How to catch up on 4 months?

I’ve been gone from the blog world but not from crafting. I don’t really feel too bad about not posting; I’ve devoted my time to my family and my job. I do want to share a few of the projects I’ve completed since February. I’m posting from my phone and I used apps to edit all the pictures. I’ll mention those at the end. I’m hoping that if I can post when I have a moment, probably not sitting at home with our crazy schedule, then I can post more frequently.

I’ll start with St. Pat’s Day. You’ll see some pinterest inspiration in these pics.

I’ve also made tons of baby sets. One was a custom order to fit a changing table. A huge 12×16 inch basket!

We made some Avenger stuff, cause sometimes you just need to. 🙂

I ombré dyed some curtains for my bedroom. I hate to admit that I still only have one hung. The other is on the floor in front of the window.

I entered a swap but didn’t get the picture posted. This is what I sent.

And I made a summer sign for my entry post.

I made some teacher appreciation and graduation gifts.

I’ve used two free apps to edit my pics. The quality isn’t as good as I hoped but I like the convenience. PicCollage and Labelbox, check them out in the AppStore.

I ordered some Lucy’s Crab Shack fabric by Sweetwater and will have some things to post soon!

My Tardy Valentine

Nothing like posting all of your Valentine stuff AFTER Valentine’s Day.  Things have been CRAZY at work so any crafting that I’ve done has been in the wee hours and not much for enjoyment, mostly for others.  I have a few things that didn’t get pics.  Oh, well.

This was a gift for a birthday T3 went to.  Her friend is obsessed with the Hunger Games so we put a mockingjay on a snappy top bag (see my tutorials to make one of your own).  I got the iron-on vinyl from Expressions Vinyl.  Do check them out, they have a great selection, prices and FAST shipping. (If you click on the link here or my side bar, I do get a referring reward the next time I order 🙂 )

I made this almost a month ago with the Mr. T.  I plan to change the signs out with the season.  Again, I used outdoor (permanent) vinyl from Expressions Vinyl.

Yep, this came from Pinterest. Follow me if you want! We changed it up a bit and wrapped mini Hershey’s with camo and stuck the soldier to them.  Love me some Pinterest!

T4 made his own Valentine box.  I helped with the duct tape and paper on top.  He used glue dots (and loved them, actually snuck them into his backpack and I had to take them back!) and stuck all the stuff down.  We knew he wouldn’t win the contest but I was up to my elbows in Valentine Banquet decorations and this is about what I could manage.  The competition is ridiculous anyway (see next pic) and I will NEVER have time in February to make a winning Valentine box. Yep, that’s a submarine the size of the table, moving propeller in the back and all.

I was also asked to decorate for the Valentine banquet at church.  I love helping out with things like this and I thought it turned out pretty good.  Of course, I forgot to take pics of the place once it was done, but here are the flower centerpieces.

And here’s what my table looked like while making them (please ignore the dirty dishes in the kitchen!!!)

We did make some goodies for Valentine’s day.  T1 & 2 made sugar cookies and I made the red velvet cake balls posted on Pinterest (recipe here). Now, to be honest, we couldn’t eat very many of the cake balls because when you leave out a cup of flour from the recipe, it’s a bit, sort of, EXTREMELY oily.  Oh well, they looked cute.

I also made a purse for T2 from some burlap coffee sacks we were given.  It was such a hit that I made another and SOLD it. I have two more sacks and one is earmarked for T1’s purse.  I would love to keep the other sack for a basket for me, but I have at least 3 other people who would buy a purse from me.  (money, basket, money, basket – such a tough decision)

I also found a duct tape basket idea on Pinterest (original post here).  I had some duct tape left over from T4’s Valentine box so he and I made a no sew basket.  You staple it together and tape it with duct tape.  It was fun to make and is a good idea if you need a wipeable lining for something.  I would definitely sew it the next time, but T4 thinks he might be able to make these himself.  It would be a fun activity for a birthday party. Last but not least is one of the gifts I made for my sister for her birthday (almost a month ago.)  My parents are just making it out to see her this weekend and taking the gifts.  She had seen a window when she was home for Christmas and wanted me to make her one.  This is a slight variation of what she saw but I think she will love it the same. Have a few requests for some more of these too.  Luckily my Dad has some old windows in his shed he is letting me have.  I have the best family!

Well, I hope I didn’t lose you along the way.  I feel like I’ve been typing for hours.  Since this is a long weekend for education, I have some projects planned.  Hope I can get the Mr. T along for a few of them 🙂 and I hope to post again before I return to school on Tuesday!  Happy crafting.

Last group of Christmas Presents

We had our last Christmas gathering yesterday and I can finally post the rest of my pictures.  I have included a few orders that I have filled too.  I’m getting ready to work on some SNOW projects, just being hopeful :)!

This first project came from Dog Under My Desk and I added personalization to the back.  Thanks for such a great tutorial (although I wasn’t near my printer so I didn’t use her pattern, but I would have been easier if I had!) T2s friends loved them at their gift exchange on New Years Eve.

We also put vinyl on A LOT OF STUFF.  The monkey nightlight is for my nephew to match his monkey themed room I made the goodies for. The others are gifts and orders we (my friend Steph has been helping tons!) have filled.

created by Jen during Crafts & Spirits night 🙂

nightlight for T3 & 4s bathroom

gift for my grammy

order

Zach's nightlight

I made a marker roll & marsupial for my nieces as well as these dry erase frames for their rooms.

And last but not least, how about some Angry Birds with blocks.  T3 & 4 used the little Angry Birds that T4 got in his stocking and filmed (no I didn’t include the MANY videos they made) each episode of the Angry Birds game.  They worked on this for hours.  I love how creative they are!

I go back to school tomorrow 😦 but I am trying to adopt a new attitude toward all the changes coming down the pipe in education.

Source: Uploaded by user via Mandi on Pinterest

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December at a glance

I haven’t posted any crafty stuff for A LONG TIME.  So here is some of what I have been doing.  We’ll call it December at a glance.  I apparently didn’t take pictures of everything I’ve done, but here’s some of it.  Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is ready to ring in the new year.

I’m opening a tab on my blog called color me m boutique where I can take custom orders for the items listed.  Check it out and pass it on.

color me m

My Etsy store is finally open!  As of today I have 3 items listed but more are on the way.  Please visit my store, tell your friends about my store and make suggestions of things you would like to see in the store. I have the three items listed below as well as the link to color me m.

Listed today:

Come visit me at etsy, you can even buy something if you want. 🙂

 

Orphan Gifts and Thankfulness

Our church has an orphanage in Guatemala and our Sunday School class has adopted the orphans for Christmas. We got a precious little boy named Gabriel who is 6 years old and likes legos and small toy animals. We got him an outfit, some new socks, and some legos and then I made him a marker roll and a little notebook with his name/initial on it them. We are also going to use my Silhouette machine to put their names on all of the backpacks like we did Gabriel’s. I think they will like the personalized gifts. My family will also be putting personal notes to Gabriel even though he speaks Spanish and we don’t. T4 was super excited when I told him we were adopting Gabriel for Christmas. He wanted to know if Gabriel would be here by Christmas. He was a little bummed when he found out that we didn’t actually get to make him part of our family. He told me he would keep praying until we could really adopt Gabriel. Here is part of what we are sending, the marker roll and little notebook. I also have the backpack with Gabriel’s name on it. We will be adding names to the rest of the bags next week and sending our gifts with the mission trip in December.

His favorite colors are green and yellow.

I got the flocked iron on material from Silhouette and the white iron on material came from my favorite Expressions Vinyl.

I also used my Silhouette machine to make an addition to my mantle for Thanksgiving. I have, as always, every intention to sand the edges and glaze a little but it simply hasn’t happened and Christmas goes up next week. It has served its purpose as reminder to give thanks to God for everything!I will sign off by wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving (because the likelihood of another post by then is slim). See you on the flip side.

Halloween….check!

This past week was crazy: student teacher conferences, a good friends beautiful wedding (pics to come) and Halloween… not to mention that I slightly lost my mind and created a ridiculous costume for my son (but super awesome!) I plan to take down the decorations this evening and get some fall leaves and Thanksgiving going.

Lego man was made out of cardboard and duct tape.  I made the body out of felt and super stiffy.  My math students were “happy” to hear about how I used proportions to scale from the small lego man to T4 size. Lego man was a hit at school and trick-or-treating.  He got more candy than others at some of the houses because they liked his costume.  We did have to take the head off from house to house because little kids would turn to stare and fall down.

T3 decided to be an artist so I cut her mustache and beard out with my silhouette machine. She painted the shirt and put the paint dots on her palette.  T1’s costume – WalMart special, and T2 – no costume (sad) but she hung out at her friends house on the busiest street in the city and handed out candy.

I also made some popcorn covers, using my Frank E. pattern posted earlier. I enlarged the features to fit the popcorn cover.  I love how it turned out.

Now I’m going to sit back and wait for the first snow of the season to fall (scheduled for tomorrow evening).

Halloween goodies

I have a few Halloween goodies to share today.  Things are busy and crafting is slim these days, so the pedestal bowl has been a work in progress, but Frank E. has been done for awhile, I just didn’t share him. The bowl has 3 layers of paint, white, green and then purple.  I put vinyl letters on after the white paint and then put the green and purple coats on. I removed the vinyl when the paint was dry and  a little sanding revealed the colors underneath.  I have a coat of wax on it for a sealer.

Frank E. is a shelf sitter.  I’ve included a link to the download file for your Silhouette machine if you would like to make one of your own.  I ended up cutting the black part of the eyes at a slant instead of the oval in the file, so you can do the same if you want.  I added the mouth with a paint pen and used a little pink paint to give him glowing cheeks.

Click on the button for the download to make your own Frank E.

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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!

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Halloween countdown bottle

I love using wine bottles for crafts and I love chalkboard paint on them.  I decided to use some of the vinyl & ric rac I got from Pick Your Plum to make a little countdown calendar for Halloween.  I was originally going to paint the entire bottle with chalkboard paint and just add vinyl but I had some chalkboard vinyl left over that I purchased at Expressions Vinyl and I liked the green color of the wine bottle, so I ended with the product below.  I also wanted to use my Krylon glitter spray paint that I got last weekend with my 50% off coupon.  I wasn’t sure if the spray paint would stick to the vinyl, but happily it did.  I like how it turned out and now I’m working on another project with this fantastic glitter spray paint (check back hopefully soon.)

  I couldn’t use transfer paper with the vinyl because it wouldn’t stick to the glitter, so I had to stick the letters on one at a time.

I did remove the outside vinyl and weed inside the letters before spraying.  I might try removing the excess vinyl after spraying the next time.I did decide to add the orange around the chalkboard frame once I saw it on my mantle.

I think this fun for T3 & 4 to do each day.  If you want to make one of your own, I used a frame from the Silhouette site and the font is Baby Kruffy. Happy crafting!Sharing creativity at :: Lolly Jane :: Tator Tots & Jello :: Funky Junk Interiors :: Be Different Act Normal :: Design Dazzle Halloween ::