upcycle (Amy, this is for you)

My friend Amy is the most amazing recycler I have ever seen, not to mention a great mom and teacher. For their family of 5, they only have 1 bag of trash a week and they have a small child in diapers.  AMAZING!! (Umm, we have way more trash than than I hate to admit)  So in honor of Amy, I recycled some pop-tart boxes, you know, the ones you get at Sam’s with smaller boxes inside, the ones that totally waste cardboard with multiple packaging. They were the perfect size to make some baskets for my super unorganized shelf.  The result is pretty awesome and I’m planning to make a few more for the T’s rooms.

I have another basket project I can’t wait to do out of this wire fabric stuff.  I will eventually get that bookshelf under control.

The following two pictures are just for fun, but sometimes I can’t help but share.  What happens when T3 & 4 are quiet in their bedrooms for an hour? The Avenger happens.  The decoration on this costume is notebook paper they colored, cut out and TAPED to T4s shirt and face.  They taped a yellow t-shirt around his middle to make the diaper looking thing.  Yes TA stand for The Avenger.  Makes me laugh that they included the T.

This last photo is from T1.  She pinned this little note to the wall above one of my craft tables.

Precious!

sharing at :: Tatertots & Jello :: Craft Envy :: Be Different, Act Normal :: Lolly Jane ::

spooky apothecary

I started my apothecary jar collection for Halloween last year.  You can visit that post here and see the labels I created and the ones that I downloaded. I scoured garage sales this summer and picked up a few good jars to add to the collection.  I haven’t make labels for them yet, but I will share when I do.  For now, I wanted to share the Apothecary sign I made for the display.  I have some random MDF pieces laying around and I used one of the pieces for this sign.  I spray painted the board white, added the vinyl as a mask and then spray painted it all black.  One it was dry I removed the vinyl and had a pretty awesome sign.

I wanted to do this last year, but didn’t have my Silhouette and didn’t want to tackle it by hand.

This is the vinyl on the white board prior to the black paint

Then I painted the entire thing black, let it dry and removed the vinyl

I will post more pics when I make the new labels and I’ll post a link so you can download the new labels. Happy Halloween decorating!

Sharing creativity at :: Tatortots & Jello :: Sew Darn Crafty :: Sisters of the Wild West :: Flamingo Toes :: Its So Very Cheri ::

dollar store plate =

fun summer decor.  I loved this yellow plate at Dollar Tree (I also loved the lime green one a didn’t get it.  KICK, KICK) and bought it with this project in mind.  I used the font julesgirltalk for the sun and ? for the words (it happens as we get older!)  I wish I had cut the words in the same layout that I had on the screen, but I wanted to conserve vinyl and just cut them in a line.  They aren’t spaced as well as my original design. Oh, well! The Mr. T walked by on the way to the mailbox and said “well isn’t that cute.”  That’s as much of a compliment as I’m going to get. If you like the plate and would like to make one for yourself, here is the link to my file.  You may have to find the font I used for the words.  Sorry.

Before

After

displayed on my entry table

Schools out, summer’s here! Yea!!!

Sharing at :: Making the World Cuter :: Embellishing Life :: Mad in Crafts ::

Mother’s Day Gifts

I delivered the gift to my MIL today, so these are now safe to post.  I made my mom a marsupial using fabric from a vintage sheet and thrifted linen pants.  I put some nail clippers, chapstick and a Tide pen inside.  I know mom’s have to say they love their gifts, so I hope she does. ( I took pictures for a tutorial along the way.  I’ll get it posted soon.)

My Mother-In-Law really liked the white wooden bowl, so I found the necessary supplies and made her one.  We fell in love with the shape of this wooden bowl, and it came with smaller salad bowls, so I can’t wait to make smaller versions of this one.  It’s awesome, my favorite of the bowls so far.

Two great gifts for two great ladies.

Easter Stuff

I finished some projects for Easter at Gobi’s house tomorrow.  I made the carrot cupcakes I saw at Frog Prince Paperie.  Visit her site because her’s turned out much better than mine. I couldn’t find the edible grass OR the orange candy melts so I used pull and peal candy for the stems and I made a thick orange glaze to dip the marshmallows in.  Mine look cute as long as the pictures aren’t side-by-side :)!

I also made the papier mache’ eggs I saw at Not Martha.  I used water balloons too, but some of mine weren’t quite egg shaped AND I didn’t put enough layers of white tissue paper on a few of them.  T1 & T2 helped and loved them.  I think T1 even posted on facebook.

I made some paint chip matchbook notepads to put inside the eggs.  This is a post I saved from a few months ago from Embellishing Life. I let T1 but the stickers on the front.

I also embellished a onsie with a sailboat for my in utero nephew baby bean. I, of course, didn’t get a picture of the onsie, but I did get a pic of the paper egg I sewed it into and the paint chip card I made for the outside.

And since I haven’t seen my nieces since Christmas, I made them upcycled pouches to take back home with them.

I also managed to get a baby gift ready for a shower tomorrow and finished a VERY late birthday gift for my mom.  Now it’s time for bed!

I wish you all a great Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.

Upcycled Easter basket

I have wanted to make my children Easter baskets for quite some time.  I couldn’t decide if I wanted to make liners for wooden baskets or make fabric baskets.  I came across this tie-dyed shirt in my t-shirt stash and T3 decided she liked that for her Easter basket.  I made them just like my other baskets only a little larger with one handle. The inside of the basket is a sheet set my from my daughter’s old room.  I used my heat transfer vinyl purchased at Expressions Vinyl (low prices and quick shipping) and put her name and some funky paisleys on it.  She loves it and now T4 wants one out of t-shirts too.

Sharing at :: I Heart Naptime :: Under The Table & Dreaming :: Petite Hermine :: lollyjane Boutique ::

Lucky

That’s what I am, Lucky! Today I celebrate 18 years with my wonderful husband.

I also wanted to show you my altered letters for my mantel.  I got the letters for LUCK last year at Hobby Lobby but didn’t get the project finished until this year, but when it was finished I thought it needed a Y. The Y is still not done, but I’ll get to it.  I also have the St. Pat’s words paper to download if you would like it for a scrapbook page or letters of your own.  The pattern papers were various free downloads on the web, all of which I have lost the original URL for.

click on image to open a full size printable

click on image to open a full size printable

sharing at: I heart naptime: Sundae Scoop :: Under The Table and Dreaming : Sunday Showcase :: Petite Hermine: Sunday Linky Party :: Strut Your Stuff St. Pat’s ::

Happy Blogiversary

Thanks to all of you who entered my drawing to help me celebrate my first year in blog land.  The winner of the Valentine fabric basket is Courtney.

Courtney (22:43:50)

How cute are these? I heard about your giveaway from Somday Crafts giveaway link list.

I will contact you and get specifics. Congrats!

Don’t be sad if you didn’t win, I have a freebie for you below.  If you have a Silhouette machine, I have the cut file for the Subway art.

click to download Silhouette cut file

Since my first post was Valentine related, let me start year 2 by showing you my Valentine decorations for this year.  Yesterday I made a subway art Valentine sign inspired by Tatertots and Jello but on a much smaller scale because I already had a piece of mdf and a small piece of left over trim. I had another small little piece of trim and I made the little hugs and kisses sign.  And I fell in love with the sewn heart garland from little birdie secret (or you can see it on my pinterest) and made one for myself.  The poms are a smaller version of some I saw on diary of a craftaholic. The rest of the decoration you have seen before. There are a few more empty spaces to be filled and I bought pieces for another apothecary jar at a thrift store (50 cents each, yay) so I’m not done with the Valentine crafting AND we still have the whole Valentine party thing to create for!

Thanks again for a great first year and I hope to see you in blog year 2.

more upcycled bags and the krusty krab

I made two more upcycled pouches for T2’s friends.  It’s VERY addictive.  I’m thinking single letters for Valentine goodie bags… (maybe too ambitious, we’ll see). Supper tonight was burgers and shakes.  I try to make take-out style food at home every now and then and every time I make burgers and shakes, T4 makes Krusty Krab signs and insists on putting the fixins’ on the burgers just like he was Sponge Bob.  Tonight he made a paper label for his hat as well.  I’m not sure he will look back when he is older and appreciate that I aired his funny creativity 🙂

Lunchbox upgrade with Silhouette

My daughter has been wanting one of the neoprene lunch boxes, but she didn’t really “need” it, she just wanted it.  So I didn’t get her one, even when they were on clearance at Target for 2 for $10 (that’s not a huge clearance if you ask me!)  What I did find was a solid colored one in the clearance section of Wal-Mart for $2.  I can do $2.  But, it was solid colored and who knows how many other people will have the exact same lunch box… enter Silhouette (I love that machine!) I decided to use some of the iron-on vinyl I got from Expressions Vinyl.  They even have a video tutorial, which I didn’t watch until I had already cut the vinyl of the wrong side, but we learn…  (you need to flip your image in reverse too.) I cut out 5 dandelions, but managed to iron two of them to my iron and no, it wasn’t my best night and no it’s REALLY not that difficult to use this stuff, I was just NOT with it that night.  I digress… the lunchbox is much cuter than it was before and no one should have a lunchbox like hers.

standard run of the mill lunchbox

one of a kind AWESOME lunchbox

Don’t forget to enter my blogiversary giveaway

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