Workshop Wednesday: Dry Erase Christmas Countdown Printable

Welcome to the last Workshop Wednesday of July. It's been so much fun sharing ideas to get ready for the holidays with creative geniuses Michele from The Scrap Shoppe, Bev from Flamingo Toes, Kara from Mine for the Making, and Tracey from My CreativiT. We hope you've gotten some ideas an inspiration to get a head start on the holidays.

I'd planned an easy gift idea to share with you this week but life is what happens when you're busy making other plans and I've extended my time away from my little Santa's Workshop to be w/ my mom another week.

But I do have a fun ( I think) and easy thing to share today that's fitting since ahem, Christmas is exactly 5 MONTHS, 22 Weeks, and 153 Days from the date of this post people! I am one of those annoying people who will announce on the 25th of every month exactly how many months are left. (Although I will probably not start the week / day thing until a lot later)  I know I'm not the only one. Right??? For other compulsive counter-downers, you can print this puppy, slap it in a frame and then change the numbers accordingly as we count down.

I made this using PicMonkey which will definitely be a key part of my holiday planning because it's so easy and they keep adding functionality! 

Now, off to The Scrap Shoppe to see what Michele's cooked up this week!

Click on to bring to full resolution, then Right Click to Save As. Size to your frame of choice, print, frame, and done! Happy countdown! 

Pick Your Plum Giveaway Winner!

Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who entered my recent giveaway from Pick Your Plum. The lucky winner is: Shannon, entry #164 and Shannon has been notified!

Hope you all signed up for notifications from PYP so you don't miss out on their ongoing goodies! Thanks again!!

BFF Open House Link Party #63

Hi all, another straight and to the point party this week. Still with the Mumster while she recovers from part two of her no go horrible surgical adventure that could have been so much worse. Have fun and visit each other!

Welcome back to another Workshop Wednesday! I hope you’re getting lots of good ideas to get ahead of the holidays. If you’re following the hop, thanks for coming over from Mine For The Making!

This week’s project: Gift Tags.

You shop for, make , and wrap gifts. Then if you’re like me, you forget or run out of time for the tags. I have been known to be making a last minute tag on Christmas morning.  Not this year!

This week I’ll show you how to be ready AND bust some scrap stash. If you work with scrapbook paper for any reason, you’ve likely got scraps.

Or you’ll tell me you do so I feel better. My scraps have scraps. I went to my scrap stash and pulled a bunch of coordinating colors out. I also remembered to pick up some blank tags when they were 50% off at JoAnn’s. I spent less than $5 for both packages…40 tags.

Other options: tags from the office supply store , cut your own with a die cutter, or using a template.

You can use whatever kind of adhesive you have (tape runner, glue stick, double sided tape etc.). I  have um, several sizes of the Xyron adhesive machines. I used the 5 inch one to apply adhesive to my tags. In a stroke of pure genius luck the two sizes of tags I had fit side by side.

Peel your sticky tags off of the backing paper and then attch to the underside of your paper. Trim around your tags. Cover your entire tag and then grab some more scraps and tear, glue, trim ….whatever you feel like. A great way to use smaller pieces up.

I save my vinyl scraps too because I just know there’s something I can use them for. Too small for your electronic cutter. Go old school: PUNCHES! I used a snowflake punch and a Martha Stewart “JOY” border punch.

I may have a slight problem with self adhesive rhinestones, pearls etc. I know I never use all of any one package so I have a stash of partially used ones. Out they came for the tags! Washi tape too.

There’s no rhyme or reason to these, just kind of wing it. I had some self adhesive scrapbook borders from other projects. Threw some of those on too.

 

Got buttons? The stockings and lights on a couple of the tags are buttons from my button stash. Basically if it’s small enough to fit on a tag…

Went over the swirl pattern on this paper scrap with iridescent Stickles glitter glue and then stuck clear rhinesones on the ends. Tore off pieces of washi tape and stuck them.

Here’s one important thing to remember. I wait until I know I’m completely done adding papers, tape etc. to my tags to punch holes. That way you punch through all the layers you’ve used cleanly and only one time.

To finish, I used some ribbon yarn I had on hand. So if you’ve got paper, you’ve likely got scraps. If you’ve got scraps, you’ve got the makings for gift tags! Hope this gave you an idea you can put to use.

Next stop: Michele at The Scrap Shoppe!

Man Crafting With College Boy. Make Your Own "Dark Knight Rises" Shirt.

I’ve shared before that College Boy ( aka my son, for those who may be newer to the cast of characters around here) is a self professed comic geek. He proudly lets his geek flag fly!

The upcoming release of the movie “The Dark Knight Rises” is nothing short of an epic event. Christmas and Birthday rolled into one. The conclusion of the Christopher Nolan trilogy! OMG!  And one cannot go to an event of this import without the appropriate attire.

So college boy decided to make himself a shirt and told Craft-o-Mom here (politely) to back off! OK I was allowed to be on standby because there was bleach involved but he totally did this on his own. I was also allowed to use my 20% off total purchase Michaels coupon to procure the shirt.

He traced and cut the freezer paper stencil and ironed to the shirt. I offered to use CoCo, my Silhouette Cameo. “No thanks”.

He mixed the 50% bleach 50% water mixture, and then sprayed all around the ironed on stencil. This is a project designed for random drops and splatters. 

He put a garbage bag inside the shirt to prevent seepage. He dabbed off the excess bleach and water mixture:

He waited patiently (and read comics) while the bleach did its thing. And now he has an appropriately gritty, industrial looking, vintagey, cool shirt to wear to the movie!

Perfect project for a college student budget:

• Shirt: 2 for $5 @ Michaels ( less Mom’s 20% coupon!)
• Bleach: On hand
• Freezer paper: On Hand

How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away? No Soliciting Sign.

Sharing a post I did for the Expressions Vinyl blog last month. 

Those of you who've been around a while, might remember I made one of these last year. This one I made for the Mumster ( aka my Mom to those who may be new)  who is the friendliest person I know but who has one nemesis: Solicitors. 

How do you tell people to go away but nicely? With a sign made using Expressions Vinyl Glitter Ultra Cast that’s how!

I tend towards using things for other than their intended purpose so for this project I used some metal flashing(?) from the HW store for my sign.

I chose a frame from my Silhouette library and then did the text in two different fonts. I am still far from an expert with my Cameo but one tip I think worth sharing is when working with text or multiple objects in a project, group your objects. How?

After you’ve completed your layout, click on edit then scroll down to “select all” . Next you’ll want to group them which binds them together so if you accidentally hit your keyboard or something you only accidentally re-size one thing and you don’t mess up the individual parts. Not that I’ve done that or anything.

I cut the frame and text out from the same vinyl. Applied it to the metal piece using transfer tape. For things where it’s just a piece I don’t always use transfer tape. For something like this…DEFINITELY.

I always have to add something so I ran the rest of my vinyl through my Cuttlebug die cutter using a Tim Holtz Alterations die:

Attached all the layers with a brad and then super glued to the sign.

I made a No Soliciting sign for our house last year, and in another attempt to confuse the Hardware Store people, my stand is a metal tomato cage. I just use magnets to attach the sign to it. Someday the HW store people will stop asking me what I’m doing with stuff!

BFF Open House Link Party #62

Welcome to this week’s BFF Open House!

Let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week:

Party On!