Birthday Presents

As promised in an earlier post, I had/have a few crafty projects going on at once and need to post on them!  My first one will be on my latest birthday presents that I spiffed up a bit using my silhouette.  Now, to tell the truth I took my laptop to Ocean City with me on vacation hoping to 'design' my idea and have it ready to cut when I got home.  Could life get any easier?  Nah!  BUT my laptop, the ToSHITa, Toshiba, which has my silhouette software on it bit the dust.  AGAIN!  URGH!  When we got back from vaca the hubby wiped it clean and said "NO INTERNET FOR YOU" until I have a chance to load the virus software (which is still not loaded).  WAH!!!!!!!!!  So I cried and went ahead on my first gift.  See, I lost ALL my silhouette downloads and all my custom fonts when he cleaned it up.  And I can not get those back without internet access. =(  But I did not let that detour me.  Using the fonts and designs preloaded I chugged along.  In comes the first gift.  A friend of mine daughter had a birthday last week.  I purchased a purple lap desk a while back with the intent of using vinyl to decorate and make it PURTY.  ;-)  Well, what I had in mind for design didn't work out because of the Toshiba, however this is the end result:

I was happy with it afterall.  I can just use my other 'idea' for the next lapdesk gift.  I am planning to give one to my niece, Katie, for Christmas.  =) 

Last week was my bestie's birthday.  That heffer took off and went to the beach!  ;-) I didn't get to spend time with her on her bday.  But I am GLAD she was having fun.  Nothing better than being at the Gulf!  Anyway, I am taking her out for a birthday dinner tonight so I had to get busy and whip out her gift 2!  I realized I could download the font files I wanted and use my little thum drive to load them without the internet.  So I downloaded a few and got to work.  I made her a water bottle just like the ones I posted here.  (Font Curlz)  I also had purchased some cute old navy flip flops earlier in the summer.  I threw them in a cute plastic container and whipped out some vinyl for it as well.  I will add something nice from the liquor/package store for her but here's the idea:

My husband has always lovingly called her "nancy pants" (he gives everyone odd nick-names), so I thought it'd be cute to put it on the container.  =)  This font was another free one I downloaded called "chachie".   I am REALLY loving it!   

I am loving using my silhouette for jazzing up gifts!  I've always loved the idea of getting personalized gifts so I hope that my friends and family are enjoying getting them.  They are sure to keep coming unless they tell me otherwise ;-)

What about all of you?  Have you been up to any crafty adventures lately?  I will be linking to my usual parties listed on the side bar so go check them out for some inspiration!  =)

Vinyl Love to the Rescue!

My dad called me on Friday afternoon to tell me that my two of my cousins, who together have FOUR children, were having a joint birthday party.  Fun right?  Well, the party was SATURDAY!!!!!  They do this to me EVERY year.  And EVERY year I am so shocked and caught off guard!  You'd think I would learn by now, LOL!  So, I was frantically trying to figure out what to give these kiddos for their birthday.  Also trying to figure out was there ANYTHING in my stash of 'potential gifts' that I could use.  We were super busy getting ready for an open house on Sunday and I did not have time to go running all over town for last minute gifts.  Low and behold, my silhouette came to the rescue again!  I found some water bottles on the cheap a while back and stocked up on them.  My intention was making teachers gifts and adorning them with vinyl.  However, for ages 10ish-14ish, I figured that'd work just fine.  Feast your eyes on my finished products:

The two girlies got polka dots on theirs.  I decided after lots of thought to just leave the boys with their initial on them.  I didn't want anything to look to cheesy or girlie for them.  ;-)  My dad's bday is this week and I am hoping to get his cake made tonight and a special project for him also using my silhouette.  I will post it next!
Here are a couple of pics of the fresh flowers I put out for our open house.  I wish I could have them sitting out all the time!  =)

Hope everyone had a fun weekend!

*Added: I will link up this post to all my parties on the side bar =)

More Vinyl Love

Last week I pulled out my silhouette again!  I had three different projects I wanted to do with vinyl so got to work!

First up, I wanted to finish the citronella candles I posted about here.  While the one I showed you last week was made using a recycled pickle jar, for the remaining three I used left over supplies from my Lil Princesses birthday party.  I applied vinyl to each container which was to be for each family member.  The Lil Princess and Lil Cupcake ofcourse are self explanatory.  Hubby's is obviously the pirate.  We colored his candle red for pirate's blood.  LOL!  My Lil Princess helped me with this entire project from candle making to decisions on colors and vinyl!  Here are the pics from this project:

Next up, is coffee mugs!  I will preface this by saying I've seen many a coffee mug go vinyl in blog land.  This is a very popular idea.  The idea has been in my head since I purchased a coffee mug from Hobby Lobby for $10 in March for my mother for part of her birthday present.  I do not have a picture of it but let me tell you it looks ALOT like the cream/black combo one I made below.  I definately confirmed the project by seeing all the bloggers making similar stuff.  I  love pink and black so I decided to make myself one in those colors.  Both coffee mugs came from the dollar store!!!!  So can you believe I spent that much money on a coffee mug I could have made myself?!  (Well, I didn't have the silhouettte supplies in time....but wow!)

And finally, my favorite project is a canvas I painted and applied vinyl for my girls bathroom.  I made a similar one in this post. It was for a friend's girls.  This pic shows the finished product with ribbon and all hung up.  I think I like the rectangular version from the first project better as far as shape, but the square shape fits the space well.  I *might* eventually go back and re-do the size of some of my wording.  I think it should be a bit bigger and maybe even thicker.  But for a quick cut and paste type thing, I am content for the moment.  ;-)

My vinyl rage is not over.  I have plans to make a gift for my dad for his birthday (it's next week!) and then gifts for my cousins kiddos for their birthday.  So stay tuned for more Vinyl Love posts to come in the future.  ;-) 

I will be linking up to the linky parties listed on my side bar. 

   

Vinyl Love

There is something I post very little about on my blog and that is my love for crafting. I posted here about my first project with my new silhouette sd. I made teacher's gifts. =) I love love love that thing! Since we have our house on the market I've barely used it. For one I drag all the stuff out of the closet and hate having to get it all put up quickly if the house shows. And two a big no no when selling a house is personalization, and for me, that is what my silhouette sd is ALL about! Hubby has a buddy who is recently back from a deployment and has two girls. PERFECT opportunity for me to try out some crafty personalization using my silhouette sd don't you think?!




This was an easy project. I had everything on hand already and then the brain storm arrived. I was playing around with the software for the silhouette, dreaming up ideas of what I will make for my little girls when we move. Then I thought, hey, I can make this for hubby's friend. I grabbed my wooden board that I'd purchased at hobby lobby for nearly nothing and mixed some paints together and painted away. Once it had dried I applied another coat. Once that had dried I got out the silhouette and two shades of vinyl. Cut those out and applied to the frame. I sprayed it with some clear acrylic gloss coating for that extra finish. Isn't it cute as can be? I can't WAIT to make one for my girls! I grabbed the cutest ribbon today that's white with pink polka dots to use for hanging embelishment. I hope the girls like their new addition to decor! I enjoyed making it!
I decided to link up to some parties that I find inspiring. I will be linking to the following this week:

and


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Hope you all enjoyed this! I am super excited and can't wait to do more with my silhouette!

Teacher's Appreciation Gifts

This post is late but better late than never right? This week was teachers appreciation and I got the chance to do a couple of things crafty. I have never used mod podge or my silhouette sd and I made a project using both! I hope our teachers like it. For both the lil' cupcake and the princess we have been blessed with wonderful teachers. Actually our daycare is great in general. There isn't one teacher there that I don't like. They spoil my girls and I love it!
Okay so back to the project. I saw a post somewhere in blogland where someone modpodged napkins to small ceramic tiles to make sets of coasters as gifts. I really thought the idea was cute but I had no napkins of interest for the project. I decided to try to mod podge some cute scrap paper onto one tile and then cut out vinyl for the teachers names. They can hang them or sit them on a stand for display. And for those who know me, I am ALL about a monogram. I took pictures to share specifically on the blog. With that said, they are not great quality. I had trouble getting the camera to auto focus so I tried manual focus and it wouldn't even snap the shot! Anyway, the moment we've all been waiting for...the pics!




Have a blessed weekend!