A productive 3 day weekend

Having one extra day off can make all the difference in the world. I loved my three day weekend for MLK day, got to spend time with both of my boys one on one and just overall had a great time!  I also made a good dent in my 2017 goals - so win!

Friday M and I went on a date night - nothing special, just out to dinner and then went to Target, lol.  Love to do some shopping with helping hands.

Saturday we went to the LAX Children's Museum and got a membership for the year - I think it's going to be lots of fun watching little E explore.  He loved it so much and it was fun to have so much for him to get into and everything was at a good size for him :)

 Sunday I made good one one of my goals and finished a project I wanted to do last year, but never got around to it.  I made E a snowman shirt, using my Silhouette and fabric paint.  Minus the orange paint exploding and possibly ruining my sweatshirt, shirt, AND tank top (how it went through 3 layers of clothing is beyond me!) I'm really pleased with the results.

Monday, since it was icy and I wasn't leaving the house, we tried a new dish, baked ravioli.  I'm out of the blogging habit, so no pictures.  It was good, something different, and something I think we will make again, with a few tweaks to the recipe (less sauce, smaller pan, and more cheese!)

Tweet

Mr. and Mrs. WordArt

Wedding season is just around the corner, and as part of this month's Silhouette Challenge of WordArt/Typography I wanted to share with you this fun floating frame I designed as a gift for my brother and sister-in-law. (Check out more awesome posts typography and word art posts at the bottom of this post!)
I'm sure you've seen lots of similar signs on Pinterest - there were so many to choose from and I had a hard time narrowing down just what I wanted.  After lots of debate, and lots of searching for the perfect frame, this is what I came up with.

I did all of my designing in Silhouette Studio.  First I made my page size the same size as the glass.  It helped to be able to use the color dropper to fill in the shapes and words to get a better idea of what the final product would look like.  Overall, this is a pretty simple project, but there were so many fonts to choose from!  That was the hardest part, choosing a font (or pairs of fonts).  I knew I wanted something that was solid and bold and would cut easily.  I also wanted to make the letters fairly thick, so the silver would show up (even though it's tough to see in some of the pictures!)  I knew I wanted to keep the colors as silver and blue, since that was their wedding colors.

The frame is a floating frame from Hobby Lobby (score half off frames!).  I didn't like the double layer of glass, so I actually took one layer of glass out and then used hot glue to hold the second layer of glass in place so it wouldn't rattle.

Once all the design work was done, I cut out the blue first.  Since the project was not overly large, I did use the mat to cut my vinyl (I think it helps keep things from slipping!).  Using transfer tape helped me to keep the spacing correct.  Since the silver words were smaller, I chose to place them by hand - I was trying to be conservative with my vinyl.  It would have been easier to use one of the tutorials from Silhouette school to easily keep the spacing with the multiple colors, but since the silver bits were fairly small, and so spaced out, I didn't want to waste that much vinyl.  So I used my trusty transfer tape and measured (and double checked!) and placed the date, mr, mrs, and heart on my own. 

This was my first big project with vinyl and first using multiple colors.  I learned some new tricks and things I would do differently next time, but I'm super happy with how it turned out.
Can't wait to see what I can make next with my Cameo!

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!



1. My Paper Craze // 2. The Stamp Doc // 3. Peanut Life Adventures // 4. Creative Ramblings // 5. Pitter and Glink // 6. The Thinking Closet // 7. Single Yet Married Mom // 8. unOriginalMom // 9. Sisters, What! // 10. Where The Smiles Have Been // 11. From Whine to Whine // 12. Adventures in All Things Food // 13. Practically Functional // 14. Patina Paradise // 15. Please Excuse My Craftermath... // 16. Weekend Craft // 17. Two Purple Couches // 18. Ribbons & Glue // 19. TitiCrafty // 20. Simply Kelly Designs // 21. Confessions of an Overworked Mom // 22. Get Silvered

Linking up at some of these great parties!

Tweet

Organize that Tupperware!

Happy New Year Everyone!  I am so excited to be back to blogging :)  How are your new year's resolutions going?  Is one of them to be more organized?
With the turn of the year, many people use this time to a fresh start and try to get more organized in their life.  Last year I shared with you a binder I made to organize my homemade birthday cards.  This year, I am sharing with you how I organized my baking cabinet.  It also happens to be part of the Silhouette Challenge and I am so excited to take part in my first challenge.  (Can I just say I love my Silhouette Cameo?!  I really do - it's been awesome to learn to use is the last several months and there are so many amazing projects out there.  I can't wait to share more of the cute things I have made, but those are posts for another day :)
So clearly I love to bake - if you know me or have been reading long, you will find many yummy treats on here.  Every good baker needs to have her supplies easily accessible.  One of the things I loved about my husband's house when we first got married was the space for my baking supplies - It was a serious treat after having things stuffed in odd places in my tiny galley kitchen in my apartment.

While I love my baking cabinet, it definitely needed a bit of a face-lift and some organization.  This project fit the bill and was a super simple one to tackle.
The first thing I did was measure the face of each of the different sizes of Tupperware I wanted to label.

Next I picked a font I liked (I used KC Lemonade - so fun!)  (second side note - KC Lemonade came from dafont.com) and typed out my labels in the Studio program.  The KC font was pretty good, but to be on the safe side, I did offset the text by .02, just to make it a tiny bit thicker and easier to cut out.

I double check my measurements, to make sure that everything would fit, then it was time to cut!  I used Oracle 651 vinyl and used the default cut settings in Studio for vinyl.  I also used my mat when I was cutting.  

Once everything was cut out, it was time to weed it out (get rid of all the parts of vinyl you don't want, leaving just your letters)

I didn't have any transfer tape at the time, so I used a lint roller sheet instead.  Place your transfer tape over your design, and use your scraper tool to get it to stick to your letters.  Then slowly peel the backing away.  Now place your letters on your Tupperware and use the scraper tool again to get the vinyl to adhere to your Tupperware.  

Repeat as needed for each label you made. 

Ta Da!  All neatly labeled.  Now I not forever confusing my flour and sugar at first glace.  

I love how my cabinet looks now too - all pretty and organized.

Thanks for stopping by!

Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?

My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!


1. Please Excuse My Craftermath... // 2. Simply Kelly Designs // 3. Daily Dwelling // 4. Ginger Snap Crafts // 5. Our Southern Home // 6. Sowdering About // 7. The Moberg Family // 8. Decor Adventures // 9. Pineapples and Pinecones // 10. Patina Paradise // 11. The Thinking Closet // 12. It Happens in a Blink // 13. Adventures in All Things Food // 14. From Wine to Whine // 15. Practically Functional // 16. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 17. unOriginal Mom // 18. One Dog Woof // 19. Creative Ramblings // 20. My Favorite Finds // 21. Create it. Go! // 22. A Prudent Life // 23. Where The Smiles Have Been // 24. Barb's Life // 25. Everyday Paper // 26. Pitter and Glink // 27. Peanut Life Adventures // 28. Feto Soap Blog // 29. Our Rosey Life // 30. Two Purple Couches // 31. My Paper Craze // 32. TitiCrafty // 33. Lil Mrs Tori

Tweet

Lamp Post Cards

So now that school is out, I'm finally having some more time for crafting (yay!).  One thing I want to do quite a bit of this summer is make some cards, both for myself, my family, and some for Operation Write Home as well.  I sent off my first package of cards to Operation Write Home at the end of May, and I'd like to send even more before the summer is over.  I have a goal of making at least 52 cards this year (my first year participating), one for each week.  Some people send in hundreds of cards (amazing!) but I'm trying to not overwhelm myself and just starting out with averaging one per week.  You can check out my progress over time on my sidebar :)

I'm really really really happy with how these cards turned out.  They were pretty simple to make, once I got the idea in my head (hardest part of card making for me - coming up with ideas of how the card should look!).

The background paper is from Michaels

The black silhouette was cut using my Cameo and is a shape from the Silhouette store

The sentiments are Paper Smooches

Have a great rest of the week!

Linking up at some of these great parties!

Tweet

Hello Card

Welcome to my first Month of Cards post :)  I'm very excited for this month!

Yes, it's only day three of mailing in February, but I have gotten a card in the mail each day, so I'm off to a good start.

Today I'm sharing this super simple hello card that I made with my Silhouette.  The hello was a free shape a few weeks ago, and I learned how to offset the grey on the Silhouette blog.  Offsetting the type worked perfect to help the words "pop" in this card. 

For anyone who knows me, this is a perfect card for me and I love my purple hello card!  I think I'm going to make more of these in other color combinations to have on hand.

Have a great day and happy card making/letter writing!

Card Specs:

Background paper - Michaels

Hello lettering - Silhouette Online Store  # 53674

Linking up at These Great Parties 

Tweet