Cookies for Santa Plate

So sorry that I have been a slacker...I was actually on vacation in Vegas having a wonderful time. Now, back to work. I know that I have talked about Expressions Vinyl  several times. Number one reason is BECAUSE THEY ARE AMAZING. Their prices on vinyl are the best prices around...hands down. You will pay outrageous amounts getting vinyl elsewhere and I will only, and I mean ONLY, use Expressions Vinyl. Any of the projects I have made are using their vinyl. My shirts, still have the heat adhesive vinyl on them after tons of washing....my cups/plates still have the vinyl on them as well (I use outdoor vinyl for things that are washed). Anyways...here is another wonderful project that I have done - just in time for Christmas.

This is a porcelain plate that I bought from Pier One. This project is pretty self explanatory, so I didn't bother with the before and during pictures. I used the outdoor vinyl in black for the lettering and the red for the Santa. You will want to press NO CUT for the one that you are doing in a different color and then adjust it for the next step. This project is super cute and my kids are super excited to leave cookies for the fat man. 

Naughty is the New Nice Christmas Onesie

None of my children need this shirt because they are fantastically sweet to the core...it's pretty much Mayberry here at our home - lol. My oldest daughter, Miranda, is in definite need of this shirt but all I had on hand was something for the little one - who is equally naughty. This shirt is definitely something you need (most likely all children under the age of 5 need this shirt, sorry Moms that have those wonderfully angelic children who never as much as spill milk), and it was too super easy to make.

The "naughty" was done in Silhouette Studio using the AR Christy font - I thought it was perfect for this. The "is the new" was done in the AR Bonnie, and the "Nice" was Aharoni. I used glitter heat adhesive vinyl for all three. On the middle part of the shirt I just subtracted the letters to offset everything and give it a different look than just straight words on a shirt. Always remember when working with heat vinyl that you mirror your image - otherwise the words will be backwards. Have fun! 

Gobble Gobble

How was your Thanksgiving? Mine was wonderful! I'm still feeling bloated. On Thanksgiving morning I realized that I didn't have a shirt for my youngest daughter to wear, but had a dress for my oldest daughter. So, obviously I couldn't leave anyone out. I thought about it and decided to make this!

Yep! It was super cute. I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the turkey and used the Christy font available in silhouette studio for "gobble gobble".

Maggie ate...and ate...and ate...until she couldn't eat anymore. Hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as mine was. Especially with this little gobbler. 

My First Cake!!

Have y'all ever heard of Craftsy? It is this wonderful site that offers online craft courses for pretty much anything you can think of. Recently I decided that I wanted to make my daughter's 3rd birthday cake for her DocMcStuffins party...and guess what...Craftsy had a "how to" video for fondant! They basically are like online classes, but for crafting. Now...I am by no means a pro...lol...this is my first cake EVER to make. But, it actually turned out pretty well for watching a video! The instructor of this particular course is Jessica Harris and she did an amazing job on showing how to make fondant, ganache, do a crumb coating, and much more. Right now all the classes are $19.99 or less. If you have something you need to learn to make quickly - here is the place to do it.

Like I said, I'm no pro...but this was my first time ever to work with Fondant and Modeling Chocolate. SO - if you are looking to broaden your hobby list...this is the place to go. Notice how smooth the fondant was!! I'm very proud of myself. =)

Obviously the cake went over well. This was homemade butter cream icing! All of the Recipes are listed under your "Materials" section for your course. 

Candy Cane Candle

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT LIGHT THIS CANDLE! I am not responsible for what goes on at your home. I cannot tell you enough that this is only for display and is not meant to be lit. 

Okay..with my little disclaimer out of the way...here is the candy cane candle. I decided to make this when I didn't have anything to match my Christmas decor on my mantle. This is one of the easiest projects I have ever made. 

Take a completely white candle, or buy one of the ones that have the LED lights in them. I would have gotten one of those, but this is what I had laying around my house. 

You do not have to use the silhouette cameo for this one, or transfer tape for that matter. All you need to do is cut strips of the adhesive vinyl. After you cut the strips, place them on the candle and cut off the overhang. 

Take the strips anyway that you see fit. I made some bigger and then placed the smaller ones in between.

My mantle doesn't normally have an elf on it, but this is where he was this morning and we aren't supposed to touch them - I have many little people eyes watching to make sure that nobody touches him. I left my other candle white so you could see the difference. 

Wine Glass Sippy Cup

Personalized drink cups are ALWAYS a good idea. Who doesn't want something with their initials on it? Even better, who doesn't want a wine glass sippy cup?? These things are extra neat especially if you are someone who likes to enjoy your wine while camping or if you ever need an emergency wine glass. ;) I personalized this one by using the tools in silhouette studio. Once again, a great gift that takes 5 minutes to make. Remember to use outdoor adhesive vinyl for this and anything else that will be submerged in water. I get my vinyl from expressions vinyl.

Notice the awesome stem inside the sippy cup?

Personalized Wrapping Paper

You can buy personalized wrapping paper...which is obviously really cute, but the wrapping paper gets torn to shreds with in a matter of minutes and has cost you a lot of money. I love the thought of having my own recipe on my wrapping paper, or my name, whatever I want...so I made my own. I used the sketch pens that I finally got in the mail and created this. I'm going to do some other designs and add tags, but I couldn't wait to show y'all!

 

 

To complete this project I bought the postal wrapping paper. It is 30 inches wide, which is obviously too big for your machine...so you need to cut it. You can make the width 24 inches and then fold the paper in half and send it through the machine on your mat. Change the color of the sketch pens as many times as you like, but remember to select no cut when you are wanting an object a different color. If you have any questions - let me know!

Letter to Santa Pillow

You know that I'm big on Christmas...everything Christmas. My house is actually in the North Pole and people call me Claus. ;) What's a better way to communicate with Santa then a direct pillow talk route? My kiddos love to write letters to Santa, well...not the ones that can't write...or speak yet for that matter, so a fun way to do this is to have them write their letter and put it in Santa's pouch. They can even write a letter on Christmas Eve for Santa and he can leave his response back in the pouch for the kiddos! Pretty much you can put whatever you want in the pouch, or nothing at all. You can give this as a gift and put some Christmas goodies in it like cookies, candy canes, gift cards, subpoenas etc.

**If you are feeling extra crafty, which evidently I am because my friend told me I am, you can put your children's names under the belt so that they can have their personalized letter to Santa pillow. 

The Tutorial:

I used red fleece from Hobby Lobby and cut 3 pieces 12x12. I used a tape measure.

I used the fake fur, also from Hobby Lobby and placed a 2 inch wide strip down the middle (I sewed on both sides leave) and then sewed 2 black buttons on. 

Take your 3rd piece of fabric and fold directly down the middle and iron it. I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the pieces for the belt, but you can use whatever you would like. Then I used my iron and put them on the fabric. 

Match up the bottom belt piece to the front of the Santa suit. 

Place your extra piece of fleece and put down on top of the layers creating a sandwich. 

Pin your pieces together. I pin my stuff like this...I'm not sure how other people pin their projects together - but I like to do it this way. Make sure to mark where you will leave your opening to stuff the pillow. I left my opening by the "arm" of Santa. 

Pull your fabric out the little arm hole and make sure to poke all points with a tool...such as your scissors. Your next job is to either use your pillow form or some cluster puff...both of which you can buy at Hobby Lobby. 

** Disclaimer...I have no idea how good you sew - so if you have small children who like to eat things, make sure you get those suckers on tight or use the heat adhesive vinyl to do fake buttons. **

Waiting...

I'm still waiting for my sketch pens to get here....so while I'm waiting I thought I would make my favorite - another pillow. I used some scrap glitter heat adhesive vinyl that I had and the "Merry Christmas" download from Silhouette and created this beauty.

Once again, pillows are the easiest things to make...even for a beginner. They make wonderful gifts and take very little time. This is a 12x12. I just measured and cut my fabric - no pattern. 

Here is an overhead shot so that you can see the pattern on the back of the pillow. I went with the red with white polka dots. It's super cute. 

* The glitter vinyl is from expressions vinyl 

Pajama fight??

This morning I got online to order Christmas pajamas that were being posted at 9am. OH MY GOSH! It literally gave me anxiety. These things were selling like hot cakes and my computer kept freezing up or wouldn't put the pajamas in my cart. Who would have thought that you would have to fight to get pajamas??

I was able to finally get 2 red striped ones, 1 green stripe, and 1 red polka dot. They are now completely sold out. It didn't take long either...I could see as I was completing my order it said "only 5 left in stock"...it was actually counting down WHILE they were in my cart. Phew...that was close. ;)

**I'm going to use some wonderful heat adhesive vinyl on a couple of these and embroider on the others. My delivery date is set for November 30th, so it will be a while before I'm able to post these. 

On another note...notice I haven't updated recently. That's because I have projects in the works that are in need of my sketch pens that I ordered. I will post as soon as I'm finished. 

Another Birthday (but this time with print and cut)

Again, the Silhouette Cameo has been my best investment. With the print and cut feature, I no longer have the need to go to office max and have my invites printed and cut, or cut them myself. This is a picture I took of the invitation. Using the offset feature I was able to take the Doc and put a little white halo around her, as well as take her out of the picture she was in by using the trace feature. If you have any questions on how to accomplish this, let me know and I'll explain further. 

Sketch Pen Special!

If you haven't had a chance to get the Silhouette Sketch Pens yet...grab them up today at HSN! They are $14.95 and you get FREE shipping if you use this code HOLIDAYSHIP13. This is for a set of 24 sketch pens and a coupon for 10 free sketch designs. Can't beat this deal!

Comfort and Joy Update

I'm not quite finished with my pillow yet because I haven't gone to get a pillow insert....I will do that tomorrow...maybe. =) Here is what I have so far. It looks good, the words are a little thin and in some areas the paint didn't get on the burlap very good - but that makes for a cute homemade pillow. These suckers are excellent gifts! If you have a sewing machine and can sew in a semi straight line...you can do it. These don't take long at all, so everyone has time to do it. Plus, you don't need a pattern. Just figure out the size of the pillow insert you are going to use, or use regular filling, and take a ruler and measure out your fabric and then cut it out. If you missed my tutorial on how to paint onto a pillow, you can find that here.

Moss Tree

Moss trees are pretty...that's it. They look good because they look like miniature real trees - and so I love them. These trees can be used at any time of the year, so it makes them even that more wonderful. They are also inexpensive and super easy to make. When trying to gather ideas for my projects I tend to look around in catalogs or online and it is so funny to me to see things for $50+ that you can make yourself. An example would be of the styrofoam multi-colored ball tree from pottery barn. It is really a cute idea, but I'm not paying that much for a bunch of styrofoam balls glued onto a styrofoam tree cone. 

Get a bag of sheet moss from Hobby Lobby, or whichever craft store you prefer and glue the sheets on with spray adhesive. After that's done, you are either finished with your project or you can add little paper flowers like I did here. I used my silhouette cameo, surprise surprise, to cut out the paper flowers and then I doctored them a little by adding glitter. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but you can add as many or as little as you like. Next you can take a short branch and push it in to the base of the tree and set it up in a pot, or you can just leave it how it is! 

Glittery Jingle Bell Pillow

This one turned out amazing! My Mom had the wonderful idea for this beautiful variation of the jingle pillow. Notice the pins in the bottom...that's because the bottom isn't sewn up yet. In order to get this look you need to use glitter heat adhesive vinyl. Were you aware that Cricut wants $14.99 for a 12x19 piece of glitter heat adhesive vinyl? That's insane! It takes one whole 12x19 piece to create this look. You can find glitter heat adhesive vinyl at expressions vinyl for $5.99. 

Using the silhouette cameo, cut out the letters on your vinyl and then follow the directions for adhering it to your fabric. The fabric used here is green burlap with gold sparkles. Remember to mirror your image in studio and also put the paper in with the glitter side down. 

Comfort and Joy

You can never have enough pillows. Tomorrow I plan on making this one and am allowing you all to see it prior to my starting it so that you may work along with me! It only makes sense to put the word "comfort" on a pillow...and considering the time of year, "Joy" is also necessary. The materials you need:

silhouette cameo

vinyl adhesive (or the fabric ink kit)

Fabric ink 

Fabric (buy 1 yard and that will do it if you want the pillow the same color all around)

transfer tape

sponge

For the font, I am using Magnolia Light from Dafont. Magnolia is really beautiful, but it is difficult to read and might be even more difficult to transfer. The pillow ends up being 14x28 so size your font accordingly. Mine is about 8x20. Follow the tutorial under Jingle Bells for more information on how to create your pillow. I would love to see your finished work! 

Jingle Bells

Have I mentioned that I love Christmas? It still feels that at this time of the year - everyone most people are happy and loving...except on Black Friday and then you have to watch your back. Christmas crafts are fun, especially while listening to a little Pandora Christmas. Today, with the help of my wonderful Mother, we created re-created (we saw it in a magazine for like a million dollars) this little beauty:

Here is the how to:

Take your iron and steam the burlap so that it's not all wrinkled up. Then take it over to your cutting mat, or carpet area, and cut the fabric 14x28 - this is the exact measurement of the pillow insert. We had cut some previously so we just used that to guide us. You will need to cut 2 pieces (you can do both the same fabric or add a different fabric). 

Using the Silhouette Cameo, I created and cut the word "Jingle" out on some vinyl (I don't have the fabric kit that silhouette offers or I would have used that...it probably would have been a lot easier too). You don't have to use a silhouette, although they are amazing and I love mine, you can use a stencil you have or make one yourself. Weed out the letters in the word so that negative space is there and then apply your transfer paper. 

This step is CRUCIAL! GET IT STRAIGHT! Otherwise you will have a weird looking pillow. Take your transfer paper and measure, measure, measure. 

This is how it should look when you get the transfer paper off and it is just the adhesive vinyl. You are now ready for the fun part...PAINT! 

Take a sponge and dab paint, little by little. For this project, since I don't have the Silhouette fabric ink kit, I used Speedball screen printing paint from Hobby Lobby. It is really hard to let it dry a little because you are so excited to see what you just created...but just wait - like at least 4 minutes. 

We used little sleigh bells to accent the pillow. You can use as many or as little as you like, but now is the time to add them. Next you need to sew the fabric right sides together making sure to leave quite a bit of space to get your pillow insert in. After adding the pillow insert you will want to do a blind stitch to close the pillow up. You are finished and now have a wonderful Holiday pillow!