Love Bug Shirt

This is what I made for the Wonderkid to wear to school today.  I thought he needed a new shirt for Valentines Day.  I partially chose this because one of his teachers refers to him as a love bug.  The bug and the words "love bug" come from Simply Charmed cart.  The "I'm a" is Mickey Font.  Using Design Studio I added the heart to the "o" on "love" instead of the smiley face from the cart.

I used four colors of heat transfer vinyl (htv).  I use my regular iron but I iron it on my washing machine as opposed to an ironing board.  I've heard other people say they used a cookie sheet, I think that is likely to work also.  I also use a small sheet of teflon to make sure it gets good and hot. 

Here is a close-up of the shirt. It is tought to tell in these pictures but the lettering is pink and the heart is pink.  It looks pretty cool in person, a little washed out in this picture, though.

What do you think? Is this fun or what?

Valentines Treats and Teacher Appreciation Days

The Wonderkid's school decided to have Teacher Appreciation Days this week instead of at the end of the school year.  I understand the thinking (parents aren't likely to be as busy right now as they will be at the end of the school year) but I can't imagine not doing something for the teachers when school ends.  Any way, it gave me a direction for all of them candy making fun.  In the end, I covered anything in chocolate that didn't move (and the Wonderkid did his best to cover himself in chocolate). 

Here are the chocolate covered strawberries.  I'm still working out how these will get packaged (assuming they make it out of the house at all).

Now are you starting to understand why I wasn't able to take part in any of the challenges this week?  It has been a little crazy around here.

These are some of my favorites.  They are chocolate covered oreo cookies.  Wilton sells these wonderful molds.  I must say, I was a little challenged at first because I hadn't fully followed the instructions.  You get the best results if you pipe the different colors of chocolate into the mold and let it harden just a bit, then pipe in the color that will surround the cookie.  After you push the cookie into all the chocolate-y goodness you put the filled molds into the refrigerator.  Once the chocolate takes on a frosty color they will just drop out of the mold when you turn the mold over.  Then, put the cookies into a cello bag (I buy the Micheal's brand bags with a coupon).  Then, I pull out my Cricut and start making the toppers. 

Here is one with the topper.  Because we are celebrating Teacher Appreciation Days but it is also Valentines, I used a conversation heart and wrote "Thank U" with the same font style as the conversation hearts.  I put the conversation heart onto a black out of the heart and put all of that over a wonderful frame from SVGCuts.  All of that went over a 4 inch x 3 inch scored and folded piece of designer paper.  All of the papers I used came from the K and Company Valentines stacks.  I must say, I loved knowing that everything would coordinate and that the backs would be as beautiful as the fronts. 

Here are a few more of the cookies.  You can see I made a number of different designs and used different DP.

What do you think of the cookies?

Here are the pretzels.

I made them with both chocolate and white chocolate.  Wilton has molds for the pretzels also but I decided not to take the time to mold them.  I also find that the molds use a lot of chocolate so I don't like to do too many of them.  I put together a dozen pretzel rods for each of the Wonderkid's main teachers. 

Here is a huge pile of the pretzels and you can read the stamping I did on these.

I did some that said "Thanks!" and others use a Tim Holtz stamp.  "it's the little things that make life big."  I thought those were fitting and allowed me to use them for some of the neighbors and family friends.

What do you think of all the treats and their pretty packaging?

Tomorrow I'll show you the shirt I made for the Wonderkid to wear to school. 

Valentines for and with children

These are the Valentines the Wonderkid will be taking to his classmates.  They aren't exactly what I would have done if I didn't have a three year old helping me, but I think they came out OK given the challenges and skill levels.

I asked the Wonderkid if he wanted to do elephants, dinosaurs, birds OR bears.  I showed him each of the cuts and let him choose.  His answer was, "Yes".  Yes, he wanted to do bears, yes, he wanted to do birds, yes, he wanted to do dinosaurs AND yes, he wanted to do elephants.  After realizing the futility of arguing with a three year old, I agreed to all four designs. 

I bought these SVGs from Letter Delights.  I must say, I love the look of their cuts and while they cut very nice, the layout isn't intuitive and the paper piecing can be VERY difficult.  I'm starting to get better at understanding how I can make these do-able.  The eyes on all of them are almost impossible and they had these little tiny traingles for a tongue.  Needless to say, it was never cut.  I tried doing the bird with all of the layers and about pulled my hair out (and that was without the Wonderkid).  If you ignore all but the most important pieces, these become cute and doable.  Remember most of them are based on their printables and graphic files.  In the past I would purchase a graphic file and convert it to an SVG.  This is MUCH easier.  And, on the plus side, they are having a very good sale right now.  It is 40% off of all their files. 
 
All of the paper for the valentines is from K and Company.  I must say, I don't buy a lot of K and Company but I love the Valentines stacks because they coordinate so nicely.  I used their stacks last year for valentines gift bags and it was the same way.  When you are trying to make a lot of things that are similar but not necessarily the same these are fantastic.  In addition, I was able to use different papers and know they were likely to compliment.  I let the Wonderkid dig into my stash of gradient gems for the eyes on all of the animals (that made him as happy as a pig in mud).  The "Happy Valentines Stamp" is from Hero Arts.  It has the unique name of "Happy Valentines Day".  The "Super Tweet" and "Dino-mite" stamps come from My Pink Stamper's Punnylicous collection. 

Here are close-ups of the cards (although I shudder at some of the glueing).

The bird with the heart from the bear cut.

The bear is supposed to have wacky eyes (one is bigger than the other), I'm not sure how well that comes through in this rendition.

He does look happy, doesn't he?

And the elephant.  Most of the elephant heads didn't get lined up as well as I might have liked.

Next up, treat bags for the Teacher Appreciation days. 

Valentines Mailboxes

It is quite a week.  I haven't taken part in any of my favorite challenges (and I had a great idea for a rosette and a button for Bah! Humbug! Challenges but the first try didn't work perfectly and I just didn't have time to give it a second try).  Here is one of the many reasons I've been so busy.

I made mailboxes for the Wonderkid's class.  Whenever I mentioned I was making these mailboxes, friends and family said, "When I was a kid we used a paper bag and some glitter for our valentines."  I completely forgot about those paper bags.  Hey, the Wonderkid is only going to let me do this for a couple of years and then he will want those horrible store bought valentines and "what all the other kids have."  Until then...

This cut is from SVGCuts Valentines Mailboxes Kit.  It comes with three different styles.  One looks like the big American mail boxes that you see outside the post office or pre - 9/11 you would see on street corners.  However, mine have a bit of a twist. They are done with a Dr. Suess theme (or as the Wonderkid refers to him, Dr. Sue).  The Wonderkid's class has been studying Dr. Suess and my little one thinks he is pretty cool.  We read The Cat In the Hat or One Fish Two Fish almost every night.

I was getting tired of hearts and pink and really didn't want to make gender specific mailboxes so...

This is a picture of the tops of the mailboxes. 

I made the bottoms yellow, the ends red, the top is white with printed pictures of Dr. Suess book covers and then I used a blue ribbon to make everything look nice and clean around the sides.

Here is a picture of the first step.  As you can see, the front is a very clean rounded flap but the back has almost a scalloped look.  Using SCAL2 they are easy to score with just your fingers.  It is interesting, I don't like the score marks on most of the Cricut brand cuts but the ones from SVGCuts work a lot better.  I'm not certain if it is where they place them or what but I delete the ones from cricut cuts and keep the ones from SVGCuts.  Here is a close-up of the bottom, front and back.

This is a pile of the mailboxes without the outer layer, no magnet to keep it closed and before any of the details have been put in place. 

One of my modifications to the file, instead of putting a ribbon around the middle so I could tie the front flap up, I put a 2 inch by .75 inch piece of paper under the outer cover.  On the back side of that flap is a magnet.  Then, under the front flap I put a small washer.  The magnet is just strong enough to keep the front flap up but not so strong that it will rip the flap.

Here is the front, see how the flap stays up.  I used the text in a path feature in SCAL2 to type Happy Valentines.  I used Dr. Suess font.  I messed with the placement until I got it exactly where I wanted it.  I also used Dr. Suess font for each child's name.  I colored all of the letters by hand.  I know technically I could have used the cut and print function but I didn't have time to work out the details of changing the color and so on. 

I think these little heart brads looked perfect with the colors of the book covers.  I meant to put a heart on the flag but I didn't get it done before I delivered them this morning.

Here is one more view of the side.

Finally, the front of a couple of the boxes.  I think they look fun all in a row with the names on them.

I hope this has given you some unique ways to use color and themes.

Thank you for looking.  Tomorrow I'll have some information on the take-out box I'm making with the children in the Wonderkid's class.  We'll see how well this craft project goes.  I may be in over my head.

Hedgie Valentines Kraft Card

I'm having a blast with the challenges at the Kraft Journal.  That being said, it took me a while to land on this design.

I thought long and hard about the hedgehog/groundhog on the Cricut Give a Hoot cart.  I like the cut and he would have been cute in Kraft paper but that wasn't moving me.  A couple of weeks ago I picked up this wonderful set of stamps by Penny Black. 

I have a wonderful little stamp shop in town which sells some lovely stamps.  This is one of the ones I landed on.  Aren't they fun.  I'm not really a cat person but I loved the hedgehogs. 

I tried stamping it with Sepia Archival Ink but it just didn't seem to look correct and then I couldn't color it no matter what I did.  The ink kept bleeding outside the puzzle pieces.  It just wasn't pretty.  So, I decided it might be fun to stamp it and use embossing powders.  Can I say, I think I stamped that image a dozen times trying to find the right embossing powder.  I still don't love it but it was better.  What I wanted was a non-metallic brown embossing powder and I just didn't seem to have it.  I thought I'd go buy some before I finished but life got in the way of that plan. 

Here is a close-up of the stamped image.

I love the way the little hedgies look.  After looking at the pictures, I'm thinking the card still needs something.  Anyone have a recommendation?

Bah! Humbug! Update and Bugaboo Card

I received a lovely comment from Popsicle Toes (Donna is one of my favorite bloggers.  She does the most incredible work and thrills me on a regular basis.  If you haven't checked out her blog you can find it here).  I picked it up via email and she congratulated me on something with Bah! Humbug! but I couldn't tell what it was because I was working all day.  Well, when I arrived back to my computer and checked my reader list I found this lovely post (and surprise) from the wonderful ladies at Bah! Humbug! Manor.  Can you believe they were nice enough to get me a treat?

Here is the post where they show a picture of the most gorgeous Christmas cracker I've ever laid eyes on.  If you have a chance, you can still join the challenge for this week (make something with a Christmas Cracker).

In addition, I have found a place to purchase Cracker Snaps (I guess that is what they call the part on the inside that makes the popping sound).  It seems wrong to buy them here in the states but I may need to break down and do it.  For anyone interested here is the link and this is a picture of the page

That looks about right for what it seems like our crackers had on the inside.  Some of the sites I saw that talked about how to make them suggested using the champagne cork type popper that folks have around New Years.  It seems like that would be rather large for a cracker.  I like these much better.

I also finished a card last night for the Bugaboo Challenge.  I had hoped to create more projects for their birthday bash but it just didn't work out.  I realized once I started working on this card that when the challenge is all one color it really requires a person to work.  I rely on the different colors to carry the card which is impossible to do when you have just white (or almost all white).  It means the embossing, cuts and other items need to be spot on.  This isn't as good as I might want but I think it is a decent card.  I must say I love the Bugaboo digis.  They are very easy to work with, even for a newbie colorer like me.

This version has almost no color.  I inked the outside of the bottom layer (I used two Nestabilities to cut out the digi and to give the card some depth).  I colored the hearts in her hair and on her arrow.  I also colored her hair but that is it.  I embossed the card with tiny hearts (It is a cuttlebug folder with little hearts just like Swiss Dots, I can't find the name anywhere).

I thought this was just a little bit too plain so I also did one card with her dress colored in.

Finally, I have a picture of the side view. I love the amount of depth the pop dots give this card.  I think it is what makes the card work, otherwise it felt far too plain.

The Wonderkid loves rhyming words so I got a real kick out of the sentiment that came with this digi.  It says, "Ever notice cupid and stupid rhyme?"  Gotta love it.