Altered Candy Box Dots Gift

I am so excited for tomorrow night! I get to go to dinner with my long time friends who I don't get to see nearly enough! We are just going to Panera, but with my friends, it might as well be Disneyland. :) I love those ladies!!
Anyway, we get together to celebrate the birthdays that happen during each month and so, there are 4 friends we are celebrating tomorrow. I don't have a lot of money to spare right now (especially since we pay for our own dinner,) but I still like to do some kind of something crafty, just because I love to do those sorts of things. I will share with you what I came up with.
Super easy... I bought 4 boxes of candy from Dollar Tree. Then I sat down with my Silhouette machine and went to town. I printed an "L" and a greeting, which I cut into strips and dovetailed the ends to make them look oh-so-chic, and cut out white circles to act as a background for the "L"s


... and yeah... That's about it! I just used my tape runner to attach them to the boxes and that was it. Super easy and hopefully they will think I am super thoughtful too. They will, right?? They know I don't have a ton of money. Just keeping it real. ;-) Happy Birthday friends!! Love you!!

Starry Eyed Craft Idea for MOPS/MOMSnext 2016/2017

I am so excited to be on my MOPS/MOMSnext leadership team again this year!! I am heading up the creative activities for another year. It is my absolute favorite thing to do in this world, aside from going to Disneyland and eating lime Tootsie Rolls. Anyway... I thought I would share the crafts that I am doing this year since I tend to get a lot of questions about what our ladies' favorites have been etc. I am happy to share my plans (as I discover them.) ;-)
Feel free to take away any inspiration that you find!

So, here we go:

Craft for September- Painted Wood Beads and Tassel Keychain with Shrink Plastic Theme Charm

I used 20mm natural wood beads that I painted in theme colors, or at least as close as possible to theme colors. I found the beads at Joann in the jewelry making section. 

I bought the leather jewelry cording at Hobby Lobby, also in the jewelry section, along with the jump rings and keychain rings. 

I used a 2 1/2" star shaped punch to cut shrink plastic and edged the shape with a silver paint pen and used a permanent ink pen to write the theme in the middle. I also punched a hole before I shrunk the plastic and then added a jump ring to attach it to the key chain split ring. 

I followed a very simple tutorial to learn how to make the tassel, using this Youtube video.  

And then I just assembled all the pieces. It was that easy! It ended up averaging out to be around $1.50 per mom, and I planned for 65. Hopefully the ladies will love it as much as I do!

Thanks for stopping by!

"Be You Bravely" MOPS/MOMSnext Nametags

This Thursday is our first meeting for my new job as co-coordinator for our moms group. We met recently and got things settled for the upcoming year. One of the tasks that was needed was for someone to come up with a nametag for our MOPS/MOMSnext leadership ladies. I love doing these sorts of things so I gladly accepted the challenge.
Here is what I came up with. I used the Silhouette studio software that comes with the machine and made my own file. I purchased the feather from the online silhouette store and added each ladies name in separately before printing and cutting. I then added cute little feathers on each of the tags to represent how many kiddos each mom has. I bought some paracord and will be punching holes in the top and hanging them from the cording. Simple, cute, and effective. If you ask me nicely, I may share the file. ;-) Have a great week!

Custom Family Rules Subway Art

I have just been on a subway art spree lately. Got another custom order for one. This time the request was for a family rules sign. Got right to work designing. 

I used my Silhouette SD to cut out the vinyl and bought the 12 x 24" plywood board at Joann. There really isn't a different technique to explain on this one. It is the same concept as the others I have done. 

To make one, you just paint the background and then tape off the sides with painters tape after it dries. Then, paint the thin line border by applying a second row of painters tape. Next, remove the tape and paint the outer edges. Lastly, you apply the vinyl words using your transfer tape and hope that they end up straight. That part is the nail biter... 

There IS one thing that is necessary when you do one of these projects... Patience. Go slow and take your time. That is all. Not hard, just a tad tricky is all. 

I will say though, the satisfaction that you get when you are all finished is definitely worth the effort. 

Give it a shot! Much better than spending a fortune on one from Etsy!! 

Go Chargers! Custom Mantel Decor

I was commissioned to do some projects for my friend again. Crafty Jen to the rescue! Haha. This time it was a football theme. Her family is particular to the San Diego Chargers so she requested they be blues and golds/yellow. I got to work. I made a wreath, a "C" decoration, a customized football word/personalized subway sign, and a yarn poofball banner. Each project deserves its own blog page but I have been so busy lately, I will just show you her finished mantel and leave it at that. I am already in the planning stages of her fall mantel. Coming up next...

MOPS Leadership Nametags

With the beginning of each school year, a new year for MOPS and MomsNext begins. For those of you not familiar with these organizations, they are groups for moms of all ages- MOPS for those who are pregnant through preschool age and MomsNext is for moms of school age kids. They are great if you are in desperate need of friends or support or just an outlet for relaxation. I have benefitted so much from joining the group and am on the leadership team. I do creative activities with a couple other ladies. We are having so much fun planning for the new year! The next theme is "A Beautiful Mess" and the Bible verse that accompanies it is Ephesians 4:10- "For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." I am so excited!! 
Anyway, we recently had our leadership planning retreat and it was decided that we needed to stand out a little, in the sea of moms. We wanted them to know that we were available if they had a question or if we could help them in any way. Thing is, we only had generic looking plastic covered boring nametags. Those wouldn't do for me. Nope. So... I volunteered to come up with a design and to create a tag for each member of the steering committee. 23 in total. This project was so fun! I just went to Hobby Lobby, invaded their ribbon section and started my collage. I ended up using my Silhouette to cut the vinyl names and my labeler to create the position titles. I had blank bottle caps and found the jewels that I put in the center in the scrapbook section. I bought the paper, feathers, and burlap flowers there too. The chevron washi tape was something that I got online somewhere. I honestly couldn't tell you where. Maybe Pick Your Plum?? Not sure. But that stuff is everywhere these days. I cut out the oval shapes with my Big Shot machine. Then I glued all the pieces together with my hot glue gun and decoupaged the whole surface with Mod Podge. Simple as that! Not a hard craft, but definitely time consuming. It took me "some" hours to finish them all. But I think they are totally worth it. I am sure we will be easy to identify with our beautifully messy tags.

Custom Pallet Sign

I have a friend who likes to say that she isn't very crafty. But I say she has potential. She says she doesn't really have much interest in trying. But what she does have an interest in, is being generous, and supportive, and awesome. (lucky me!!) So lately, she has no problem asking me to make all kinds of stuff for her. (And I couldn't be happier!)
Thankfully Pinterest provides ample inspiration for her requests. She told me a little story behind her particular request, showed me a couple of pictures and gave me the green light to come up with something for the fence by their pool. I went in search of some pallets that would fit the bill and it took me a little while. It seemed that all the ones I was finding were spray painted on the sides or completely demolished. I just kept looking. Finally I found one near the dumpster of our local beauty school. Hopefully they didn't need it... In retrospect, I probably should have asked them before I loaded it into my car... but trash is trash, right? Let's hope so. I am sure they would appreciate the "art" that it became and they would be glad to let me have it. Right? Yeah. (Can you tell I have a guilty conscience??) Nonetheless, I made this sign with my "found" pallet.

First, I had to rip it apart. Thought it would have been easy. NOT! I mean, it was just wood and I am used to working with that particular medium. But...I was out in my driveway hacking away at this thing for what seemed like an eternity. I am pretty sure that when they put these things together, they use some impenetrable adhesive or something. Eventually I got the pieces that I needed loose from the main structure. Then I added a couple of rails to the back to keep the boards in place.


To do the design, I taped off the edges and painted the main space in an off white chalk paint. I used a sponge brush to freehand paint a wave-like row at the bottom and a bold blocky sunshine in the top right corner. Then I used my cricut to cut out cardstock and pieced the negative space together to creat a stencil. I stenciled the letters with a pencil and removed the paper. I hand painted the words and then let them dry. Next, I distressed the whole surface and edges with sandpaper. Finally I made an antiquing medium out of brown paint and water and lightly coated the project.

I really should have sprayed it with some kind of varnish or something. Of course, this was decided after I had already delivered it to its' new owner. Shucks. She said she would take care of it though, so I am hoping that it is actually ok. Now that I think about it, I should probably check in with her about that... Ok... will do. :)

Teacher Appreciation Pencil Decoration

I was hanging out with my husband the other day on one of our ultra glamorous dates, and we ended up at Home Depot. As we were wandering around the SUPER fun brick section (sense the sarcasm,) I saw a small little box full of what looked like potential pencils. I had seen an inspiration piece on Pinterest and thought I could totally swing my own version. What a perfect gift for Teacher Appreciation week!! I was able to finish 3 of them in about 1 1/2 hours.So, I had recently finished a project for my Mom and had some left over paper that was the same color as a pencil. Score!! I also found some paper that reminded me of an eraser, so it seemed like I was in good shape. I used my handy dandy Cricut to cut the names out of vinyl, some twine and ribbon for a hanger and some eye hooks from my craft stash. I painted the tip of the project with black paint to simulate the lead. And that is about it! I suppose I could have cut the wood with my new scroll saw, but if you find a box of 12 stakes on a glamorous Home Depot date, for $2.79? You buy them. Then you make pencils. The end. ;-)