The Parade Sign for our tractor

With the Labor Day weekend just about upon us, sending the subtle reminder that summer is soon on it's way out, there is a local festival here in my small town of Plymouth, Indiana USA. It's called the Marshall County Blueberry Festival & it has been a huge deal around here for 45 years. Every year on Labor Day, just after the Blueberry Stomp runners and walkers hit the road in search of the finish line, the Blueberry Parade starts its route through the downtown.


After a few reminiscing stories that my husband told our 7 year old daughter about his 3 times of being in the parade in his younger days, he promised her that he would get his 1949 International Harvester Farmall Tractor running and repainted so that she could experience being in the parade as well. It's been a daunting task for him trying to get all that accomplished with some trying set backs, and much of his regular duties have been pushed to wayside just trying to get it all done just right, but on a small budget, but he's pretty much got 'er dun! Unfortunately, they're calling for chances of rain and cooler temps, so we'll see how this all pans out in the end.


Hubby asked me if I could make the signs needed for both sides of the tractor. Well, you don't have to ask me twice to go into my craft pile room and use my Cricut bug! It made it even easier to make the perfect design using my laptop with the Design Studio program! Yes!




 Now my husband being a guy and all, didn't want any extra stuff on the sign. I wanted to add some Texas stars on either side of the date, but he said to leave it alone, so I did. I did sneak in a couple little flourishes on the word "Owners." tee hee!


However, I will confess that I made a previous sign and I didn't do so good on that one. It turned out decent, but I forgot the special method for adhering the vinyl and it had static cling and ended up sticking to the sign before I was ready. I was able to salvage most of it, but I screwed up on the outside border at the bottom. Tried to fix it with no luck, but as it turned out, I had to completely redo the sign anyway because I didn't realize how he was hanging the sign and I did it upside down. I guess that gave me a clean start to make it as close to perfect as I can get it anyway. Since I didn't have enough vinyl to do the 2nd sign anyway, I ordered enough to do another and one more extra piece...just in case. you know. I screw it up again. I have a tendency to have to do everything twice, for what ever reason. (rolling eyes)


And nothing to do with the sign, but with the Cricut Design Studio. I knew that when I would finally be able to use the Design Studio program that I paid for, it wouldn't be long before they'd open up the online FREE version to EVERYONE. Sure enough. I was able to get on it today & use it. I've only been using my paid-for version for 2 weeks. I guess that's OK because I bought mine over a year ago when it was on clearance and as unpredictable as Provocraft is, who knows if their system will get overloaded from all the users and crash.


Oh! I did finally finish a small end table that I found at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore earlier this year. I'll have to do another post on that. I thought I took a before shot of the table, but I can't seem to find it.