London 2012 Olympics Shirt

So Thursday at work I get this email from the sports committee saying that to show Olympic spirit wear red, white, and blue to work on Friday. Well... I already made Jake a shirt he was wanting to support Team USA Basketball, but I wanted my own shirt.

So I designed the shirt on Thursday night and woke up early on Friday and made it before I left for work. Took about an hour that morning, but totally worth it!

I used the designs I found on the Silhouette Online Store for the entire shirt and then Heat Transfer Vinyl from Specialty-Graphics (LOVE THEIR HEAT TRANSFER VINYL).

Here is the front:


I blinged it out a little bit too... Thought it gave it that something extra.

The USA design can be purchased here and the extra stars can be purchased here.

Here is the back:



The Olympics design can be purchased here.

I had quite a few people comment on my shirt, even my bosses boss who has said less than 100 words to me the entire time I have been there (4.5 years) asked me where I found my shirt and had a mini conversation about it. It was fun to tell him I made it.

Anyways, have I told you before how much I love my heat press? Well I LOVE my heat press, best purchase ever, aside from my Cameo that is. :)

One happy crafter is saying TTFN~
Julie

Our Oasis - Room Makeover!

So we have been debating what to do with our room for quite some time, and finally I asked if we would have room to move the bed to a different wall. Not only did we have room, we had a couple inches to spare and it looks amazing and SOOO much bigger. We find ourselves just going and watching TV on our bed now to relax. It is so incredibly amazing.

There are still a couple other things we want to do, paint, get another coax installed on the right wall, and find a little more artwork to complete the room. I must say, this was one room in the house I really didn't like, and now I really LOVE it! Plus we were able to hang the artwork we got at the fair back in October. It looks fantastic!

Here is a shot into the room from the door (don't mind the hampers, we are probably going to end up getting different ones or moving them in the closet, but they work there for now):



Here is a straight shot on from the bed:



Close up of the artwork (it really is more stunning in person):



A shot from the other side of the room:



Here are the remainder going around the room, things you will notice - our carpet blows, they didn't stretch it well when they installed it and we definatly want to get hardwood in here, the blue painters tape holding down the cord until the person comes out to drop the other coax outlet thingy, my vanity thing that I have no clue what to do with and think it looks odd in the room, and you have probably already noticed my grandmothers hope chest that she gave to me. It is solid cedar and smells so good when opened.

 

I know the style isn't for everyone, but we really love it. Our dog loves that we have room infront of the bed to play keep away and fetch with her.

Hope you are having a great day!

TTFN~
Julie

Dyed and Speckeled Shirts

So I saw this idea over at Free People Blog and fell in LOVE with this t-shirt idea:

I mean, I love PINK and it looked simple enough to do. If you have enough patience. End result, they weren't as bright at I wanted the have the speckles, but maybe I just needed to put more than I did on. Also the hubby and I decided hearts would be cute. Problem during the process? My shirt got flipped and I had to speckle the whole thing. Would I do it again? eh, maybe but not in my kitchen. At least my fingers barely turned pink. Gloves.. who needs em.

Here are both my shirt and Laci's shirt:


My shirt


Laci's shirt... never mind the fact she already got permanent markes on it with pitted red cherry juice.


I think I would prefer to try the dark shirt with bleach technique before tackling this one again.

Eh. Cheep afternoon activity was semi successful and not a total fail. I will take that as a good sign.

TTFN~
Julie

Water Bottle Vinyl Decorations

So I was at Hobby Lobby getting some t-shirt dye (will share that project when I find both shirts again) last week and saw these adorable little water bottles in the spring section. They were marked at 60% off making them only 80 cents each.



I knew I could cut some cute vinyl decorations to go on them, even if they were cheep, they turned out cute.



Laci wanted the yellow and purple... I chose pink.







You can see on the side of the yellow picture my pink one has hearts that wrap around to the back. These turned out pretty cute and the $2.40 I spent kept my mind occupied on a day I direly needed it. I may have to go back to get some to use for small gifts for kids or something because they were fun to do and really easy.

Thoughts?

TTFN~
Julie

Wimbledon T-Shirt Joke...

Do you watch tennis? Yes/No... well do you know who Roger Federer or Andy Murray are? Rodger Federer is from Switzerland and Andy Murray is from London, UK. Murray is a Scotsman who had desperately wanted to be the first British man to win in singles here since Fred Perry in 1936.

Now, my family is more of a Federer fan, but my sister was going over to her friends house to watch the match. Her friends deeply dislike Federer and my sister thought it would be funny to have the Federer RF logo put on black shirts as a joke. She thought they might not let them into their house, but would find it funny. My sister and her hubby were actually rooting for Murray to win; howver, in the end Federer ended up winning his 7th Wimbledon title. Win or lose being that good at any sport is a major accomplishment. Congrats to them both.

Here are the shirts right after I made them:


This is my cute sister and her hubby when they came over for dinner last night after the match:


Her friends thought it was funny, so at least they didn't kick them out of their house before the match started :)

Afterwards they went to a grocery store where they were stopped by numerious people saying how great the match was, others giving them thumbs up, etc. Funny thing was they really wanted the other guy to win.

Anyways, I made this shirt with my silhouette by tracing the RF logo and then cutting it out of the heat press vinyl. My sister decided she just wanted the smaller logo and to have my brother in laws bigger. I think they turned out perfect and very professional looking.

Thoughts?

TTFN~
Julie

Baby Sprinkle Gift for a Special Lady

Baby what? Baby Sprinkle... you know for those mommies who already have one baby, but a small close family and friends celebration for the new baby that is due.... This is what they had for my friend Jen over at Life Crafts & Whatever.

I pretty much have a girl crush on this chick. She has 3 kiddos and is seriously about to have her 4th. She calls them her "heathens" and I can't tell you how well behaved they are. Seriously... I don't know how she does it. I have one and feel like I am loosing my mind. Jen on the other hand is ALWAYS cool, calm and collected. Me = polar opposite. I mean this isn't to say I am a bad mom; however, I think I would pretty much lose what little sanity I have if I had more than 1. Some people were born with a special gift, and I would like to say that she is certainly one of them. Me = not born with that gift. Eh... I love my one and I am stickin to it!

For her baby sprinkle I donated towards the wooden letters she wanted, but wanted to get her something else too... I mean after all I am crafter and can't help but want to do personalized stuff... So I did. I FINALLY got the chance to do the month onesies that I designed a long time ago. Plus I did a diaper wipe holder and then a canvas bag with the name on it. It turned out pretty spiffy. I loved it, and I am pretty sure she did too!



I would have done one that said 1 year, but with the way I did the circles I would have had to spell year in all caps because of the y. I don't know. If she requests that I did one that said 1 year with the word being in the middle of the circle I would do it since I like her that much. But I just couldn't come up with anything that I was in love with, so I stuck with what I had goin.

What do you think? Would you like a set of onesies like that?

TTFN~
-Julie

Etching Dishes

I LOVE ETCHING DISHES!!! It is pretty much the bomb diggety. I mean how cool is it to give a gift that is personalized that they can take with them to a party and if it is left there, they know who brought it.

So hubby and I had already bought my brother in law and my new sister in law a dish set that they were wanting for a wedding present. But really... you know me... I can't not do something personalized. So I made them etched dishes.

I never posted it, but this is the shirt that I made for my sister in law using my heat press machine:

Front:


Back:


So I took this design (the front anyways) and etched a small Pyrex dish to coordinate with the shirt:


I loved how it turned out... I mean seriously... I need to etch some of our dishes! Isn't it pretty!!!


My awesome and very talented sister in law drew this last summer:


So I turned that... into this:


I love love love it!


I think they were pretty psyched that I took the time to make them something. For the picture one I couldn't capture every detail, it had too much and would have taken a lot of time weeding it, but I just love how it turned out!

What do you think? Do you want to run out and try it too? Just remember to weed the positive, not the negative of the vinyl or what ever other material you are using to protect the glass. Also, the etching cream does run, so be careful if you are doing the sides of the dish... otherwise you will have to use some creative license to fix it... just sayin' I learned from experience.

Anyways, can't wait to hear what you think!

TTFN~
Julie

Happy 4th of July!

Hope that everyone is having a great time with their families! Mine will be coming over tomorrow evening, so we are looking forward to sharing some family time together. Aside from that, it will be a pretty low key day!



Enjoy it with your loved ones!

TTFN~
Julie

Hanging In There

So much has happened in the past couple of months I really don't know where to begin or even that I will share everything that I have been going through... Lets just say that for the first time in my parenting journey I didn't have the answer, know where to get it, or have an easy solution.

With Kindergarten starting in 55 days I figured it was better to solicit help sooner than later... we are on that current step now. Because of all the changes we have also started doing a behavior chart. I don't remember ever needing this as a kid, but on the other hand my mom had a "Tail Blazer" so I pretty much stayed in check, or my mom took away the Nintendo...
Last week I hastily drew a behavior chart. It was kinda fugly (no joke) but I needed something fast and it served its purpose.

This week I wanted to do or get something I could easily reproduce or re-use. So I turned to my silhouette and the trusty pen holder.

Like seriously it is the best thing invented for this machine, ok maybe not best, but I love it! I use a regular cheep pen, screw it in the thing and then change the setting to sketch and let it do it's magic.

So I took the pre-done Chore Chart on the online store, and changed it to fit my needs. I had to add a row so that there would be one for each day... Then I had to find a font that would work for me. Ultimately I created "Laci's Behavior Chart" that has a line for each day of the week, and then columns for the following:
* Morning
* Nap
* Homework
* Cheer (Thursday)
* Dinner
* Bed Time
* Extra



She can earn a star for each square, and then the "extra" column allows us to reward her if she has done REALLY good at something or surprises us by cleaning up herself, you get the idea.

You can see from above that she lost her star for bedtime the first night of this chart, she kept getting out of bed and coming down stairs. For boxes where she misses one we put an X in there so that she knows she missed it. But this is why we have the Extra column, so that potentially she can get all the stars. On a normal week she can get 37 stars, but there is no cheer this week, so she can get 35.

Anyways, so it takes about 11 minutes to sketch the thing out, but I love it, and really I can set the thing to go and then walk away.

Here is what I came up with:



Last week it worked great, she got two out of three rewards. She was able to spend the night at Grammy's and go see Brave in the movie theater with her Aunt Jennifer. She is off to a great start this week, and hopefully she will earn an extra star this week so that she can get all 35 and get back Pouch Juice or a Movie to Watch.

If she gets 26 stars by Friday evening she can spend the night at Grammy's.
If she gets 32 stars by Saturday evening this weeks special treat would be to go for (1) hour to Chuck E Cheese.
If she gets all available 35 stars she can either get back Pouch Juice or a Movie to Watch.



Anyways, for anyone else going through this kind of thing, what are your suggestions for rewards? I want her to want to earn them.....

Being a parent is difficult sometimes, can't wait until this phase is over!

TTFN~
Julie