Spa Rules Sign

Really fun gift for my father-in-law's birthday! I made it with my little 6x12 personal Cricut. I got some blue vinyl and a blank white metal sign from a wholesale company. It was 18x24 so it was a challenge to make my 12" wide sentances fill it up - which is why I added extra vinyl on the sides of the title and bullets to the rules.

Let me know if you have any questions about making it... also, I learned a little tip about getting rid of bubbles in the vinyl. Pop them with a straight pin! So easy.

Freezer Paper Stencil with Cricut

I don't know why but I've always been too chicken to do the freezer paper stencils... maybe because all the tutorials I found said you had to take an exacto knife to the image and that sounded like way too much work!

Well I went to a craft night with some friends and one of them was doing a shirt for her husband for Father's Day and she was using this tutorial from I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar. This girl was using the Cricut to cut out her image so I decided this was a way cooler idea than my original one (which was actually cool too - I was going to have my 3 year old son write "Dad" on a shirt and then use a bleach pen to trace over it). I found this website describing how to do this with your cricut.

This project was so fun for my son because after I applied the freezer paper to the shirts with the iron, he could paint on the stencil and essentially be the one to make Dad and Grandpa's shirts. My husband needed a green shirt anyway since he's going to be coaching my son's soccer team and their jerseys are green. I think I may do another one just like it but use heat transfer vinyl instead of fabric paint for a more professional look.

The "Grandpa" one was tricky to design because of the swoosh part... it took forever to design in my Make The Cut software.

Happy Father's Day!

"MOM" Photo Blocks

How sweet are these photos of me and my mom from way back? I just got a bunch of old photos scanned to a disk at ScanMyPhotos. Normally it's pretty expensive... I'm talking $100 for a thousand photos... but I got a really sweet deal through Groupon - a thousand photos for $29!!!. Love Groupon.

SO I printed these ones on my black and white printer on regular printer paper, mod podged them to some 3.5"x3.5" wood blocks that I painted black, and added the letters cut from paper using my Cricut.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Jedi Robe

My 3 year old son loves Star Wars (despite the fact that he's never even seen it) so I made him this Jedi Robe using a great tutorial I found online at www.DeGraeve.com.

The tutorial is wonderful but since I was doing it for a child instead of an adult, figuring out the hood and neck was a bit of a challenge. I also could have been much more generous while tracing around and under his arms so keep that in mind if you try it. Good thing he doesn't care about the details :)

I used a twin flat sheet (from his bed, actually) to make this one and one for his baby sister and it was plenty of fabric and the cost for one of those at Walmart is only $4 :D

May the force be with you...

Vinyl Projects

I know you've all seen these family name plaques a hundred times and don't need a tutorial on how to do them BUT I just had to share my first vinyl projects with you because I'm so happy that I finally got the guts to try cutting my precious vinyl with my Cricut! I've mentioned that I love Make The Cut but I'm going to say it again... I would definitely not be using my Cricut much if I didn't have it. The possibilities are endless with this software and it's cheaper than getting any more than 2 cartridges anyway! But moving on... do you see the little squiggly designs on either side of "Est. 2001"? I found that character in the "Curlz" font, turned it sideways and enlarged it. I cut two normally and then flipped the image and cut two more. I was going for a wrought-iron-ish design above and below these three 8X10s that I put on my wall using those corner picture holders for scrapbooks.

I'll be honest, I'm not loving it but I think if I can find a big frame to go around all of it that might be cute, right? It just really needs some dimention since it's all completely flat. If you have any other ideas for me about what to add or alter, I could really use some input!