Chalk Painted Bed

After painting the two nightstands, my older daughter, wanted me to paint her bed.  This bed frame is the one I had growing up.  It was plain medium brown wood.  Nothing exciting, nothing fancy.  I started out strong with the painting but had a little mishap after the first coat.  I went out and tried to open up my chalk paint bottle and it was painted shut!


Funny story...this chalk paint was in a normal mason jar.  I spent weeks trying to figure out how to open the bottle.  I looked for ideas on cutting the glass, I ran all these ideas by my husband, but he wasn't too excited about soaking a string in lighter fluid, setting it on fire, and running it under cold water hoping it would break nicely, or similar suggestions.  After weeks of this, my husband remembered he had a cousin that does windows and glass for a living.  He took my little jar of paint into him and asked him if he could cut the glass.  He explained that he couldn't because you score the glass on one side, and then tap it from the other side, so it just wouldn't work.  But after that he got a smile on his face and asked my husband why he hadn't just punched some hole in the top of the lid so it could be poured it out!  Hum...why didn't we think of that during the last several weeks! :-)


So after weeks of having her bed sitting in the garage, half painted, my daughter finally got her bed back!  She loves it and it looks great!  The chalk paint that I bought at Pixxie Stixs in Brigham is the bomb...it was so easy to use, went on great and dirtied up really well.  Thanks for the tips Karen!

Thank You Card

I had so much fun making this Thank You card using my Silhouette machine.  I used the sketch pens to have the machine write the "Thank You" and it also cut all the pieces out, so I just glued them together, added the string and the brads and viola!  Super Cute thank you card ready to send.

Maxi Skirts

I found a Maxi Skirt Tutorial for little girls online.  They used a cheap tank top/t-shirt and cut it off at the top and made the skirt.  I bought 3 tank tops for $3 and made 2 skirts for my little girl.  She loves skirts and these were super easy to make and she loves to wear them!  So much fun and finished them both in probably under 1 hour!

Car Vinyl

I worked on doing some car decals for a Roofing Company.  I did three different colors of vinyl.  The offset is white, the terracotta color and a gray color.  They turned out great.  I also made a large banner for them to hang on their building and a smaller decal to put on their front glass door.

Knitted Scarves

This last year for Christmas I learned how to knit ruffle scarves for my girls and for my niece.  They were so quick and easy to do.  My girls loved wearing their scarves all winter long...in fact, my youngest two came up with quite the combinations of outfits to wear, I wish I would've taken pictures of them wearing their bright scarves with crazy different colors of pants and shirts...it was pretty entertaining!

Night Stands

My girls have been wanting night stands for their bedrooms.  I have been looking for some, but haven't really found anything that I loved enough to spend money on them.  I happened to mention it to my mom one time and she said she a couple of old ones that my Grandpa had bought at DI 30 years ago.  So she brought them down and I had fun trying my hand at using Chalk Paint.  I painted them and vinylized the inside back wall of them.  And of course we had to put a sparkly diamond drawer pull on them.  They work great and my girls love them!

Kids Craft Sale 2014

Every summer my kids have a craft/bake sale.  They spend a couple of months preparing and making crafts (with my help of course) and then they deliver around invitations for a specific time and day to all the houses in the close neighborhoods and then they sale like crazy for one whole day.  They use the money they earn for family summer fun activities.


We have amazing neighbors and friends that come every year to support my kids.  Thank you to all that come shopping at our 1 day store!


Here's the rundown of the Craft/Bake Sale 2014:


Altoid Tin Games:

I bought Plain Altoid Sized Tins.  We used them to make Magnetic Paper Dolls.  I download paper doll picture and printed them on sticker paper.  We then put the sticker paper on Magnetic Paper.  We cut around all the shapes (using the Silhouette) and my daughter made cute labels and named all the dolls.  Max from Max and Ruby was so fun and had a ton of different costumes.  The Paper Dolls are vintage looking and just the right size to take on trips or throw in your purse to entertain little ones while you are out and about.

We also made Tangrams in the tins.  My kiddos loved playing with them.  After the sale they came in and tried out the extras.  They were fun and some were a little more challenging then others.  Since the sale, my kids have taken these in the car and to church.  They are now working on downloading even more shapes to build.

One more game in the tins we made was a baseball game.  Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of this one.  Gray and his friends tried it out during the sale and had a great time playing it.  We sold all of them and so now he is telling me that I need to make at least one more for him!

Marshmallow Shooters:  Gray built his PVC marshmallow guns again this year.  They were a big hit...the first to sale out and he actually put out a sheet of paper for special orders.  He built 10 more the next day and delivered 6 of them around to the neighbors and kept 4 for us.  Needless to say, our lawn is dotted with miniature marshmallows!

Kool Aid Jammers Pouch Purses &

 Duck Tape & Candy Wrapper Wallets/Coin Pouches/Zipper Pouches/Ziploc Pouches:

I thought these little purses turned out so cute.  We also made a variety of duck tape projects, but we put candy wrappers on the outside to make them look super cute.  The Duck Tape/Candy Wrapper projects sold out too.  Some were plain wallets, some used a strong magnet to close for a little coin pouch.  Some we lined with fabric and sewed a zipper in the top and others we did pencil pouches that closed like a ziploc bag.  After the sale we made a few more for my kids.  On some of the wallets we did one side to hold cards, and one side with a little magnetic coin pouch.  My daughter loved the idea of this because she always has coins, but not too many cards.  So many ideas for duck tape!

The Pouch Purses were one of the items that I thought turned out the cutest, yet only one person bought those.  So on the fourth of July my kids used the extras as their candy bags at the parade.  They worked out perfect.  I actually made a larger one as well that I kept as a library book bag.  They are surprisingly strong and sturdy.

Out of the KoolAid Boxes, we made cute little 5x5 inch notebooks.  We just put plain paper in between the front and back box and bound it with a spiral binder.  The kids loved those too.  We also thought about making them into coloring books, but we started running out of time and decided plain notebooks would be just as awesome.

Lip Balm & Lotion Bars:

We made several flavors of all natural lip balm & lotion bars.  My daughter used her silhouette to make cute little holders to put the lip balm in to display.  So many yummy flavors and both the lip balm and lotion bars are amazing!

Parachord Bracelets:

On old one, but still a fun craft for kids.  My kids love making these and we often take parachord with us camping, so the kids can make new bracelets and have a little craft to make.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O:

Last year I made a couple Hi-Ho Cherry-O games just for fun and I still had one in my craft room.  So I set that out too.  It comes with four tree placemats, cherry buttons & an oversized dice.  Such a fun classic game from my childhood that is easy to play with young kids.

Sidewalk Chalk Games:

During our last sale, we also did these Sidewalk Chalk Game Bags.  My mom loved them and had 10 more almost all sewn up.  So she brought them down, I finished sewing them, and this year instead of buying the sidewalk chalk we made homemade sidewalk chalk and put them in the extra lotion bar containers.  They were fun to use and the kids didn't get their hands all chalky.  I just made sure to save the same containers, to use over and over again.  You could also use deodorant containers as well.

For the bake sale portion we just set out samples of each item.  We left the rest in the kitchen, so when someone ordered something one of the kids would run in and get their order.  This kept everything from melting, bug out and kept the kids from touching them all.  Plus we wrapped the cookies in plastic wrap, but them would slip them in cute little chevron paper bags.  Way cuter to hand our customers.  Our menu included:

Jello Shaved Ice (8 different flavors)
Brownies with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frosting
Rice Krispie Treats shaped like Watermelon Slices
Marshmallow Brown Sugar Popcorn
Lemon Sugar Cookie Bars
Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites (we sold these in bags of 8)
Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
Popcorn Balls

It's quite the project getting everything ready.  My oldest two help out a lot with preparing and actually during the sale.  My oldest did great taking care of the money, adding everything up and making sure everyone got the correct change.  The younger two made it until their friends came over, and then they were off playing.  The kids are always excited to count up the money.  This year I took all the check and deposited them in my account to help pay back what I spent.  Each of the kids took a small amount of the money to spend however their hearts desired.  And the rest of the money is family fun money...so they are talking about and deciding how to use this money all together this summer.

From Blah To Bling

This year my daughter danced in a Patriotic Program our town has every year with her dance group.  I was supposed to get her a red and white outfit.  I was really struggling trying to find something I liked.  So I bought a plain red tank top for $3 at Walmart.

After a few rhinestones and some ribbons on the sleeves...this is what we ended up with.  Much better!

Miscellaneous Projects

Here's a few other things I've worked on lately:

My sister needed a banner for her daughters school science fair...I guess she was in charge of helping decorate the gym.

My nephew finished his student teaching and wanted to give his mentor teacher a mug with a Superman Logo on it--supposedly he is a huge fan...

And my daughter had a birthday party to go to, so we made a cute little headband out of fabric to add to her gift.  Of course I can't just make one, I had to make 3 more for my girls too.  This picture doesn't do them justice...they turned out so cute and are reversible so it's really like have 2 different headbands!  It was a fun, easy and quick project!

I told my kids this year that they had to be creative and come up with Halloween costumes using things we already had at home.  One of my kids decided they wanted to be a bank robber.  We had black sweats, a beanie cap, an eye mask and then she wanted a money bag.  I sat down and stitched this bag up the other day, put an iron-on vinyl dollar sign and now she is ready to go.  And she will just use the bag as her treat bag on Halloween night.

Reclaim My Garage

Wow, we sure do have a lot of stuff.  We are a very active family and have a wide variety of sporting and camping equipment.  It was overflowing the garage.  I finally decided to reclaim my garage.  I ordered some stadium lockers (one for each us) to store all our sporting equipment in (I'm still waiting for those to arrive).  All the camping gear got relocated to the shed.  But my favorite part so far has been the painting and vinylizing. 

Since I'm putting lockers in and storing sporting equipment I naturally thought of a locker room, so I decided to use some of my Alma Mater vinyl to decorate the garage. 

We painted the garage white, gray and on the beams a navy blue.  Then I cut out some Utah State vinyl and attached it to the wall.  It really does make a difference to have the garage painted.  It looks much bigger, lighter and way more finished! 

I am excited to get the lockers here so I can have a finished project (and I'm sure my husband would love to be able to park his truck in the garage again too!)

Update:  The lockers are amazing!  We each have our own locker.  We fill it will all our own sporting equipment/life jackets/helmets, etc.  On the top of each one is a laundry basket full of winter coats/snow pants/ski boots, etc.  It was one of the best purchases ever!!

Halloween Stitching Project

I saw this mini quilt holder one time at a nursing home and I just loved the idea of making a little quilt block display, so my amazing Mom ordered me one!  Since it was October I decided to make a Halloween block.

I found a coloring page online that I liked.  I imported into my Silhouette program, traced around it and then used a disappearing pen to trace it onto my fabric.

 

 

I then colored and stitched around my lines, and then sprayed water on it to make the blue lines disappear.  And then for the best part--I gave it to my sister to finish it.  She put the cute Halloween fabric around the edges and then quilted it with her machine...She is AMAZING at quilting! 

I just loved how it turned out!

Super Hero Capes

Last for Christmas we gave my 4 year old nephew a Super Hero Kit.  It was a huge hit.  I had a Tupperware that I vinylized on the outside.  I was able to pick up some Super Hero things for dirt cheap one time that I included, like a Captain America shield.  I also included a flashlight that I covered with a vinyl bat cutout for a Batman light.  But my favorite things I included are these adorable Reversible Super Hero Capes!

I just cut out 2 pieces of fabric.  Stitched them together and used Velcro to attach around the neck.  I then designed the logos and used iron-on vinyl for those. (I included 4 capes.  Batman is on one side, Robin on the other.)   I love how they turned out!  I wish I would have taken some action shots of Korver at the Christmas party.  He loved it and kept going back to his box to try on a new cape!  Such a fun present to give!

(Even my 4 year old daughter loved modeling them--maybe I should've made a Wonder Woman Cape too!)

Temporary Tatoos

I thought I'd give a shot at making temporary tatoos for my sons Orange Crush Baseball team.  It was so fun.  I took the orange crush logo and photoshopped out the orange slices and put in a baseball.  They turned out super cute and so fun...the boys loved them.

Getting Ready For DisneyLand!

We were able to go on an extended family vacation to Disneyland this fall.  To get ready I thought it would be fun to have matching shirts for my kiddos.  I had so much fun making them, and I have to admit with 21 little kids 11 years old and younger in a group, it was nice to have all my kids in the same color...I could easily pick them out and do head count checks.  My kids loved their new shirts and that made it so we didn't even have to buy an expensive Disney shirt while we were there...bonus!

 For the girls.

 For my boy.

The Thing shirts were a big hit.  Not only are they bright and easy to head count check with, but I was shocked to see how many other vacationers would start to count and see if they could count all the things.  So funny how many comments we received on these ones.

The boy shirts and the thing shirts were made with iron-on printable vinyl.  I just found the graphics, printed them on my ink-jet printer and used my machine to cut around the design, and then iron-on.

The girls shirts, I cut the Mickey Mouse silhouette out of fabric with my machine and used wonder under to apply it to the shirts and then I stiched around the edges.  The stripes and bow are just ribbon sewed onto the shirt.  The black shirts are made with iron on rhinestones...they turned out amazing and what girl doesn't like a little sparkle?

Wow--A Craft Room!

This summer--I reached my limit and had had enough!  My craft space was out of control.  I should've taken a before picture...but sadly I didn't.  One day after trying to make it in to my 2x2 foot square of open floor space, I lost it.  I started carrying everything out of the room.  After everything was out my daughter exclaimed "All that was in your craft room!"  Yes it was time to dejunk.  But that's not all, I started ripping out closet doors and shelves and carpet.  Ok, I didn't rip it out, but I did go shopping and brought home all the supplies for new flooring and insisted that my amazing husband start demolishing!  He was amazing and didn't even complain...within weeks my small 9x10 foot room was reorganized and is so much nicer.  I could live in that room now!

 This was taken before my countertop came in.  I have a beautiful quartz slab, that lays across my vinyl cabinents to make a desk.  It looks amazing!

 I took out all the shelving and closet doors.  I put a couple of floating shelves for a few mini fabric bolts and my sewing desk fits perfectly in the closet, with some larger pieces of fabric on the desk shelf.  Yes this would never work for someone who actually sews and has oodles of fabric like my Mom or sisters, but for me it is perfect!

I went home to visit my parents one weekend, and told them I was redoing my craft room and explained what I wanted and needed in a vinyl cabinent.  After a day of thinking and planning, my dad and I were on our way to Home Depot to get the supplies.  My dad built these amazing cabinents that make up my desk and store all of the my rolls of vinyl perfectly.  Thank you so much dad for helping me and thank you to my mom for dealing with the kids while we spent the day in the garage!  My Mom and Dad really are so talented!

Oh and I found the picture with the desk--love it!
My husband then helped me hang shelves and a couple upper cabinents to store more supplies and after getting rid of a bunch and reorganizing a bunch more, everything has its' place and I absolutely love being organized again!

Summer Fun

This is the first year that we didn't do our craft sale.  We did have an amazing summer though.  After all the vacations and traveling, we spent one weekend at home having a cousin campout!  We invited the older cousins over and played all night.  We had a slip and slide "kid" wash (thank you Family Fun Magazine for the great idea), we grilled outside, decorated notebooks with decorative tape, roasted miniature marshmallows over candles and made mini smores with mini fudge striped cookies, and watch a movie in the back yard with the projector and large screen.  I wish I would've taken more pictures, but I just didn't :-(  It really was so much fun, and the kids loved being able to sleep in tents with their cousins!  Here is the amazing "kid wash"

Cookies For Cancer

My neice Alyssa is a cancer survivor!  This summer she decided to host a Cookies for Cancer Bake Sale.  She asked me to do the signs.  She picked the colors and I had a blast making this banner and sign for her stand.

She is an amazing cook and an amazing girl!  She had delicious cookies and baked goods...and people could donate whatever amount they wanted.  So awesome.  She made the newpaper and the morning news show...I'll have to try and find the link and add it here.  But what a great cause and a great way to give back.  I sure do love you Alyssa!

Baby Onesies

My cute neice was expecting her first daughter. Her mom lives across the country, so she enlisted all of us sisters to throw her daughter a baby shower.  We decided to do a crafting baby shower.  Everyone who came got to make a onesie, or a hair bow, or a burp cloth to give to Heather.  I had fun making lots of hair bows (even if Mom thought my flower choices were too big).  But I also wanted to make some onesies.  These are the onesies I came up with:

This one I made a stencil out of vinyl, and then my daughter painted it in layers.  I have to admit, it's kind of fun to have a girl old enough to want to craft and do a good job...I'm just not sure I'm ready to share my supplies!

This one turned out sooo cute.  It's heat transfer vinyl, two colors, layered over each other.

The cupcake I cut out of fabric and just stitched it on.  So cute!  Too bad I wasn't this crafty when I had little babies :-)