More Silhouette Projects!

I am slowly getting more use out of my Cameo. While I was making Leigh Anne's Save the Dates the other weekend, I decided to go ahead and get some of my organizing out of the way. I took all of the boys' clothes that are too small and loaded up some Rubbermaid containers to store them away in the attic. I have given a lot of Deuce's clothes to goodwill, The Durham Rescue Mission and to some local teen moms with no support or money. But I've decided to hang on to some of my favorites, just in case I might need them again or for when my sister has children. But it was starting to take over Deuce's room. And since he is growing like a weed {he's in a 3T now!!} I needed some room for his new clothes to go. So I separated the clothes, stored them away and used my Cameo to label them for easy retrieval in the future. And as a note about the Cameo, I used white contact paper that I got from the Dollar Tree instead of actual vinyl. It worked just fine. {It's that roll of white sitting on top of the box.}

I am also working on a project for Deuce's stool that he uses to brush his teeth, wash his hands, etc. He uses the stool all the time but it's an unfinished wood stool. I have plans to paint it and make it look super cute. I just haven't done it yet. But I did cut out my stencil for it with my Cameo. Again, I used the white contact paper instead of vinyl. I took the parts that I didn't need and put them on his high chair, instead of throwing them away. I also decided to do this at the last second when I started peeling off the letters and thinking, "I can't just throw these away!" I had to find somewhere to put them. So I didn't use transfer paper and transfer them the correct way. That's why the football is a little crooked. And you can bet that Ed mentioned that right away. ugh... Deuce doesn't care, he just likes that there is a football on his seat.

Can you guess what his stool is going to look like?

The Campbell Residence

I shared this picture with you guys a while back showing the in process sign that I was making for my parents for Christmas.

Here is the final product in place. I think it came out fantastic. Now they just need to sand down the original posts and re-stain them to match their new road sign.

Breakdown:

1 piece of plywood, cut to size

1 wood burning tool

Stencil of some sort

Wood Stain

Sealer

I started by measuring the open frame at the end of my parents driveway one day while I was there by myself. I took the measurements to Lowe's and asked them to cut me a piece of plywood down to size. Then I sanded down the edges of the plywood where the guy from Lowe's cut it down for me. Then I printed out the numbers and letters and taped them on the board where I wanted them. I slid a piece of graphite transfer paper in between the wood and the printer paper and then traced over the wording. This left a graphite image on the wood. Then I used my wood burning tool to burn the image into the plywood. This took FOR.EVER. Probably because I have the cheapest & smallest wood burning tool on the face of the planet that was not meant to be used for projects of this size. Plus I was not going to use the tool while Deuce was awake because it gets extremely hot and I didn't want to risk any chance of him trying to touch it. So it was a solid week of late night burning sessions for me. While I sat up on the couch until about 3am every night turning the living room into a smoke factory that smelled like a campfire. I was determined to get it done before Christmas. After the image was burned in to the wood, I stained it. I chose not to seal it myself because I knew my stepdad would know what the best outdoor sealer was and since it was a Christmas gift, I just held off on that part. Turns out he used a waterproof sealer that they use on boats when they seal the paint so it doesn't come off in the water. Genius, and I'm glad I didn't use some cheap kind.

You definitely can't miss their driveway now!

Sunny Days.

I am so ready for Spring. I've told y'all before that I love the cold winter months...leading up to the holidays. But once the holidays are over, I'm beyond ready for warmer weather. One of the great things about living in the middle of North Carolina is that  we have the best of all 4 seasons. Just last week it snowed about 5 inches in Greensboro and the kids were out of school on Monday. It was all melted by Tuesday and on Thursday it was 78 degrees. No joke.

I am so excited about more play dates at the park, picnic lunches and evening walks with my honey. Last week we played outside a lot on Thursday and Friday. Deuce rode his bike, we went on a walk, and then he played basketball with TJ for awhile.

On Friday, we met up with Rebecca, Austin and Chase at the Beth Schmidt park in Elon. If you are ever near Elon and have kids, that park is awesome. Deuce was obviously not born when I was in school so I never had a reason to stop off there but I had driven by several times. I sent Rebecca a text at lunch time and we met up and let the boys take off.  We stayed until it started to rain and then we headed back home. We will be back soon!

Bad Mommy!

So I think I scared the $h*t out of my child this morning. Like I wanted to cry. Okay, maybe that's a little over dramatic but listen to this... I bought him some new Sesame Street DVDs from Target the other day because they were on sale for $4.95. The trip to Grandma's every day is an hour each way so I wanted to get him a couple more DVDs to watch {although I'm not sure why because he asks for Toodles or Elmo A, C's every day - he forgets the B}. Anyway, I picked this one up. Seriously it was $4.95?!?

Reading the title I just assumed that it would be about Elmo encountering grouchy people and how he dealt with them and I was all for teaching that lesson. Especially since it's usually me that's the grouchy one. Ed often calls me Oscaretta. So I bought it. This morning I popped it in before we left the driveway and Deuce was so excited. He kept pointing to the screen and saying "Elmo!" About 10 minutes into the movie he screamed "ELMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And he burst out into tears. I mean like a different cry than I've ever heard from him. I usually tune the movies out but when he started screaming I noticed that Elmo sounded like he was in distress. I panicked because Deuce was fuh-reak-ing out in the back and I am driving 75 mph on the interstate. I was trying to tell him that it was okay {even though I couldn't see the screen} but it was not helping. I picked up the DVD box and read the back and apparently Oscar throws Elmo's beloved blanket into the trash and when Elmo reaches in to grab it he falls into Grouchland. So his distress calls were him yelling "WOAHHHHHHHHHHH!" as he's falling down, down, down. And my child was genuinely afraid that something was happening to him. Finally I heard Elmo talking again {I assume he landed safely in Grouchland} so I was able to convince Deuce that he was fine and back on the screen. I felt so bad that he was so scared and then I thought, "Dang you Sesame Street!" And then I thought how cool it was that I get to witness his emotional changes and new understandings of how the world works, all through Elmo. He loves his Elmo.

He's still my strong little dude though.

Save the Dates & Silhouette Envelopes

So y'all know one of my best friends, Leigh Anne, is getting married in May right? Well I have volunteered to craft as much as I can for the wedding to keep costs as low as possible. We have all sorts of ideas and things that we are planning to build, print, paint, glue and whatever else prior to the big day on May 5th. Because so much of the wedding is going to be DIY and homemade, we have had to be very diligent with our timeline. I will try to post as many of our projects to the blog as possible.

I will be making all of the invitations for the event and I started with the Save the Dates. LA and Kevin are getting married outdoors and having a poolside reception with a county chic theme. I designed the invitations and printed them on white card stock on a high quality color laser printer. Then I cut out each invitation and used my corner punch to round the corners. I punched a hole in the tag and looped a piece of twine through. Then I steeped two tea bags over luke warm water for about 30 minutes and soaked all of the invites for roughly an hour. I put as many in the bowl as I could fit which resulted in an uneven stained look, which I loved. Then I laid each invitation on a cookie sheet in a single layer and baked them at 350 for about 3-5 minutes. Keep a close eye on them so they don't curl up too much or catch on fire. After baking them {they should be pretty much dried out} I stacked them under some heavy books to flatten them out over night. Then I used my distress ink all around the edges.

For the envelopes, I downloaded an envelope shape from the Silhouette store and used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out each invite. I adjusted the shape in the software using the grid, so that it was slightly larger than the invite.

The Cameo is amazing because it cuts teeny tiny slits along the folds of the envelope so that you know where to fold it after you cut it out. I used a roll of brown craft paper form Wal-Mart to make the envelopes so I had to cut the paper down to size to fit through the Cameo machine. This probably took me the longest amount of time. If I had used scrapbook paper or something that was 12x12 or smaller it wouldn't have taken me as long. It would have been much more expensive though. So I cut out all of the envelopes (actually my amazing Cameo did) and then I folded them, stuffed them and used a glue stick to seal. SUPER EASY!

Here is the final result and cost breakdown.

Brown Craft Paper: $4.95 (I only used about half the roll)

Paper, punches, ink, glue sticks, tea, twine: All out of my craft closet.

Custom Made Save the Dates for $4.95???? FO' REAL!!

{I took these pics with my cell while making these and wrangling a toddler so they are not the best quality. And I couldn't get step by step pics of the process. Will try to do better!}

Valentine's for the Classroom

I was back at crafting this weekend. I spent all day Thursday & Friday making Save the Date's for Leigh Anne's wedding. I also used my Silhouette Cameo all weekend and then I spent Sunday making Valentine's for TJ to take to school yesterday. I prefer a cute homemade Valentine over the traditional cards that are perforated with images of cartoon characters and the red suckers with the white writing. I don't think TJ really cares too much about what he takes to school so I just make whatever I want to. You can see the Match Books I made for him last year HERE.

This year I knew I would be busy hand crafting each Save the Date for Leigh Anne so I wouldn't have much time to invest in the Valentines. So I decided to just personalize some candy wrappers and package them up with a nice bow. Wal-Mart had mini KitKat bars on sale for $1 a package {each contained 6 bars} so I bought 9 packages with the intention of putting 2 KitKat's in each bag. Somewhere between when I bought them on my lunch break Wednesday and when I put them together on Sunday, I ended up with only 8 packages. Hmmmm, I think my hips found them??? Well at least they were the mini's.... There are 23 kids in TJ's class, plus the teacher so 8 was all I needed anyway.

I designed the labels, printed & cut and then wrapped each one around the candy bar, securing with double sided tape. Then I stuffed them into a pretzel bag and secured with a bow. I already had the pretzel bags & the ribbon so I only paid $8 for the candy.

Then I made TJ's teacher a crayon wreath like the ones I've seen all over pinterest lately. All of my supplies came from the dollar tree or my craft closet.

• Foam floral wreath
• 2 large boxes of crayons (54 count)
• Grosgrain ribbon
• Embellishments

I wrapped some tulle all the way around the foam wreath and secured with a pin and hot glue. Then I began to secure the crayons to the wreath with a little dab of hot glue. I did sort of a N, E, S, W compass look to begin with and then filled in the gaps. I was worried that if I started at the top and just went around it would be uneven at the end. I added 2 layers of crayons. Then I used some of the ribbon on the inside of the wreath to cover any unevenness or gaps with the crayons and to secure a loop for hanging. Then I added letters and a butterfly just for looks.

When I got to work this morning I had this email waiting for me...hopefully you can read that.

And while I was putting it together, Deuce decided that I needed to do it barefoot. Because if his shoes are off then mine need to be too.

And then he proceeded to play with his reflection in the stove.

Here is my front door decor for winter. I added some hearts for Valentine's.

And Deuce loved his frog Valentine so he took it with him in the car. I hope you all had a great day! I know I did, listening to my new Adele CD from honey. :)