's hard to notice the not so straight lines.

 They both loved them!  And now they have a little Harry Potter magic with them always.  Merry Christmas you two!

Sisters Baby Shower

My sister in law is due with her first at the end of this year.  Her sister is due soon as well and their mom decided to throw them a double Sisters Shower.  I can't make it to the shower due to hundreds of miles of Nevada desert between me and the party, but I got to do the next best thing...make decorations and invites for it!

Paper Ball chains from MADE.  So easy to make if you have a circle punch and can sew a straight-ish line.  I only "fluffed" the first few balls on the chain so they wouldn't get crushed in the mail.  

Welcome sign for the front door.  We don't know the gender of one of the babies yet, so we are going with polka dots in neutral colors.

Food labels.  I wrote out what I knew would be served (brunch, yum!), but sent a bunch of blank ones as well, just in case there were menu changes or additions.

Banner for the fireplace.  I didn't string it together for mailing purposes again.  It was fun to coordinate everything with the same polka dot theme.

 The invitations.  The girls' mom came up with the little saying at the beginning and I took care of the rest.  I've had the digital scrapbook paper and embellishment on my computer for while now, sorry I don't know the source.  I'm sure it was free though, I don't normally pay for digital scrapbook stuff.

 

 We also included a little insert with the invitation explaining group gift options and registry information.  I hope you have a wonderful shower Tiffany and Katie!  Wish I could be there!

Mini Halloween Pennants

Made these mini Halloween pennants for some "BOO baskets" to hand out last week.  They are a much smaller version of what is hanging on my fireplace, printed from HERE last year.  Still love them and love that my Mac can shrink these babies down so easily, then just hit "Print".

Happy Haunting!