First Birthday Celebration!

Who doesn't love to celebrate birthdays? I LOVE them! My birthday is my favourite day of the year (well we'll see about this year, turning 30!) Anyways, a friend asked me to make something special for her daughter to wear for her first birthday and of course I said yes!
Her daughter loves Minnie Mouse so of course the outfit had to be Minnie Mouse themed!
First thing was to pick up some tulle at the fabric store. I had thought about buying the spools at Michaels but those were $10 each! And I spent less than $5 on the two different colours at the fabric store, great saving!

First, I laid the tulle on the table and cut it into strips (about 6 inches wide)

Afterwards, I cut the strips in half, they were about 17 inches.

All the strips are cut and ready to roll, it seemed like I had a ton so I used two each time I knotted them around the elastic. 

I put the elastic around a piece of cardboard to keep the tulle even. I made my way around tying on pieces until I reached the other side. 

I cut the pattern out on my cricut (my goodness I love the cricut craft room)! Then I ironed the freezer paper onto the onesie and painted! 

I hung the onesie to dry for 24 hours, it usually dries quickly but I really did not want to smudge anything.

The outfit is all finished and ready for her to wear on her first birthday! 

  

I also made her a smash cake for her to rip into as soon as the big day rolls around :)  

And check out this adorable card I whipped up to go with her present :) Aw she's going to love her birthday! 

Guess Who?

I've been dying to share how well this item turned out but I had to wait until Christmas, as it was a gift for my sister. Well she absolutely loved it. It definitely made everyone laugh!

DIY Guess Who game! I saw the idea on Pinterest and I had to try to make one! I headed to value village and found a used Guess Who game with all the inserts.

Once I found the game, I had to go hunting for pictures of everything I thought should be included in the game. I made a table on Microsoft Word with the exact size of the inserts for the game. I then cropped their heads out of the pictures and pasted them into the table. Print those out and cut!  

It was seriously that easy! It turned out awesome! Hilarious to play!  What a fabulous and meaningful gift idea! 

Craft Fair!

I went to my first real craft fair the other night - it was small and wasn't very busy but perfect for a first experience! Everyone seemed to love the onesies - many people commented as they walked by but it wasn't a very buying night!

I did a lot of research before heading to the craft fair - a lot of time spend on pinterest to see what I needed to prepare. I definitely did not realize how much work it would be to make a lot of stock ahead of time. Although I didn't sell a lot of product I now have a lot ready to go, to sell, for gifts or whatever else could pop up!

My advice to all of you - GET OUT AND BUY LOCAL! Support those crafters in your area :)

Here are a few products and my set up at the fair! 

Baby Presents!

A friend of ours had a baby the other day and I just had to make another baby pillow as a gift to go with everything else (gosh I love making and giving presents!) 

I have fallen in love with the Cricut Craft Room - I use to just use the cartridges right on my cricut and now I'm obsessed with the craft room! It's awesome and helped a lot when planning out the stencil for the pillow!

                                             

The recipients loved the pillow and put it in the nursery that same night! Then a few days later they had family photos taken and took one with the pillow - a fabulous keepsake with all her information from birth :) 

I also made a few onesies for her to wear :) 

Fake Wedding Cake - What!

My friend from high school was getting married and they asked me to make their camouflage cake for the occasion and of course I said yes! I was thrilled and then I realized that I was unable to attend and they also live 3 hours away. So I discussed with the bride if I could make a fake cake for pictures and pretend cutting and that's just what I did. 

First thing on the list was to find a base for the cake. I was able to find a set of three boxes at Michaels and on clearance at that! They fit perfectly inside each other so I knew they would tier well for the cake. I used gorilla glue to stick them together and let them dry over night. 

The next step was to paint the boxes with Spackle to make them look like icing / fondant. The speckle was pink going on and white when it dried - which was awesome because you could tell where you already put Spackle! 

My pink spackled cake - waiting to be dried! 

All dried and ready for paint

After the Spackle was dry, I painted the cake a hunter green colour (about 3 coats - to get all the cracks and crevices) 

Now I had to make the leaves. I was going to make them from fondant and let them dry as they weren't eating the cake anyways but I decided to go with air drying clay. So I rolled and cut out many different size leaves. Then I was laying in bed and thought "oh my I need to make some of the leaves bend!" So I jumped out of bed and put some of the leaves on the sides of the boxes so they would dry like that. Otherwise they would have snapped if I tried to bend them later. 

I also cut the letters for the words out of clay as well - I pre-made stencils with my cricut and then used a sharp knife to trace out the letters. 

Making the leaves

Leaves being bent on the boxes for drying

After the leaves dried for a few days, I painted them different shades of green to make them look camouflage. I then painted the letters white and held everything on with gorilla glue. 

And there's the finished product! They were happy and so was I :) 

Pillows!

My very lovely friend who was due in June finally had her baby! I wanted to find the perfect gift to take along when I got to meet the little man. I have seen these gorgeous pillows with all the baby information on them and thought it was the perfect idea for a gift. So I went searching, I found a couple on etsy that were gorgeous but with shipping they were adding up to $75! That seems just a tad ridiculous when I could most definitely made this myself. I set out to find a pillow case - I had a hard time but finally found what I was looking for at Wicker Emporium. I went with green as they did neutral colours for the nursery and I figured this would match well. 

First step was to make a pattern in the cricut craft room and print it out. I tried printing it on vinyl and I figured that it would stick to the case no problem - I was incorrect! It did not stick well enough and the paint leaked into every letter. Thank goodness the store was so close to my house I just quickly walked down and grabbed another pillow case. 

Second time around, I decided to use Mac Tac and it worked awesome! It stuck so well and no paint leaked out as I painted. I did three coats of white as the pillow was a tad dark. 

After letting the pillow dry I pulled off the Mac Tac and voila! It looked amazing! I was so excited to give the handsome man his pillow and his momma LOVED IT! It was by far, one of the best gifts! 

Babies Babies Everywhere!

I'm definitely at that age where a lot of my friends are having babies! Who doesn't love a cute baby, they smell so darn good and they are just adorable! I can't wait to have a baby or two of my own but in due time :)
I have a very special friend who is having a baby in June and I wanted to create a special gift for her baby shower so she could keep it for a long time and know how excited I am that she is having a baby!
I am not a great painter but decided to give it another try! I used my cricut as well so I can't take all the credit. I LOVE books and this baby will, no doubt grow up loving books as well. One of my favourite children's books is "Love you forever" by Robert Munsch. Such a fabulous story and I thought this would be a perfect fit for her nursery :)

I started by painted a canvas totally grey and patiently waited for it to dry :) haha. They are not finding out the sex so neutral was the way to go with colours.
While I waited, I googled a silhouette of a mother rocking a baby and printed it out - it would be the perfect picture to look at for painting on the canvas. I then printed out the words to my favourite quote from the book on my cricut and added that to the canvas. The last touch was added yellow polka dots around the edge.

Turns out she loved it! Can't wait to go for a visit and see it hanging in the nursery :)

Chairs - Old to New

I have two cheap computer chairs that I've had forever and my cats finally decided they would claw the seats! So I saw a post on pinterest to redo them and I just had to try it!
I went to Fabricville and picked out a fabric. The lady actually sold me a fabric for outside furniture; this way I can wipe things away if there's a spill or two. I also picked up two cans of Kyrlon Spray Paint from Walmart.
I started by disassembling the chairs and laying them out onto cardboard on the basement floor for the paint job - the paint said it would dry in 10 minutes but I left mine for 24 hours before I brought them back upstairs. I was disappointed with the paint job - I have sold this paint many times at Michaels and have been told by many people that it works great. Well it didn't work that great - I found it to be a little watery and the blue did not spray well at all.
Once the paint was dry, I started to cover the seat and backrest with fabric. I used a hot glue gun as I did not have a strong staple gun but you could use either. I then reassembled the chairs and I was happy with the finished product.
If I was to do this project again I would most definitely paint the bottom as well but because I was not that happy with the actually paint I decided to only paint the top.

Before

Finished! 

The back - not as happy with the red as the blue, I think another coat was needed :) 

Christmas Wreaths!

So I was inspired by a friend to make a bulb wreath to hang on my door - I then decided my mom would probably like one to hang on her door too. I started by buying one Styrofoam wreath form from Michaels ($11.99) and once I got home I used a sharp knife to cut it into two wreath forms :)

One thing I did not do first that I wished I did was wrap the form in felt or fabric of the colors you plan on using. 

I chose green and red for my mom and red and gold for myself. First I started by gluing the bulbs in the middle of the wreath and then filled in from there. I was very happy with the end result but I do wish I had wrapped the Styrofoam in felt first so I couldn't see any white throughout the wreath.  

I had left over bulbs (I purchased too many at the dollar store) so I decided to try a wire hanger wreath. I first took all the tops off the bulbs and hot glued them back on so they will not come off later. I then bend a wire hanger into a circle and opened it up. I thread on the bulbs in a random order and laid it flat on the table as I did this. Then I started hot gluing and holding bulbs in place. It turned out great for a quick, on the fly craft! 

Thanksgiving is almost here!

Thanksgiving is almost here! Hard to believe September went by so quickly but fall is definitely in the air (I had to actually wear my jacket this evening). I LOVE fall but I do not love the season that follows. I am heading to two different Thanksgiving dinners this year so I decided to make a hostess gift to take along with me. 

I have spent Thanksgiving at my friend's house many times. Her family lived an hour away from where we went to university and my family was 5 hours away. Needless to say, they invited me many years to their house for special holidays. I usually took along a bouquet of flowers but I decided on something different :) 

I decided to make a steak rub for them to use throughout the year. I found a great recipe online and decided to put them in mason jars to deliver. 

The link for the recipe is below: 

Texas Steak Rub

 I had to add a tag, so I cut to a leaf on my cricut and wrote the directions.

 I used some brown and orange ribbon to tie the tags onto the jars. 

They are so darn cute! It's the perfect thing to give and so very simple to make! 

Scrabble - It's On!

My boyfriend and I love to play board games. Board games of any kind! We have quite a large collection but some I refuse to play (he beats me every time!). So I decided to make one of those awesome magnetic scrabble games I keep seeing on pinterest. 

I bought an old scrabble game at Value Village for just $2.99 and decided I would glue the board onto a magnetic white board - well the board was way to heavy and wouldn't hold - even with gorilla glue! So I took another route. I used a piece of 12x12 cardstock and drew my own board based on the actually board. 

I glued this onto the magnetic white board I bought a Staples. I decided to go with a white board because it was already magnetic instead of a chalk board (although I liked the look of the chalk as well). 

I found the two black hangers at Michaels in the wood section - I painted them black and added the numbers. I also found the bag to hold the tiles at Michaels as well. The clips came with the board.

I glued a strip of magnet on the back of each tile with gorilla glue (these held great). 

Now this awesome game hangs in my hallway and we are constantly adding words (and yes he is beating me!)