Teacher Appreciation Sign

We're getting closer to the end of the school year and come some time in May, we'll be doing Teacher Appreciation week around here. 

Now mind you, this project was not originally my idea and I don't know anything about the original artist, so I won't post their photo without being able to give them proper credit. I was sent a phone picture by one of my customers asking me to make something similar. I believe the original one was done freehand on canvas maybe, while mine was done with the help of my Silhouette Cameo on wood.

I wish I could tell you what all the fonts are, but I had this melt down with my lack of proper judgement by installing the newest version for my Cameo much too soon. I ended up installing & uninstalling it AND the old version 3 times each just to get this project done by the deadline. I can tell you that the font for TEACHER & the name at the bottom is Cornfed. Others are TMJ, Hello Heartache, Comic Sans, Happy Sans, Hippy Movement, & maybe Segoe Script? I know there are some more, but if you want to make this sign yourself, make it your own & choose which fonts YOU like! I'm thinking the apple was part of a title image from the Silhouette store, I just made one fat & one skinny.

All you have to do is paint your board black first. And here's a little tip for making your colors POP on a black background, do a primer coat of your design in white first. 

Trust me, if you didn't do a white base coast first, the pink & green paints would have had a black undertone to them & harder to see, plus you would have had to do many more coats. Since I cut my "stencil" design using plain white contact paper, it makes it easy to keep it in place & do each color over the white with little hassle & barely a trace of the white. I had a couple of letters with a white edge, but I touched them up with a fine artist brush. Once the paint is completely dry, I like to spray a couple coats of a matte sealer. 

 

**I have to mention that my late Mother In Law had a hand in creating this sign. I was afraid I was going to have to out & purchase another bottle of pink paint, since that's what my client wanted, but I went to check my stash, just to make sure. Wouldn't ya know it? There was a bottle of Country Rose paint that I had inherited from my MIL, Barb. And it was EXACTLY the right shade too. I only have one other bottle of pink paint & it's baby pink. I just had to share that with you, for those that read my blog & knew my dear Mother-in-Law.

Have a great day!

Teacher's Gift with the Silhouette

Just a quick post today to share with you a simple teacher's gift that I made up for my daughter to give to her 4th grade teacher.  Her teacher's last name is Hopple and even before she got married, she collected frogs, so it's kind of funny that she collects frogs AND her last name is Hopple.

It's a large bottle of Hand Sanitizer that just so happens to have an image of an Aloe Vera plant on the backside, which doesn't show up here very well. I traced & layered this cute little frog from a clip art image I Googled, then added her name to middle in a fun little font, that sort of has the appearance of hopping (just agree with me on this - ok?). It's called An Unfortunate Event and was free, probably at Dafont.com, but not sure on that. I tied a sheer matching green ribbon at the top and called it good.

We're also giving her an Attic Treasures stuffed frog that looks more like a vintage style than kiddie-like....

...and this little wooden spool ornament I made. (yeah, I have a TON of lights on my tree)

That's all for today. Keeping it short & sweet since I have some more projects to finish and the one is not going well at all. I'm on my 5th try to make it work. It's supposed to be a Christmas present that a customer is purchasing. Needless to say, I am NOT happy that the easiest part is now my biggest headache! That hard parts are all done & turned out beautifully.

Have a WONDERFUL Christmas (in case I don't get back on here before THE big day!)

Brooke's Florida School Project

This past week, my daughter Brooke, had to do a presentation on one of the states in the USA. She chose "The Sunshine State" of Florida. 

I guess if you're gonna have to a project like this to do in March, it might as well be some place sunny & warm!

At first, I was going to use my Cricut to cut out the state of Florida using the "50 States" Cricut cartridge. It's a great cartridge for this kind of thing & the very reason I got it in the first place. But Brooke wanted a really large state cut out. To be honest with ya, I was not all that comfortable trying to cut the state into two pieces with my Cricut. So, I relied on my Silhouette Cameo to do it for me using their Designer Studio. It made very quick work with no guess work needed on my part.

You can clearly see the seam where I had to piece this together, but that was my own sloppiness. This cutting technique is easy when you use the knife tool in the Designer Studio program. That program is extra (like $50?) but it's well worth it if you like being a little more creative with your designs. Luckily, mine was free as part of a Christmas promotion.

The poster is really pretty simple in design, but it's how my daughter wanted to do it, which probably makes it easy for her and the rest of the 3rd grade class to absorb. 

We put everything on a piece of white foam board that we purchased at Dollar Tree for $1. The colored poster board we used for the blue and the yellow is less than a dollar! (I think it was 69 cents - white is 50 cents) And this poster board cuts on the Cameo like a dream!

I thought it was cute that she wanted the sun at the bottom corner to look like the "Cutie Mark" on Celestia from the My Little Pony cartoons. 

The font that was used for the Florida title is called "Upper East Side". If you click on the font name, it will take you to Dafont.com, where you can download it for free!

The font that was used for "The Sunshine State" is called "Walt". I'm not sure where I got that exact font, but Dafont.com has one almost identical called "Waltograph."


Brooke said that everyone was fascinated with her poster and swarmed all around to get a better look at it. And here I thought it was very plain & simple. 

I guess that just goes to show that the best projects are the ones that are "Simple with a 'Wow!' factor."

Now that this is all done, I'm going to cover the backside of the foam board with fabric and use it as a back drop for taking pictures of my projects.

 
Parties I'm linking to:

This Marks the Spot!

Before I get started on my topic at hand, I want to mention an opportunity for YOU to win a $50 gift card. Yes, I said a $50 gift card!  Who couldn't use an extra 50 bucks? All you have to do is head on over to Debbie Doo's blog to see what green apples and Head & Shoulders have in common.

Now, onto my topic....I have been trying to get into crafting again. I still need to do some serious organizing, but when inspiration strikes, ya just gotta go with the flow. I used to make book marks a few years ago for my craft shows and they were pretty popular, because they're inexpensive and practical gifts for teachers. This is not your ordinary book mark. I seen the style for these somewhere, and I'll be darned if I can remember where, maybe a scrapbook magazine?

Anyway, I thought they were a cute style and I liked the way they fit over the top of the page to stay in place better.

What about you? Do you read more in the colder/winter months? I don't. I should, but I don't. I either can't find anything that interests me or I can't put it down until it's done.

And how cute is this book page?!! I can't say that I've ever seen sketches done in RED before! The book is from the 60's and I think I may have gotten it from a garage sale or from a box full of books that our neighbor brought over. I'm not too sure. I just thought it was a cute book.

Having the bookmark fit over the top of the page is not the only positive side to this. It can also save the exact line you left off at! 

 

This image is the backside of the bookmark, and I've finished it off too, cuz ya just can't leave it all ugly & neglected!

I used scalloped circle punches that I picked up at 40% off from Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago. They come in 4 sizes and being a scrapbooker, of course I have all 4.  ;^)

So, I have several of these I'm wanting to make for my craft shows that are later this year. I'm also going to make different shapes for the top. 

I made these for my daughter's class last year for Valentine's Day and I used my Cricut to cut out heart shapes for the top instead of the scalloped circles. I kept those pretty simple since I had to make 30 of them. There was no cute little embossed shape over the strip portion, just kept 'em basic. I wished I would have taken a picture of those, but I'm pretty sure I didn't.


I'm sorry that I forgot to make a tutorial on how to make these, but maybe I'll get around to it when I get a little more motivated. Tutorials are a lot of work & I sing the praises to anyone who does them!! Aaaaaand, you get bonus praises if you do videos!!

So. Is it cute?  For a bookmark?

  

Link Parties

 

            

Quickie project

So Monday was my daughter Brooke's last day of 1st grade. I was wanting to do up a plastic tumbler & they had some really cute ones at my local Walmart, but those sold out really quick, so I had to settle for this version instead. It comes with the soft rubber grip, I just added her name above it with the Hello Kitty font & the flowers from the George cartridge below the grip. Tied on a decorative tuft of hot pink tulle around the straw. I put it in a gift bag I made a long time ago. Made a sweet little tag for that & called it good. I didn't get a photo of the bag, but here's the tumbler.












I'm still working on the mini albums, but decided to take a break for today, well just a little break. I managed to get a few things organized & put away. You can't tell it when you look at my room, but I know there's a few less pieces of patterned paper laying around underneath the other stuff. LOL!!

I think the hardest part of making the guy album is finding paper that goes with the color scheme already in my existing stash. You would think with the 1,000's of sheets of paper & cardstock I have that surely this would not be a problem, but it is. I have managed to mutilate many sheets & the tricky part of this project is that his school colors are dark red & metallic gold. I only have (3) 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of metallic gold paper. Talk about your precious metal!! I can't screw up any of that stuff! I. always. screw. up. something. Always...

I would show the pages I have done, which I'm only done up to half of his Junior year, but I keep going back & adding little things to the pages that are supposed to be done.

My son is the same age as the guy I'm making the album for and I asked my son if he thought the book was masculine enough, but he thought it was too foo-fooish. I explained to him that if it's because of the shiny gold, that was part of the kid's school colors, so I was trying to incorporate that into the pages, without going all out on that theme. I personally think the book is done in good taste. There isn't a single flower in the album - yet. I might add some for the prom stuff, but I need to decide if I want to do a prom page by itself or just include them with his other senior photos. I will say this book is already kinda heavy & it's only half done without the wire binding. This will be the first actual book I've made using my Bind It All. I have the original blue one, but I'm thinking that I might like to someday get the We R Memory Keepers binding system instead. I like the idea of seeing where I'm lining my pages up with the punches.

Now, for the non-crafting part. I thought I was battling allergies, but now I'm not so sure that's what my problem is. I feel a little better today & I seriously doubt that I would only have allergies for 2 days. If it was just a cold of some sort, I'd rather have it be that because allergies can go on for too long.

OK, this ended up much longer than I had anticipated. I think I nearly put myself to sleep. (*yawn*)

God Bless & have a great day!

Pub News! + long post, kinda pick heavy

I don't know if I'm starting to become one of the Cricut Magazine's Vinyl regulars or what ;-), but I've had FOUR vinyl projects accepted for the September issue!! Waaa Hooo!!!

I hope I can get them all in one of those Flat Rate boxes, because otherwise it's gonna be heavy & expensive. I had a 12x12 tile, a ceramic plate & a glass cutting board accepted along with a set of 4 mini hand soap bottles. I submitted other non-vinyl projects, but they didn't get accepted. One is a little mirror, so maybe I'll try to submit it to Papercrafts & see where that gets me. Probably like all the other times I've tried...no call. If not, then I'll be posting it here on my blog.

I have been crafting a lot this week, but it's been for teacher/staff appreciation week at my daughter's school & I'm not doing them at my own home so I don't take pictures. She found lots of really cute ideas like making a pencil from Rolos & a Hershey's Kiss, A treatbag of M&M's with an owl head topper, a Smore's kit in a baggie, a pieced branch picture with the leaves being the kids fingerprints as well as the little birds, butterflies & a catepillar. That's what we're working on today. I think I'm missing something, but can't recall at the moment what it might be. We're already working on ideas for next fall. That might be a little crazy for me, since that's when my craft shows & 2 birthday's are.

Here examples of what we made. These are where she got the inspiration from, NOT OUR actual projects.

Rolo Pencils - our version had a happy face stamped on the apple & baker's twine to tie the tag on. We used silver kisses for the "lead" portion instead of the gold too.













Owl Baggie Toppers - our owls were light pink & dk. pink with little primitive shaped hearts for the beak. I think I mostly used the Accent Essentials cartridge for this, but not 100% positive on that.







We Need SMORE people like you (this was Staff Appreciation, not just teachers) - our version had kraft paper backing with the bark looking embossing on it & a scalloped border punched at the bottom with a red, green or blue & white gingham for the label with rounded corners.



Fingerprint art - for our version I cut out a branch from my cricut & TONS - like 450 (.80 sized) ovals for the kids to put their fingerprints on to create the leaves, birds, & we're adding a butterfly & a caterpillar to ours, since most classes have over 25 students per class. I hope to get a picture of the one for my daughter's teacher.

On a different note for today, we finally have our new roof completed & the guys are just finishing up the loose ends & doing a repair on our ceiling where one of them slipped & their foot came through out ceiling - oops! It's not a big deal, since we had to replace a section of the ceiling from the leak damage anyway. We just hope that it holds up better than the last new roof we had done just 5 years ago & it started leaking in the 2nd year. No, we were NOT having those people back to attempt to fix anything ever again for us. The crew that's doing our roof(s) this time seem very knowledgeable about what they do & they're Amish. So now I have finally been able to get the 3 buckets, one large tote & towels with trashbags under them, out of my family room & the nasty 2 ft. long stained part of the ceiling will be gone too. YAY!!! I just have to shampoo the carpet to get rid of the light water splashes. Finally....*sigh*

So, if you've hung out here for the duration of the post, THANKS!! Perhaps if you've needed some student or teacher gifty inspiration, maybe you've found some here.

God Bless & have a great day!