Sunday, January 25, 2009

Princess Name Frame

One of our four year-old daughter's school friends invited her to a birthday party. I had seen these wonderful name frames people were making on the Cricut Message Board and thought it would be neat to make one geared to a child. As the proud owner of the two Disney princess cartridges and knowing how much little girls love the Princesses, I thought that a Princess Name Frame would make a perfect gift for Faith.

So, over the period of a week every time we saw Faith we asked her who her favorite Disney princess was. Every day it was a different answer. I even asked her Mom and got a completely different answer! So the solution to the problem became clear -- make them all!

We picked up a white frame at Michael's, used a piece of 12" x 12" Disney Princess words scrapbook paper from our stash, some "bling", and all those bits of paper scraps I refuse to throw away. The princesses were cut at 3" and the letters at 3.5".

I think it turned out really nice -- but the true test was the look on Faith's face when she opened it at her birthday party. She LOVED it! Her Mom sent us a really nice note thanking us for the gift and letting us know that Faith has it hung on the wall next to her bed.








I also made Faith a birthday card. Take a look . . . it turned out really cute! Again, I used my trusty Cricut and the candle from the Joys of the Season cartridge. Using the Design Studio program I laid out five candles side by side, "welding" them together so that I could make an accordion fold. Too much fun!




Monday, January 19, 2009

As previously promised . . . Christmas creations!

Finally, finally, finally . . . here are just a few of the many things Dee and I created for Christmas. Some were gifts and some we took out to A Newberry Florist, Jewelry & Gifts to be sold.

The glass blocks were purchased at Lowe's. Dee drilled a hole in the bottom and fed in the 20 count Christmas lights. We then cut out our designs using contact paper and the handy-dandy Cricut. Once the contact paper was applied to the glass, Dee frosted them using a spray-on product also purchased at Lowe's. A bit of hot glue, some wired ribbon and ta-da! A beautifully lit block to decorate with or to use as a night light.




We also made votive candle holders using the same technique -- just on a much smaller scale!



After successfully make a "Baby's First Dolly" for our one year-old niece in November, we decided to make some for gifts and to sell at the shop. A soft, stuffed doll with flannel jammies -- just the right size to cuddle with!

Several dozen wooden and ceramic ornaments were hand painted as well as marbleized glass balls. Two hand painted wooden angels, two hand painted wooden trees with pearls and ribbon, several signs with Christmas sayings, two paper topiary trees . . . and a partridge in a pear tree (no, not really!) rounded out the items created for Christmas 2008. (Unfortunately, I failed to get photos of these items before they were rushed out the door.)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

New Craft Room Cabinets!

Dee and I have been working on redoing our craft area - it desperately needed an intervention! We couldn't find things when we needed them, and so we would then purchase duplicates; every time you needed something you had to move 15 things to get to it; and because nothing had an assigned place to be returned to it was just basically, an incredibly unorganized mess! Frustration does not lend its self to creativity.
Last Christmas (2007) we asked for gift cards from Home Depot so that we could purchase cabinets to personalize for our space. And we bought them in January 2008 on sale. They sat in the garage for about 5 months and then they moved to our dining room during the rainy season (our garage has a tendency to flood!). And they sat, and sat, and sat. This Christmas, we received a Lowe's gift card from our dear friend, Jeanne, that enabled us to purchase the materials needed to build stamp and other craft storage drawers. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, Aunt Nene!) On New Year's Day we started assembling cabinets! By Monday evening (Jan. 5) everything had found a new home.

We emptied a huge open cabinet, a smaller enclosed cabinet, a 7-drawer and 3-drawer storage cart, a Cropper Hopper (scrapbook paper storage), a rolling scrapbook tote, a Creative Memories sticker tote, and relocated things stuck around the house into our new, enclosed craft area. To say that I'm excited is not enough! I'm ecstatic to have all of our craft stuff housed in one area -- organized, labeled and ready to be used. We discovered so much stuff that we didn't even remember we owned!


The biggest THANK YOU goes to my partner in "crime", crafts and life -- Dee. She is the most incredibly talented crafts person . . . and yes, she hires out! Not only does she build craft cabinets, but does all kinds of home repairs and renovations (tile, carpentry, minor plumbing, painting, etc.).


Grab a tissue or napkin and check out our new crafting space -- the tissue/napkin is for drool . . . drool and keyboards don't mix!


On the left side -- the 21 custom drawers that Dee built house all of our rubber stamps, stamp pads, embossing powders, stamping tools, and paper punches. Above the drawers are all of our paints, brushes, etc.


The middle top cabinets provide a home for our eyelets, brads, buttons and tons of other embellishments; adhesives, pens, markers, colored pencils, dry embossing stencils, and misc. tools.


The bottom cabinet drawers -- top drawer is home to all of our paper cutters and scrapbook cutting system templates; the middle drawer holds four storage boxes with one for glue guns and glue sticks, another for watercolor pencils, blenders, and watercolors; a third for stencil paints and brushes, and the last one holds misc. supplies for baby/wedding favors; the bottom drawer is home to all of our envelopes and cards in progress.


The other bottom cabinet is home to our paper scraps, embellishments, stickers, die cuts, and empty albums.


The tall cabinet on the far right is paper and ribbon nirvana! The top two shelves hold all of our 8.5 x 11 paper and card stock, as well as 12 x 12 paper packs. The bottom is ribbon storage on the left and 12 x 12 paper storage on the right (24 slots for paper!)


The counter top holds our Sizzix and paper cutting dies, a Xyron machine, and our frequently-used-tools caddy. On the very top of the cabinets are overflow storage boxes, our big paper trimmer and the TV. To the left of the entire cabinet is a rolling cart that holds our 4 year-old's puzzles, games, coloring books, beads and her craft supplies. The Cricut and its cartridges are over by my computer (not shown).