“Farm Fresh Eggs” Vinyl Window Decor

First, I will apologize for the low quality photos. I used my cell phone (at night) to take the photos.
After a year of owning a Silhouette Cameo, I am finally venturing beyond cards and scrapbooking.

My current addiction is vinyl. I had learned about Expressions Vinyl from a friend and have been stocking up on colors for a couple of months now! My home will be vinyled out in the next couple of months. ;)

 I am blown away at how versatile vinyl is for projects. One of my favorite projects so far is this one.

I had purchased an old wooden window from my favorite local shop, Patina Home and Garden, a few months ago. I had purchased it with the intent to use it as a photo frame over our couch. Instead, I decided to create something for my dining area.

I started by cutting the vinyl pieces out with my Silhouette (the chicken file is available for purchase through my Etsy shop, Digital Designs by MRS.

The hardest part for me with any project is alignment. It took a few rulers and a measuring tape to get this project close to being aligned. :)

I love the way the final project turned out!

It is nicely displayed just above our dining table.
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Digital Crafting–Scrapbooking, Card Making and Photo Editing…. OH MY

I have a big collection of scrapbooking and crafting items in my craft room yet I seem to always end up using Photoshop Elements to create my cards and scrapbook pages.

I was recently asked what type of items I create in Photoshop Elements so I just wanted to share a few.

I have blocked out some of the personal info so that white blocks are ;).

My favorite things to create are announcements and invitations. It is my must have tool for the boys’ birthdays and Christmas cards.

I also really enjoy creating scrapbook pages with it. Most of the time I hybrid scrapbook so that I can still use some of the cool embellishments that I purchase.

This was one of my first digital scrapbooking projects….

I also use Photoshop Elements for business use – primarily photo editing and flyers.

Below is the most recent gift certificate created for a silent auction.

Do you use Photoshop Elements for creating? If so, I would love to see how you use it. Please feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog or photo gallery!

 

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The Queen Bee Market–My First Shopping Experience

I recently discovered a craft show in San Diego that featured super cute and cool handmade items. I’m not talking your senior center type of craft items. Don’t get me wrong, I love attending all kinds of craft fairs, but the products all end up looking the same after awhile and the uniqueness just isn’t there.

The Queen Bee Market is different. It is like walking into an Etsy store if Etsy had a store. It is girly, frilly, flowery and OHMYGOSH so overwhelmingly full of cool stuff!

I circled all the tables soaking in the fun displays and equally fun products they displayed.

The second time around, I started filling my bag with goodies.

Sweet Funky Vintage made me wish I had a girl so I could dress her in their bright, adorable outfits.

While going through  basket of DIY Apron kits, I spotted some bags of scrap fabric. At only $4/bag, I couldn’t pass it up. I have no idea what I will make with them, but I was thinking that a patchwork little girl’s skirt might be fun to make.

I also scored these cool finds.

The turquoise item on top is a hair wrap from Little Penelope Lane. I don’t generally wear hair wraps, but I just couldn’t pass these up. She also had some with flowers. I am taking baby steps, though, and started with a simple wrap. ;)

From left to right:

• “Capture Joy” necklace from Little Pink Plum
• Green tags from Inspire Lovely – these will be used as party favor tags for an upcoming safari party
• Camera Pin from Crème De La Gems. This shop had SOOO many adorable items that I had to pull myself away from the table!
• “I Shoot People for a Living” and “photograpHER” pins from Little Pink Plum

Some close-ups of my goodies…

Part of the fun for me was also collecting business cards from each of the vendors. They were so unique and pretty.

I look forward to the next Queen Bee Market craft fair! I should start saving my money up now!

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Teacher Gifts–End of School Year

Don’t you hate when the year flies by so quickly that you keep forgetting you have something to do?

Well, that was me yesterday when I realized I didn’t have teacher gifts and school ended TODAY.

My little one has 6 aids and one teacher so it took me awhile to come up with gifts without breaking the bank.

I decided on doing a Summer themed gift.

It included:

• Summer themed mini-pails
• Individual powdered drink mix (2 kinds)
• Snapple frozen sorbet bars
• Fudge pops
• Sunscreen
• Water Bottle

I took the labels off the water bottles and attached home made ones that said “Have a great summer”.

Next came all the other goodies.

The gift was finished off with a custom card.

I am SO very thankful for everything that Cody’s teacher has done for him and couldn’t figure out how to show my appreciation until I remember Kayce Jones Designs’ hand stamped jewelry! I had this created for his teacher. Simple, but I love it.

This necklace was created for DJ’s teacher.

Have a great summer vacation with your kiddos!!!

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Teacher Appreciation Week –Teacher Survival Kits

I know this post is a *few* days late. Last week was a hectic week of planning for both my House Party Singer Sewing Machine Party and Cody’s 5th Birthday Party. Pictures from both events to come soon! :)

This project was probably the easiest one out of the bunch.

Here are the supplies:

• One cardboard pencil box (purchased at Michael’s)
• Starbursts
• Decorative nail file (purchased at Bath and Body Works)
• Antibacterial gel (purchased at Bath and Body Works)
• Colorful paper clips
• Band-Aids
• Advil (travel size)
• Decorative scrapbook paper

Since the boxes had colored lids, I selected scrapbook paper that coordinated with the colors. The above sets are old sets from Close to My Heart.

Arrange the products neatly inside the box. If you want to ensure that they don’t move around in the box during delivery, then use the Zot dots to glue the items down.

Cut the paper just slightly smaller than the box lid. For these specific boxes, the paper was cut down to 6” x 4”. Attach the paper to the box.

I then created a tag for each of the boxes. You can download a PDF of the tags here.

Once the tags were printed, they were matted onto solid color cardstock. A flower-shaped eyelet was attached to the corner of the card. Coordinating ribbon was then looped through the card and wrapped around the entire box.

The completed Teacher Survival Kits….

Get creative and think of any items that might be helpful to a teacher.

You can even modify the box contents and make it a survival guide for pregnant women, new moms, new dads, babysitters, etc.

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Teacher Appreciation Week–Wednesday–Sweet Treats - Cake Pop Style!

My name is Michelle….and I have an addiction….

TO CAKE POPS!

I’m not even a sweets person (except for one week out of the month heehee), but I have yet to meet a cake pop that I didn’t like.

The first few times I made them, I melted the chocolate in the microwave. Then I met this bad boy and my life was changed….

The chocolate pro is now my cake-pop-makin’ best friend!!

You just add the morsels and in a few minutes, it is melted to a smooth, even consistency. No more racing time to get everything dipped. OH THANK YOU WILTON!

Okay…enough of my gushing…and let’s get on with the project.

Here is what you need to create this project:

Refrigerated cake pieces

Edible decorative embellishments

Dip the cake into the chocolate (sorry, I wasn’t coordinated enough to take a picture of the actual process). :)  I only did a partial dip, but a typical cake pop is completely covered in chocolate.

These are technically called “cake balls”, but I have an issue with calling it that. ;)

Sprinkle the decorative topping onto the cake pop.

You can put them in mini cupcake liners for added presentation.

Speaking of presentation – packing is an important factor in cuteness. For this project, I chose mini Chinese takeout boxes.

For the label, I printed the phrase “A Sweet Treat for Someone Sweet” on regular white printer paper then punched it out with a 1” circle punch. The decorative background paper was punched using a 3” circle punch.

I found these cute stickers in the dollar section at Michael’s and added them to the tags.

With the handy dandy Paper Tagger, the labels were attached to the boxes.

The finished product…

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Teacher Appreciation Gift–Tuesday–Sticky Note Pads with Pen Set

Another cute project I have been wanting to try is a sticky note pad holder thing - at least that’s what I call it :).

Here are the goods for creating this project.

3x3 Sticky Note Pads

Decorative 12x12 cardstock paper - I suggest using cardstock so it is not so flimsy.

Colorful Buttons…

Ribbon

After you have cut the decorative cardstock into 3 1/4” x 7 3/4” strips (you can get 4 from a 12x12 cardstock), turn the paper around and score it at the following measurements:

3 1/8”
3 1/2”
6 5/8”
7”

Fold the paper on the score lines then attach the sticky pad to the center square on the paper. I used snot dots (aka Glue Dots for those that want the official name).

Though you can choose from a variety of tools (fasteners, eyelets, brads, etc) to fasten the covers together, but I opted for buttons because I have an over-abundance of buttons in my craft room from a Christmas ornament project that never came to be.

Attach one button to the the smaller flap. Then attach another button to the larger flap.

I glue dotted the ribbon to the button then wrapped it in a figure 8 between the two buttons.

Voila…you now have sticky pad holder things.

Presentation is everything so these little guys were paired up with a colorful pen and packaged in a spring cello bag and sealed with curling ribbon. You can never go wrong with curling ribbon! 

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