A few of my favorite ladies got together at church for a 'bring your own project' night. Serious amounts of crafting fun! It was like pinterst exploded in the gym church. It was great!
I lugged my silhouette and iron and heat transfer vinyl in and set up shop.
I made shirts for the kid's teachers... and one for me.
I love how these shirts turned out! I love the colors and how fun they are.
At home, I added a little something to an old hoodie too. I can wear school related shirts and jeans on Fridays so I have altered a few items to work for Fridays. I feel funny wearing jeans to work, but I'll try to get over it.
Remember this chair? It was a rescued cast off from a friend of a friend.
Well, it's been three years. It's been on the summer 'to-do' list for three years. Like painting the kitchen cabinets and fixing all the trim in the house and painting the whole house. It hasn't gotten done, until now.
It's not perfect. You can see traces of pink, especially on the caned seat. You know when people say something involved 'blood, sweat and tears?' Well, minus the tears, this was one of those. I worked on it out in the sun while the kids swam and did almost slice off my finger with the scraper... blood and sweat.
The front has some weathered damage and the stain didn't take as well, but the back look great. I had planned on taking it in to school, but we're loving it in the living room. It might just stay at home.
I saw a burlap bag floral door piece while out shopping with some of the gals I used to teach preschool with. We were visiting all the fancy cute downtown boutiques where I buy nothing but get ideas. It was $55 and something I could pretty easily make.
I came home and got right to work. Mine is all made with materials on hand. I would have used different flowers, but this is what I had in the closet. I made up a simple lined burlap sack with corners at the bottom for depth. The only tricky part was the burlap flower. I ended up hot gluing it in a ripple pattern wrapping it around a few times.
I think it's a fun alternate to our typical door wreath and will be cute in my classroom when I start robbing the house of decorations. However, at my price I could just make another.
Silhouette and I have been busy. I just love using it. Lou and I used up almost the last of the black heat transfer vinyl. Gotta get more! I ordered it from Pick Your Plum. This dog image is one I found on google image and traced with the silhouette software. Lou says it's Tippy.
I used the regular vinyl from Joann's to make this M for Lou's Michigan baseball team. If the boys have their own helmet, they don't have to share at baseball. Our helmet looked just like the 'share' ones. Not anymore.
We added his number. Easy to tell when my little man is up at bat. That, and I'm keeping the team's stats. It's a fun job and I totally have follow the game.
While I had the yellow vinyl out... I wanted to add a little sunshine on a dreary weekend. I couldn't find an image to trace for this so I just wrote the text out myself in the silhouette software with four different fonts and sort of arranged them in a fun way. I wasn't sure how the vinyl would go onto a round object, but I used the transfer tape and only had to smooth out one little part of one letter.
We picked up this bench a few summers ago for 3 dollars at a yard sale. It holds the gloves and hats and scarves. I've been wanting to add a little something to it for awhile. I made stencils with some weird color vinyl I had on hand. I used some random old paint from my stash to roughly paint over the letters. I love how the letters look. You can't tell from this picture, but it turned out a little off center. Every time I look at it I see how it's a tad crooked. I tried to fix it by adding a little scroll-like doo-dad at the end, but it's not any better. I'll have to scrape it off and start over. Another day.
Back at Easter, this pretty flower was the weekly free shape from silhouette. I cut one and added it to our front door wreath. Then I kept thinking about how pretty it would look with a whole wreath of them.
And I couldn't do anything else until I did just that. I ran that machine all afternoon while doing laundry and school plans and feeding children and then I declared family movie night and I assembled them. I ended up buying two other 3d flowers through the silhouette online store and mixed those in too. I used whatever random springish colored scrapbook paper I had on hand. I wish it hadn't taken all day and run me through the better part of new sharp blade because I want to make one for my classroom and one for the kids teachers.
This wasn't cut with my delightful machine, but it's getting in this post anyway. It does feature some washi tape though. It's a new to me craft item and I am loving it. I also ordered it from Pick You Plum. Have I mentioned I may have a slight problem with my level of admiration for that site? Washi tape is making it's way into a lot of projects at this house these days! Even Bee is in love with it.
I've been keeping that new cutter of mine busy. Here are a few random projects.
I cut out a bunch of robots for R day at school. This is a purchased image from Silhouette. I made my brother a car decal with it too in white vinyl.
I cut out a bunch of chalkboard vinyl (ordered from Pick Your Plum) and labeled everything.
I used my new birthday chalkboard markers (from Joanns) to write on them. I ran out of chalkboard vinyl but will order more next time they offer it. The labels are shapes I found online that I traced using the software, so they were free shapes.
These t-shirts were made for Valentines day using some heat transfer vinyl (from Pick Your Plum). There was a little learning curve but I love how they turned out. Lou requested an arrow shooting a heart. I couldn't find exactly what he wanted, but using the silhouette software, I was able to blend a few and move some parts around to get what he wanted. Bee's bird was an edited purchased picture.
This heart shirt was for a buddy. He requested a heart with an arrow. We came up with a manly version. This was a purchased image.
Of course, Tippy and the cats got some fun labels on their food containers. I told you I'm labeling everything. These are all free images from found though google images usually with the addition of a little editing.
The vinyl I used here isn't special waterproof vinyl, but it's holding up great so far.
Love this one. We traded 'water bottle customiation' for fresh eggs. Birthday boy Lane plays ice hockey.
I used some vinyl as stencils to add our name to this old bench that sits by the front door. I've been thinking about it for about two years. We got it at a yard sale a few summers ago. It holds all the winter gloves and hats. My lettering not centered well and drives me crazy when I look at it.
We added the children's teacher's names in their favorite colors to little notebooks we ordered for teacher appreciation week. The notebooks are from Pick Your Plum. I'm sort of addicted to that site.
The pieces for this bulletin board in my classroom were all cut out with my silhouette too.
The images of the children were all free images I found though a google image search. They were pieced together from different source.
I traced them using the silhouette software. Most got a touch of editing, but nothing too hard.
I laminated them and used tape to stick them up. I'll use them for something again next year for sure.
I made another bunting for the area in the classroom behind the sink. It reads, "He is risen." I'm thinking of a spring saying next to carry us though the end of the year.
I cut out about a million paper hearts and filled up a bottle that we mailed to a buddy for Valentines day. We added a few treats and several little notes. I think it must have been fun to have received it in the mail.
Can I just say again, that my silhouette cameo has been one of the best presents ever! They aren't even paying me to say that. But, if they wanted to, I wouldn't complain.
I showed just a portion of a picture of Bee in a new item I sewed up the other night. I can show you the full thing now. It's trendy and cute and looks great on Bee, who is rather fashion forward all of a sudden.
I tested this draped cardigan out for my buddy at Happy Together. She has a giveaway going on right now to win your very own copy. It ends sometime this week, I don't think she said a day for sure. If you're too late, it's available in her shop, here. It's pretty versatile, Bee just likes her clothes fitted at least at the waist.
The pattern was easy to use, well written, and super well documented with photos along the way. The pattern has sizes 18 months through size 14. You could make them for every little girl in the neighborhood.
So, this fabric was from my friend Melissa (she sells adorable kids jewelry and items here at Emmi and Olive). I grabbed it thinking I'd make a skirt for myself out of it. The stripe isn't white and it isn't cream. I wasn't sure I'd ever match it with a top. The reverse of this knit fabric is pretty cool too.
(I did a little something with this old bench we have in the living room. I'll have to share another day.)
It's a teacher jumper refashion... at night... in the basement... Photos are the appropriate quality for a nighttime basement photo shoot.
Here's the before. I used to wear this teacher jumper all the time. My mom got it for me at least 12 years ago. She used to really like to shop at Christopher Banks. I have an apple one, a denim one, and a fuzzy cat one. It used to have a short sleeve blue jacket with it. I'm not sure where that's gone to.
I actually like the fabric. It's sort of a thin cream linen with little children playing outside. I knew I wanted to do a little remake with it but it has sat in my in-progress basket for at least three years. I don't know why it took so long to get it out because this redo took half an hour tops.
I'll be wearing it again this spring! I chopped in off just above the knee and used that fabric to create a belt and two ruffles. Nothing fancy. I had hoped to be able to add a little sleeve, but this was literally every scrap available.
This has be excited to tackle other projects just waiting in the basket!
Bee's sporting a new garment from a pattern that I'm testing for my buddy at Happy Together. I can't wait to share the full piece. It's darling and I loved working with one of Jessica's patterns again.
Thankfully Bee like this piece. It's a little classic for Bee who these days prefers shopping at Justice. I pretty much want to vomit when we walk by the store, but if it's neon and has a graphic design on the front, she's in.
I've had these two table toys in the plans since before Christmas, but our recent 'robot' theme was my push to get them made.
Here's the first, it's a nut and bolt board. It's just two scrap pieces of wood (left over from the Christmas nativity project) screwed together with holes drilled in the top piece. I painted it and added a robot vinyl sticker from my silhouette, just for fun. For cost reasons, I stuck with two sizes of bolts and two styles of nuts. I'm sure if I had asked my dad or father in law, I could have gotten a bucket of random nuts and bolts of all sizes. I didn't think ahead though. A larger board would have been fun, but I went with what was in the scrap box.
The kids just find the right sized hole for their bolt and the right sized nut and tighten and untighten them in place. It's been a popular activity. I've had it our two full weeks now. I usually only leave something out for a week, but the kids haven't seem to tire of it.
Here's the lock board I've been slowly gathering locks for. I asked my co-teacher for locks for Christmas and she helped me finish out the parts for it. Again, scrap wood was used. I picked up a little cheap latch from Menards and two sizes of eye screws. The locks all go through those, which were placed randomly on the board. I used a chain from an old necklace to hold the keys to the board.
Some locks are luggage locks, others are pad locks. Most of the keys fit a variety of the locks. the kids have been having fun unlocking them all and the reattaching them differently. It's stayed out extra time too without complaint.
Robot day was super fun too. I'll share those plan any day now. I have camera uploading software and editing software loaded, I just am missing iTunes so I can load from my phone without emailing myself each picture.
Well, I've figured out how to email myself a picture from my phone, but I have no editing software or even to upload to the new laptop yet. I stand by my original statement, Windows 8 is weird. I fumble from one screen to the next and don't know where I put things or what programs are open. I think we're supposed to call them aps now. I don't know. I'm too old for this big of technology change. No really, I had a birthday yesterday.
regardless, here are the kid' Valentines shirts. These are the first projects with the heat transfer vinyl and my silhouette. Also stand by that statement, Best Gift Ever.
Lou requested a bow and arrow with a heart. After a little google image search and a little image editing, I ended up with this manly love day shirt.
The grey shirt is for a friend. He requested a shirt with a heart. That's it. His mom asked me to man it up a bit with an arrow. The arrow heart was a free silhouette image.
Bee let me give her a few possibilities. This bird is what she chose. It's a silhouette image bird with a little heart wing cut out using a quick edit. We added a heart on the sleeve with the wing cut out.
The heat transfer vinyl was easy to use and the results are really nice. They look like we bought them. I'm beyond impressed. I'll get a demo together soon, but really I learned from a youtube video. Also figured out the print and cut feature too. Best Gift Ever.
Here are a few past year's Valentines shirts:
2010 crocheted heart
2011 freezer paper painting\
We must have worn 2011 shirts in 2012. I can't seem to remember or find another year's shirts. hmmm.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
