Jump Start on Christmas

This month we had a crafting weekend with some aunts and cousins. We made a lot of things and I decided to get a jump start on some Christmas Decor items.  I made the snowflake wreath from a OTC kit that I had.  I also finally cut out all my boxes and put them together for my Silhouette Advent Calendar. Now I just need to add my numbers to the boxes.  I also made some glitter ornaments (like Karen has shown) and a countdown flip chart for December. Hopefully pictures of those to follow.

Everyday Cards

This month Allison made some cards that work for any occasion.  She took photos she had of her parents garden and used them as covers for the cards.

Pony Party

This month my daughter celebrated her 5th birthday and she is big into horses, so she wanted a pony party.

 I found this card on Silhouette and she told me very specifically what needed to be what color. I think it turned out to be a pretty cute invite.

 She is also big into crafts so we planned a lot of crafts for the girls to do.  This was one of them.  I used pieces from other silhouette shapes (hair and ears came from a cow) I had and then free handed a few pieces and cut them all out in advance to make these horse treat bags.  Yes, I think the pink nose looks a little like a pig, but the kid wanted pink and purple and was happy with it:)  We also decorated horse cut outs with ribbon, glitter glue, google eyes, and gems.  And of course we made pony bead bracelets and necklaces!  

Wedding Gift

 One of my cousins got married this month and I created this card and variation on a split letter for them as part of their wedding gift.

Pirates Aaaarg Cool

To kick off the summer break we have been doing theme weeks at our house before things get to busy with other activities.  This week was Pirate Week.  Oh my, there are soooo many fun things to do with Pirates!  We made Pirate food, pirate shirts, pirate crafts, pirate hats, read pirate books, watched Jake and the Neverland Pirates, painted treasure chests and went on a treasure hunt.  I still have way more ideas so I think we are totally going to have another pirate day sometime this summer.  Here are just a few of the things we did . . . 

Made pirates to eat after seeing this.  My kids thought their pirates needed arms instead of a sword, I think they just wanted more pretzels:)

I had way to much fun making these pirate shirts.  For the "girl" pirate I used glitter pink heat transfer for the bandanna and glitter black heat transfer for the eye patch.  Got my inspiration for these from here.

We also made pirate spy scopes/telescopes.  For the pirate hats I followed this tutorial and then cut out the skull and bones with fuzzy white heat transfer and ironed it to the hat.  I didn't have white thread (or I couldn't find it anyway) so I didn't do the extra stitching around the edge, but the kids enjoyed them anyway:)  The eye patches I ordered from OTC.  This pirate is also holding her treasure chest.  I found these at JoAnn's for $1/each and let the kids paint them.  I also made pirate maps  -- torn the edges off brown craft card stock and drew a simple picture map of places to go around the house with a big "x" where I had a little box with some goodies in it.

A very fun and crafty week!

Anniversary Gift

This month my sister and brother-in-law celebrated their 3rd anniversary and I decided to make a fun little gift for them.  I looked at items I pinned on Pinterest and various websites that suggested dating ideas (The Dating Divas website is still one of my favorites!) and then I typed up a whole bunch of dates in different columns in a word document.  Most of them I tried to keep to a few sentences.  Then I printed out the pages on different colored card stock and cut them all out.  I put all the strips of paper into a little box that I decorated. I also included a homemade card and a gift card to Caribou Coffee (some of the dates may need some extra motivation:)

I did a mix dates and most of the ideas were inexpensive ones.

Some are normal dates (go bowling, try a new restaurant, go to a museum you have never been to, etc.)

Some adventurous/unusual dates (find the best climbing trees - test them out an document it, go indoor mountain climbing, etc.)

and some at home dates (have a living room camp out, write love letters to each other and seal them up for a date night 20 years from now, Game Night, Food Taste Test Night, etc.)

Hope they have a good time!  

I am totally going back through the list to pull out all the at home dates for me and my hubby to do.

Scrap Flower Canvas

This month Kelly made this flower canvas with scrapbook paper she had on hand.  She painted a canvas  grey.  Then cut 3 different size petals from various scrapbook papers she had.  The she started in the middle and with the small ones and worked her way out.  She glued them down with a glue stick.  She found the idea for the project here.

Valentine's Decorations

 For Valentine's Day I used my Silhouette to make this shirt for my daughter.  I used white flocked heat transfer and black glitter heat transfer.

I also had grand plans to get some Valentine's Day Banners done this month as decorations.  Did not get them done in time for Valentine's Day this year, but I did still get them done in the month of February and they are ready to go for next year!

Wordy Thirty Birthday Party

Karen and I decided to throw our Middle Sister a Surprise Party for her upcoming 30th Birthday.  We decided a "Wordy Thirty Party" would be a great theme after we searched the internet/Pinterest for ideas. Val really enjoys a good read and is going to school to be a "Book Doctor." Here are some of the decorations that we did.  It turned out great and it was a lot of fun to put together.  We spent a fun night of playing games, eating and lots of laughing! (P.S. The only book harmed in the production of crafts was an old Encyclopedia for the letter A - the only one of the set that we found at my Grandparents house.)

Here is our version of a book wreath after seeing this one.  I cut 2 -  8 inch circles out of card stock to be more durable, glued them together, then I rolled and glued/taped pages down.  On top of that I cut 2 - 6 inches pieces of card stock, glued them together, then again rolled and glued/taped pages down.  Then I cut a 4 inch piece of card stock out, lettered it with stickers, inked the edges with black ink to make it stand out a bit.  Then I laminated it and taped it down onto the other rings with double sided tape.  Used masking tape on the back to attach a ribbon to hang the whole thing.

We made two of these hanging garlands.  The hearts were made out of the encyclopedia pages after seeing this tutorial.  (BTW, these were super easy to put together and I totally plan on doing this as a Valentine's Day Garland in Red Tones:)).  Then flowers were added to the ends to hide where we taped it up.  Found the tutorial for the flowers here.

Here is a closer look at the Garland.

Here we made several items.  Karen pre-made the poofs, so all that needed to be done party day was the "poofing" - Mike and Zoe took care of that:)  Here is how to make those.  We also had two vases that we  decoupaged encyclopedia pages onto and placed tea lights in them.  In the center is a mini sign with a quote: "Don't Drink to Get Drunk. Drink to Enjoy Life." - Jack Kerouac.  Instead of making Jack Kerouac's favorite drink we made Mojitos, a favorite drink of Hemingway.

Here is the "corsage" we made Val to wear.  We just took one of the flowers, cut out circles, on the Silhouette and attached them with double sided tape.  Then used a big safety pin to attach it to her!

The dinner table!  Made a table runner out of torn out book pages.  Embellished the ends with a fancy daisy punch.  Then cut the sides of the runner with decorative scissors.  Some light dinner reading - haha!  We used books Val had as a center piece, then took a bowl, filled it with cut and rolled encyclopedia pages.  On top of that was a sucker ball (Styrofoam ball with dum dums stuck in it).  Then we made a party sign with book worms and stuck that in there as well.  Beside the center piece was a "book" I made with the silhouette and then it was filled with book marks that we had all made.  Everyone that came to the party made a book mark with a special message, book quote, or drawing for Val.  Then I laminated them and tied ribbon to them.

Close up of our center piece.

Close up of the "book" that held our handmade bookmarks.

Photo Props

 Since we were hosting several Christmas Parties we decided to have some fun.  I cut out a bunch of photo props on my Silhouette and put them together and placed them on sticks.   I also covered a big piece of cardboard with wrapping paper and lined it with tinsel to use as a backdrop.  Everyone had fun dressing up.

My Tester:)

Thankful Tree

For Thanksgiving, I made this tree.  I cut it out with my Silhouette in some brown vinyl I had lying around.  I found some nice oak leaf shapes online and traced them and cut them out of red, yellow, and orange card stock.  I would have used adhesive backed card stock if I would have had the right colors.  Instead, I them up with just tape rolled on the back.  I asked people at our Thanksgiving to write down what they were thankful for and put it somewhere around the tree.  I think it turned out great and hope I remember to do this again next year.  It was especially good for the little ones to see all the things people were thankful for.

Train Party Decorations

My son turned 2 and we threw him a train party.  Here are some of the decorations I did for the party.

 I made him a little shirt to wear for the day with my Silhouette and heat transfer.  I got the "Choo Choo" from one of the train designs I had bought from the online store.  I added it to a different train I had and added the "2".

 I cut two 3 inch strips from 12x12 scrapbook paper and then wrote on them.  I cut the circles out with the Silhouette and used basic streamers to decorate the gate leading to the basement. 

We made train tracks on the floor with painters tape (definitely a hit and I'm sure they will be up for a few days). Got this idea from searching train party ideas on Pinterest -- Lots of variations on this.  Then I made this Rail Road Sign from a shape out of the Silhouette Store.

Halloween paper weaving

Wish I could say I cut this with my Silhouette or by hand but it was a kit. It was fun anyway and new decorations are always good!

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Upcycled Christmas Cards

This month Kelly went through old Christmas cards and recycled them to make a new batch of Christmas cards.  She cut out a portion of the card to fit onto folded card stock and used a glue stick to paste it on.   She then used the card scraps to make gift tags.

Organization

My 4 year old helped with this. I cut pockets and inserts out with my Silhouette. She decorated the pockets. On each insert, we made a daily to do list on one side for her and the other for me. Hopefully it will help all of us stay focused and motivated in our crazy, busy lives.

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Sheet Music Envelopes

 Another project Kelly did this month was to take old sheet music and fold it into usable envelopes.  The top picture shows the steps to folding and the bottom is the finished product.

52 Things I Love About You Book

 These are the supplies that Allison used.  Standard Deck of cards, hole punch, adhesive, stickers, 1 inch metal rings.

 Allison printed out a list of 52 things she loves about her man and then cut them into slips of paper and attached each slip to a card.

For the front and back "cover" she covered the Jokers with scrapbook paper and used stickers to embellish the front.

Durable Paper Dolls

 This month we did some traveling and to keep my oldest busy in the car I made her a travel binder with some road trip games with dry erase markers.  I also made her these Paper Dolls.  I found the dolls online in the Silhouette Shop .  I used the Princess, Cowgirl, Ballerina, and Hawaiian dolls.  This used the print and cut feature on the Silhouette.  After the shapes had been purchased and downloaded I set my registration marks and sent it to print on card stock.  Then I ran it through the Silhouette to cut out all the shapes.  Next I warmed up the Laminator and ran the pieces through.  I hand cut the shapes out of the laminate paper.  Then I took Mini Velcro fasteners and attached them to the doll and to the clothes.  Now we can dress and undress the dolls as many times as we like and they will hold up to 4 year old fingers better than straight paper.  This worked so slick I am working on some more.

Exploding album interior

I made this exploding album for my niece's baptism. I received one of these from Gail for my daughter's birthday. There are simple steps to making this album which can be themed any way you choose.

Exploding Album

I made this exploding album for March. I'm giving it as a gift in April. I will post pictures of the inside after the gift-giving is done. Stay tuned...

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