Vinyl wording on mantle for Christmas

  I don't know if it was my lack of cooking skills that scared the children away from baking cookies tonight or if it was the homework. In either case, all the kids, including my daughter, did not want to participate in baking cookies.  Bummer, because they really are the best cookies.  I made them last year and my family talked about them for days.

So I thought I would share one of my Christmas projects.  We are changing our Christmas theme this year  We usually do the traditional colors.  My daughter has asked for a Cindy Lou Who Christmas for years.  So this year we were taking the plunge on a budget.

My first project was the mantle.  I wanted to take a quote from The Grinch and have it across the mantle in Grinch green.  So I bought some paint...kidding.  Years ago, while window shopping at Home Depot (it must have been date night), I saw these vinyl wall pops on clearance.  They were on clearance for $2.00 each. So I bought some in each color.  I knew they would come in handy some day...even if that day was 700 days later.

This isn't all of it but you get the idea.  It came in squares and rolls.  I wish I could say I pulled out my Silhouette, found a Grinch font and cut it on my Silhouette.  But I don't have one.  So I pulled out Cricut Expression and my Gypsy and started to design.  I decided one of the fonts on Lyrical Letters would look the closest to a Grinch style font.  If you have never cut vinyl on a Cricut, I find it is best to change the pressure to 3 and let the Gypsy choose the speed.  This will cut the vinyl but not the backing.  Once you cut the letters, pull off the extra vinyl on your mat, so that all that is left are your letters and/or words.  They place your transfer paper over the words.

Trust me, it is worth getting transfer paper to transfer items from the mat to the mantle. I gently rub the paper over my words.  Because my quote was longer than my mat, I cut the transfer paper into word size strips.  Then when I got to the mantle I gently pressed the paper against the mantle until I had all the pieces lined up.  Once they were lined up I pressed the letters onto the mantle.

If I had this to do again, I would have chosen to make the font larger. I think this one is less than 3 inches tall.  It kind of gets lost in the final look...to come later.

Tiffany's with a Twist

My beloved daughter turns sixteen this week. If you have a little one under the age of five and someone says to treasure this time while your little one is throwing a tantrum....heed those words. Time does fly by...really fast. It really seems like just yesterday I was droppping her off at kindergarten. I can still see her dragging this HUGE backpack on her back. She would have to lean forward and gain momentum to make it from the car door to the front door of the school. I tried buying her a new smaller one but she wouldn't have it. She refused to give up her big girl backpack for a baby one. Now we are counting down the days until she takes her first real step to independence by taking her driving test. Once she passes it, I will no longer have the privilege of taking her to school and watching her walk through those school doors. Yup, times are a changing.

And with change comes....Tiffany's. My daughter is a complicated child. She loves waterpolo because she loves the ability to kick and pull on all the other girls but she takes hours to do her hair and make up and has yet to reach 5 feet in height. She wears sweats and t-shirts to school but loves a great pair of stilettos on the weekend. (I don't think they are technically stilettos but they are really high.) She is so loud and has a laugh that can be heard from miles away...she stands out in her all boy engineering classes. The teacher teased her the first few weeks of class by stating she must of transposed some numbers when signing up for her sophomore classes because she is not the engineering type...that was until she maintained a 97 or higher average in the class. YOU GO GIRL!

So it was only appropriate to make her an invitation for her birthday party that was as paradoxical as she is. So I made her invitations Tiffany themed but with a twist.

Aren't they hilarious? When we came up with this idea, I couldn't wait to do them. They are very similar to the ones I made for my friend's wedding. You can see those here. Now I know quite a few mother's that will be appalled by the wording on this invitation but you have to know my daughter and our close relationship. She makes great grades, volunteers during the summer in the summer swim league. She is a dedicated athlete and has a big heart and wise advice for troubled teens. She shares their stories with me and the advice she gave or asks me for advice for them. When she is confused about a relationship with a boy or girl, she asks for help and looks for biblical truth to back up her final decision...she is a good kid...with a weird sense of humor...so these invitations speak volumes about her.

So we took a road trip to the Highlands area and went to The Paper Source for our supplies. Now if you don't have one near you, you can buy their items online. Thank goodness I took the 45 minute trip to the store because while there I found this unbelievable gift wrap to use for the liner.

I fell in LOVE with this paper. The picture above is a link to where you can purchase it. Let me just say, that I have not been asked to endorse this product...I just love it soo much that I have to share. The picture at the website does NOT do it justice, so I thought I would take a picture of it for you. No flash was used to take this picture. What you see is the light reflecting off the glitter from the small lamp that I have.

I think it goes well with the Tiffany theme. Liners dress up the envelope and this liner is like jewelry for the envelope. I wanted the recipient's of the invitation to experience the thrill of a Tiffany's box. Picture it. They open the Tiffany blue envelope and are greeted with the brilliance of a gem as light reflects off the thousand pieces of glitter. Then they are introduced to more brillance with the crystals I hotfixed to the front of the invitation. And of course, no Tiffany box would be complete without white ribbon. What do you think?

Recipe:

-5x7 cardstock in Pool from The Paper Source

-8.5 x 11 Text Paper in Pool

-8.5 x 11 Savoy Cotton Paper from The Paper Source

-Glitter gift wrap

-White ribbon from Wal-mart

-Hotfix rhinestones from Imaginisce and/or Jolee's

Thanks for stopping by!

One Year Baby Album V2.0

My journey into the year of the babies began with a one year baby album.  Now, I have made them before but they were mini albums that were based on a template I received in a class years ago.  It was a class I took at Scrap-a-faire many moons ago.  You can see my post here . I love making that book.  Did it take time? Sure.  Did  like it? Yup.  So why mess with changing it?  Because I love a challenge.  Well to be honest, I love a challenge when it is over.  During the challenge, I whine, complain and think it is a mistake.  

So for this album I decided to make a full size 12X12 album, two page spread per month and title page.  Now this was for a math teacher so let's do the math, shall we?  Rozette wants to make an album for her daughter's geometry teacher.  She decides to make two pages per month and also a title page. How many layouts will Rozette make?

                                 12 months X 2 layouts = 24 layouts  24 layouts +1 title page = 25 layouts in total

Really Rozette?  You are going to do 25 layouts in one month. Are you crazy?  Are you insane?  Yes, yes I am.  I didn't think of it in those terms.  I think if I had, I would have never started and just bought a pack of cute boy themed onesies and called it a day.

So I decided to do 25 boy theme pages and use no bling or pink or ribbons (okay maybe just a little ribbon). Now this is hard for me.  As you will discover, I love bling.  I love sparkly things and all things pink.  So I pretty much took on mission impossible with this album.  

There were a few things I wanted to stay the same with this book that I used in the mini albums.  

1) Make most of the picture spots 4X6 or 5X7.  Non-scrappers can easily print pictures those two sizes at any drugstore.

2) Use three or four templates for the whole album

3) Leave journaling spots to mark down  milestones

I am not a hoarder but I must admit, I rarely throw anything away from my scrapbook stash and I don't care if I haven't used if for years...it stays.  So I had these template creators that I bought from Walmart back in 2007.  I was a new scrapbooker and needed guidance.  I never used them but I kept them.  

Thank goodness I kept them because they came in handy.

Once I had a few basic templates, I was able to repeat them three or four times. They were not all exactly alike but the templates served as a jumping off point for each page.

I used my Cricut for all the titles. I used Cricut Craft Room for the first time and I must say I was quite impressed.  My only gripe is that I had to insert each cartridge into my Expression in order to cut.  Years ago I bought a Gypsy because I didn't want to switch out cartridges and I didn't like want to be changed to a computer when I craft. I am on a computer all day and I just don't want to spend more time on it than I need to spend.  But I must admit, for a computer based program, I was pretty happy.

Yes I will admit I have caved and I am just as crazy about banners as other scrappers.  So I put a few in this one.  The one over the picture placement is not glued down so that mommy can slip her picture on there.  And remember I said I only put a little ribbon in the album?  I just could not resist.

You see what I mean?  It is too cute!  So cute that I went back to Hobby Lobby and bought it in blue, pink and yellow.  They also have little teddy bears that I used on the album.  I adhered them with my Xyron small sticker maker.  If you don't own one, I highly remcommend buying one with a 1/2 coupon from Michaels or Hobby Lobby.  (FYI  never pay more than 60% for anything at Hobby Lobby or Michaels.)  Be patient, what you want will eventually come on sale 40% off or it won't be on sale and you can use your 40% coupon.  

The last page I made was the first page, the title page.  It was my first attempt at a banner title page.  I got the idea from Kathryn from   Life on the {Scrap}Beach.  She made a baby mini album and she used banners for either the title page or for the card. I can't remember.  I saw it on her Ustream channel. If you go to her blog you will see a link to her Ustream. And then you can spend a few days there because she does AMAZING work.  

I used my cricut to cut the ltter, the scallops and the baby onesies..  Thanks for stopping by.