Valentine's Week Day 4 - Easy Valentine's Tea Towels

Hi all, I am back again!!!  I am getting caught up on Valentines Week with this Day 4 post.  I wanted to show you how I have come to love to decorate for any holiday : Making Tea Towels for the kitchen.  You can buy a pack of three white linen Tea Towels from Target for about $4.  Then you just let your creativity take hold.  Here are the towels that I created for Valentine's Day ... 

So I realize that the pictures are kind of hard to see, that's what last minute picture taking gets me.  Anyway the top tea towel was super simple and fast to make.  I used my new sewing and embroidery machine to embroider the cupid and word Love onto the towel.  It was fast and easy and didn't take much effort on my part.  
The second towel I actually made from scratch.  I had some leftover fabric, well a bunch of leftover, from some kids shirts that I will share with you tomorrow.  I actually hemmed the towel all by myself.  It was super simple, but I was nervous, as this is the first sewing project I have made.  After I made the towel, I used my Cameo and some heat transfer vinyl to add the designs on the towel.  
The third towel was a bit more complicated, but I think worth the effort.  I took all my different Valentine's ribbon and arranged them in a heart pattern.  I then used the sewing machine to sew the ribbon to the towel.  This took a little bit of effort, and it is by no means perfect when you see it up close.  But it was good practice for sewing straight lines and using pins.  
That's it, I hope you have a fabulous day.  I will be back tomorrow with my final post for Valentine's Week.  

Valentine's Week Day 3: Easy Mantel Decor

Hi all hope your week is going well.  We are currently digging out from over a foot a snow, with more to come tonight.  It is fun though when you have this much snow!!!  So I missed yesterday because I had to take care of our Troops cookie delivery.  It was a very busy day ...  and might I mention that it is not fun being on a diet when there 450 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in your living room.  Anyway ... today I wanted to share my Mantel Decorations for Valentines Day.  One of the things I wanted to concentrate my crafting on this year was home decor.  Especially for Holidays.  So here is what I created ... 

I really love Burlap, but wasn't quite sure what to do with it.  I ran across a roll of this burlap ribbon and decided that I could stencil it.  When one of my friends was over for a play date we decided to cut the roll in half and each make a banner or table runner for Valentine's Day.  I used my Cameo to cut some stencils out of Freezer paper.  We then used the stencils with some paint and foam brushes to paint the designs onto the burlap.  I think they came out pretty cute.  
I also decided to create the framed art works.  Here is what they each look like ... 

I used my Cameo and the print and cut feature to create these posters.  To add some visual interest, I cut some parts of each of the words out of double sided sticker paper and added glitter to them.  It was simple project, but I really love how they add and anchor point to the mantel.  
That's all I have for now, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!!!

Valentine's Week Day 2: Kids Classroom Valentine's

Hi everyone, as promised I am back for day two of my Valentine's crafts week.  Today I wanted to share with you the Valentine's that the girls and I created for their classroom exchanges.  They had definite opinions on what they wanted.  
First I will start with my youngest.  She saw me perusing Pinterest one day and saw some Owl valentines that she really wanted.  Here is the version that we created ... 

To make these, I used the Set of four Owl shapes from the Silhouette online store.  I then placed a heart in the center so that it would be cut out of the front of the shape.  To get the the candy in the center of the heart, I used a snack sized zip lock bag.  I then had to sew a smaller pouch to attach to the front of the card.  I then attached the back to the front and made sure to squeeze the candy through the heart.  It was a little intensive with the sewing but otherwise they were easy to do.  My daughter had a blast putting the eyes and noses on and signing them.  

My oldest daughter is into the same things every other school aged child.  For that reason she chose Fox Valentines.  I admit I did have fun designing these ones ... 

I wanted to use hearts to make the base shape.  I then used the tail and ears from a cute fox I found in the Silhouette shape store.  It is hard to see but the pattern on the card frame is a heart pattern.  Of course, the sentiment on the front of the card says "What does the Fox Say", and the back "Happy Valentines Day".  She had a good time assembling them and signing them as well.  

That is all for today.  I hope your week is going well!!

Valentine's Week - Day 1: Wedding Card

Happy Monday all!!  And I am back.  I have taken a break from the blog for a while I know.  I haven't stopped crafting, just been taking some time off to get things in order around the home.  So I thought I would kick off my return with a week of Valentine's crafts.  I have been very busy working on outfitting the kids with their Valentine's and some home decor decorations for "Holiday".  
So for today, I don't have a Valentine's item per say but it does have to do with Love.  I needed to make a wedding card to go with a gift being delivered.  Here it is ...

I chose go with a black and white color scheme because the wedding was black tie.  I used the cuttlebug to emboss the card frame with an embellished fleur-de-lis pattern.  I then chose to make a flag shape with some black paper with the same pattern on it.  I cut the label shape with the Cameo.  I then used the Cameo and a black glitter sketch pen to write the sentiments on both the front and inside of the card.  
Well that is all I have for you today.  I will be back tomorrow with some real Valentine's crafts.  Thanks for stopping by.  

Happy New Year

Hi all, wanted to wish you a Happy New Year!!!!  I always love the New Year holiday.  It is a sort of personal fresh start where anything is possible.  Not that I have very big resolutions this year!!!  I haven't even really though about it.  Maybe after my kids go back to school on Monday I can sit down and jot some things down.  Kinda ready for the kids to get back to school, if you can't tell.
So for New Year's Eve we had a family that we are close with over for a sleep over.  We had four adults and four kids running around acting crazy!!!  So to spruce up the house for the party, I made a couple New Year's inspired decorations.  
First I made a banner, for some reason no party seems complete without a banner!!

I used Lori Whitlock's banner shape from the Silhouette store for the shapes and letters.  The patterned paper is from Heidi Swapp's holiday collection.  The letters where cut from Silhouette double sided adhesive and then covered with some Martha Stewart gold glitter.  

Second, I made some table decor for the food table.  

These are some 3-D top hats.  Interestingly, I couldn't find just a 3D top hat in the Silhouette Store.  I had to purchase the Snowman Top Hat with Face file and remove the snowman face.  I then added the 2014 from the Lori Whitlock photo props file, some feathers and ribbon.
Finally, I made some photo props.  Wanted to have an excuse to take a fun group photo to remember the night by.  

I used Lori Whitlock's New Years Eve photo prop files found in the Silhouette store.  Just used a variety of different papers and colors to cut the props.  I then glued a skewer to the left side and wrapped it with some black washi tape.  They were super fun and the kids especially had a blast with them.

Here we all are with the fun props.  So that is all I have for you today.  I hope you have a fabulous New Year and accomplish all your goals and dreams.  

Teacher Holiday Gifts

Happy Thursday all.  We are having a blast down here in the warm weather.  Today I took the kids to the local zoo.  They love doing the zip line adventure and seeing all the animals.  Now we are back and taking a rest from our adventures.  I wanted to share some cards and a cute inexpensive gift I made for the Kindergarten teachers this year.  I admit the gift is ripped right from Pinterest, but really is a practical gift for the teachers.  Here are the cards that I made ... 

I made these cards with some of the scraps that I had lying around from working on my December album.  The sentiment on the front of the cards, I did with my Silhouette and the print and cut feature.  I think it took me a total of 30 minutes to put these two cards together they were so simple.  Here are the gifts I made for the teachers ... 

Super simple and like I said taken right off of Pinterest.  That's what I love about Pinterest, anytime you need a quick simple idea, you can always find it there.  And who doesn't need more wrapping paper at this time of year.  
That's all I have for today, hope your week is going well.  

Baking and Crafting - All Night Long

Hi all, hope you are all doing wonderful.  I am officially on my Holiday Vacation.  I have no access to any crafting whatsoever, so I thought it would be a good time to update the blog on all the Holiday projects I have completed.  
I thought I would start with the baking and crafting that I did a couple days after Thanksgiving.  My girlfriend came over around 9:00am in the morning and we went to a spinning class to get our blood flowing.  After that we spent 13 hours baking and decorating 2 dozen each of 12 different types of cookies.  Basically we bake our own cookie swapp.  It is a really fun day/night with lots of wine, laughter, and of course great tasting goodies.  During the afternoon, her family came over to have a sleep-over.  The next morning is spent packaging the cookies into gifts.  Her is what that looks like:

This year we let the kids help with the crafting.  They each made some gift tags to go on the packages.  They came out cute and the kids were really excited that they got to use adult crafting supplies.  Here are what the packages looked like when we were done:

We used a variety of different packages.  I think one of my favorites was the mason jars.  They were easy to embellish, with just a little scrapbook paper for the top.  Another one of my favorites, was the tubes of cookies that we did.

This is actually and up-cycling project.  The tube is the packaging that Silhouette uses for its premium vinyl.  It was the perfect diameter to fit cookies that were made with a tablespoon scoop.  We just chose some pretty scrapbook paper to wrap around the outside, some ribbon and a tag.  Easy and a great way to recycle packaging.

Well that is all I have for you today.  I will have a couple more projects to share before the holidays.  Oh and I am super excited because I got my December Daily Album done!!!!  Can't wait to share that with you.  Have a great day.