Yet Another Acrylic Birthday Cup

Been awhile since I've posted, don't have much time today, but wanted to at least post something.  I'm going to try to post at least once per week, but with the holidays coming up I don't know if I will be able to keep that commitment, but I will try.

October 29th is my sister's birthday and she is a girly, girly that loves bling so without further ado here is her cup.

Click Image to view larger

Until next time...

Get Crafty With It

So It's been awhile since I posted.  Been kinda busy at work which didn't give me a lot of time to play. But my creative juices are flowing always, when I wake up, when I'm driving, when I have free time.  My youngest sister is a Zumba instructor and her birthday was coming up. Since she has a unique name I know she would never find anything personalized just for her right off the rack so my thought process began.

I captured the Zumba symbol and put it on a shirt and drink cup for her to wear when she is teaching her class. She was really happy with it as a matter of fact she said she LOVED IT!  My work was done.

Happy Birthday Girl!!


Until next time...

Hoppy Bookmarks inspired by Jin

Under A Cherry Tree by Jin Yong has got to be one of my favorite sites when it comes to paper crafting.  Her creativity is well just...AWESOME!!!

I really don't know how she comes up with the things she does. I'd like to borrow her brain just for a day and soak up her thought process when she thinks up these clever ideas and turns them into reality.

Well here is my take on her post for some really cute bookmarks. Because I love reading and would love for everyone in the world to read more I decided to try my hand at creating some myself.  In Jin's version she made them more 3-D, but because I was making them for a class of 1st graders, I didn't want them to pull off pieces with there inquisitive minds and busy fingers so I did mine as a print-n-cut using Make The Cut and my Silhouette SD.  I made 20 of those little rascals and they were a blast to make.

I pretty much followed her directions on making the "U" shape for the slit, it was very easy and the visual help me put it together, but all that gluing UGH!  I had to cut each piece twice and glue together because the card stock I had was a little to flimsy and I wanted a sturdy base for the little froggies to sit on.

I'm mailing them today....can't wait til my sister gets them.

Here are my results:

Thanks Jin for your creativness you are truly an inspiration.

Until next time...

Sympathy Card w/ Elements

Click image for larger view
of finished card

Last week a dear friend of mine lost his sister to cancer. On those moments you're not sure what words would comfort, but I wanted him to know I was thinking of him and his family.  I love making personalized cards with special messages in them.  With this one I used Lettering Delights Graphics and my trusty Make the Cut Software.

The initial elements came from LD's "Butterflies and Blossoms" collection (butterfly and branch) and the other elements came from using basic shapes in MTC and fonts Another Typewriter & Satisfaction.  For a distinguished background element, I created a circle, copy and pasted in place, the top circle I reduced in size and stacked.  I used the join feature for the two circles and then duplicated it with a -.05 spacing, I got a wonderful circular pattern which I welded together.  I changed the look of the circles by adding one of Lettering Delights patterned tiles from their 100 tiles pack. I adjusted the color using the "advance/color adjust" option. The background square also used a pattern tile that I adjusted the color and rotated 45 degrees.  Printed it all onto photo card stock and cut out using my Silhouette SD print and cut feature (the butterfly was printed and cut twice for 3-D affect).  This particular card gave me a hard time, I had to keep restarting both the Silhouette SD and MTC so that the registration marks would read correctly. I usually create a "mock-up" before I put my elements together so I can have an idea on how the card will look complete.

Here are some images of how it was laid out:

Card Mock-Up

Card Elements

Card Circle Element

Until Next Time...

Custom Acrylic Cups

Click to Enlarge

So last week I had to get busy and complete an order for some cups. They were all created completely in Make-The-Cut Software and cut out using my Silhouette SD. I have another 8 to do, but ran out of cups. My order should be arriving soon, can't wait because I love doing these personalized items.



Until next time...

Personalized Cup

So as I said yesterday it's my aunt's birthday. I created a lovely card for her, but I wanted to give her something else personalized. I LOVE Personalized items because it makes gift giving well...personal. I had one of those 16oz. acrylic cups and decided to put her name and some flowers on it. That way there will be no mistaking whose cup it belongs to. She will always know her cup.

I have to put this in the mail Monday, of course her B-day is Today (8/14), but hey better late than never.

Until next time...

Happy Birthday Auntie

My aunt's birthday in on the 14th and of course I'm late putting something together for her AGAIN!  I live in Florida and she lives in Louisiana so needless to say this card will be a little late, but I know she is going to like it just because I made it. I'm the only one in the family who likes to craft.  I do have an excuse though, I was having a brain freeze and couldn't decide what I wanted to make.  Then I saw some graphics on this site: http://www.birdscards.com/ which I fell in love with, she has some really cute digital stamps and graphics.  I used her wonderful little cupcake image and "button" and I also used the paper pack from Lettering Delights called Cloud Nine and my favorite program of all times Make-The-Cut. Putting it together was fairly easy, but using the texture feature in MTC slowed my system down greatly. What should have taken me about 30 minutes took me and hour because of the lag and the drain on computer resources.  Hopefully this can be rectified next time by reducing the size of the images I used. Oh well live and learn.

Click on Card to see larger

Here is the outcome of my "labor".  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.  I used 8.5" x 11" Kraft Card stock from Michael's that I cut in half lengthwise and some photo paper I had lying around. I printed digital paper on photo paper, used scalloped design, cupcake, tag and tabs from Birdscards site.  I cut everything out using my Silhouette SD in print-n-cut mode and there you have it.  

I just have to think of something to say on the inside.  I always make a point when I send handmade cards to always write a personal note on the inside.  I do this because so many use email, texting and other forms of instant communication these days. No one writes anymore so I've made a conscience decision to always write personal notes in each of my cards.

Until next time. Happy Friday!!!

Quick Cardmaking w/ MTC

In case you haven't heard of it before there is a fantastic piece of software out there called Make The Cut (MTC). This software allows you to be as creative as you want to be. Imagine not being limited by cartridges or disk. MTC is so counter intuitive your creativity is only limited by your imagination. I pretty much use it for all my designing now whether it's cards, vinyl, t-shirt designing, whatever it is. Design It, Cut It and Assemble It...that's it. I simply print out the design, lay the design on my Silhouette SD, send command through MTC to my cutter, cut it out using a feature called "Print-n-Cut" and then assemble the pieces.

I whipped this little card up in about 10 minutes.

The graphics came from a company called Lettering Delights.  I imported the deer shapes using MTC's new LD import feature and used my Silhouette SD to cut.  I first changed the colors on the deer and flipped it so that they would be facing each other. I used a Cuttle Bug to texturize the deer's body parts.

I made the grass from a black & white image I found online just to get my basic shape. The "Hello, Deer" was part of the "Sweet Nothings" SVG set from Lettering Delights.  Put it all together with some craft glue and pop dots and viola' you have a lovely personalized card.  More details of the  process below:

This is an example of how it looked in MTC

This is an example of how it looked in Print Preview. Notice the three
registration marks created for accurate cutting on Silhouette SD.

Until next time...

Rainy Days & Creativity

Today again it's raining...don't get me wrong we really need it here in Florida.  My grass is truly grateful for the drink a few days ago it literally crunched when I stepped on it LOL.

So itching to make something after talking to my sister, I pulled out my laptop and got busy designing this cup and shirt for her to cheer her up.

She is a school teacher in New Orleans and over the summer break had to have surgery.  I felt really bad for her because she was so bummed that she didn't get to do anything over the vacation because she was in a really big cast for the last 8 to 10 weeks.

School starts tomorrow for her. I decided to make her a little something to let her know I was thinking about her.

 

Click on image for larger view

I'm sure she'll like them because I made them for her, but I am thrilled the way they turned out.  Hopefully I can get a couple sales from her co-workers.

Until next time...

It's Raining...Time to be Creative

Well while it was raining today and before the electricity goes out I decided to make a chalkboard for my fridge so I can take notes as I think of them cause I'm getting old an forgetful.

I used Make The Cut basic shapes and some dingbat fonts. I think it came out quite lovely and it works too. Have a great day everyone.

Until next time...

Make your own Silhouette Mat

New Silhouette Mat from Dollar Tree Cutting Mat, a photo by Taylor Made Originals on Flickr.

Yahoo!!! I needed a new mat for my Silhouette. Holy Crap they are expensive @ 2 for $24.99 so I decided to make my own. I bought the pack of cutting mats from the $ Store in the kitchen section. 

1. I downloaded some graph paper from the web added a arrow at the top using PhotoShop, printed on 11 x 17 paper, 
2. Cut everything down using the original Silhouette mat as a guide 
3. Glued the graph paper to the back of the mat
4. Placed painters tape about 1/2" on each side
5. Put mat in a box and sprayed with repositionable adhesive (a lot of glue "smoke" so do in well ventilated area)
6. VIOLA' I now have a new cutting mat for a fraction of the cost
7. Use wax paper to cover adhesive and keep sticky

Cost of Mat: $0.50 (2 mats for $1 at Dollar Tree)
Money I saved: $20+
Having the ability to design and cut using MTC on my new mat: Priceless

Until next time...

Marilyn & Audrey Custom T-Shirts

Click on image for larger view

My beautiful niece is 18 years old and she sent me a text a couple weeks ago (of course these young people don't call anymore). She asked me if I could make her either a Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn shirt in black & white...what??? You're 18, what do you know about these two amazing icons I thought to myself.

Of course, I told her I could make her one (but I was really going to make both for her). It was relatively easy to convert photos I had into silhouettes and cut out of vinyl. I used a wonderful program called Make-The-Cut to convert the images so that I may use my Cut3000 and cut the project out of black heat transfer vinyl in buy from Imprintables Warehouse.  Enjoy!

PS:  If you would like to see a how-to on creating a vinyl item like this leave me a comment. If there is enough interest I will put a how-to together.

Until next time....Later.

Crap I think about

Well this is my first post on my newly created blog.  Lately all I've been focused on is the debt ceiling, debt ceiling, debt ceiling...I want to get back to everyday life. Come on August 2nd so it will hopefully come to a close.  Let's get back to doing fun things like family, friends and crafting.

My intention with this blog is to show some of the things I make and possibly put on some how-to videos of stuff I create. I'll share my tips and tricks with you and hopefully we will all learn something new. There may be times when I vent about something that bugs me, but not much really bugs me so most will be positive musings.

Until another day, signing off :-)