Christmas Ornaments

OMGoodness! Can you believe it?  It's the first of September!   Autumn is on it's way followed closely by Christmas which is in 16 weeks!!  If you haven't started yet, now is the time to begin working on all your Christmas projects, be it cards, gifts, or whatever you have on your agenda. 

Since it's the first of the month, it's time for another challenge at Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round hosted by the Gingerbread Gals

September Challenge ~ Anything But a Card!

Prize ~  please visit the CCAYR blog.

For this challenge I made a few ornaments for my little cousins. Since my mom was visiting, I was able to send them to Portugal with her when she went back.

Quick recipe:

Ornaments - Hobby Lobby disc glass ornaments

Images - Rub on Stickers from my stash

Snow - Hobby Lobby

Christmas Ribbons for bows - my stash

Names - etched and rub over with Silver Leaf Rub 'n Buff

I made a gift box for each ornament using an svg file from Simply Crafty SVG's.  If you would like more information on the boxes, please refer to THIS POST.

Now it's your turn to join in the fun.

You have till the end of the month to link your project to our challenge.

Looking forward to seeing your festive creations.

Till next time,

Favourite Cutting Machine Challenge

 Happy Saturday everyone, I hope your weekend is going well!

Our challenge for you this week at Hiding in My Craft Room is to make a project using your favourite cutting machine!  This includes dies as you still have to use a cutting machine to press the die through :-)

Our sponsors this week are:

Hiding in My Craft Room

Prize ~ Space Party Cricut Cartridge

AND

Di's Digi Stamps

The prize ~ $12 Gift Certificate to Di's Digi Stamps

So for this challenge, I thought I would show you how I decorated my favourite cutting machines.  Yup, that's right I have two favourites, my Cricut Explore and my Silhouette.  Actually, I have 3 favourites, as I also love my Cuttlebug. It cuts all my dies perfectly :-) But back to my electronic cutters.  I used vinyl to make the decorations and as you can see I kept them pretty simple.  In case you're wondering, the reason I haven't decorated my Cricut Expression is because I'm thinking of selling it.  I haven't used it since I got the Explore almost a year ago.

So, now, it's your turn to make a project using your favourite cutting machine and join us in the fun.  This challenge, #221,  runs till 2:00 am on Saturday, 24 October 2015.  Take a few minutes and visit the Hiding in My Craft Room blog to see all the lovely creations my DT sisters made for your inspiration. Thank you for stopping by today and taking a peek at what I'm creating!

Till next time,

Happy Fall

Personalized Ornaments

Hello everyone.  I hope today was a great start to a great week.

I have a few ornaments that I personalized that I would like to share with you.

I bought this ornament for my son, who graduated from High School in June 2014. I cut this out of black vinyl using my Cricut Explore.  It measures 3" wide and just .36" high. Can you believe how tiny and clean it cut?  It was the perfect kiss-cut ~ easy to weed out the little bits and pieces, placed it on transfer tape, then onto the ornament, some burnishing of the letters, and voila, perfect! :-)  I just noticed that one of my angels is also in the picture. :-)

I made this ornament for my little granddaughter.  Loved this little snowgirl with the hearts rub-on sticker.  I coloured in the centre of the snowflakes in the ribbon to match the red of the ornament.  Plain white looked a little blah :-)

Here is the other side. I also cut this out of vinyl using the Cricut Explore, but used my own computer fonts.  Have I told you how much I'm loving this machine? :-)  Since this font has hearts, I thought it perfect.  It's called Fiolex Girls.  For this ornament, though, I used the negative part of the vinyl to glass etch it.  Since I had filled the ornament with fake snow, the etching was not "popping" enough for my liking, so I rubbed some Silver Leaf Rub 'n Buff on it.  I also added the two little red hearts to match the hearts in the front and to add some colour to the back.

Here is another one I made for a friend's little grandson.  This time I used silver and blue ribbon and a snowman prismatic sticker.

Here is the other side of the ornament, made in the same way as the one above, but using the Cricut Fonts.  This ornament traveled far - all the way south, across the Atlantic, 

to sunny Durban in South Africa :-)

And here are three more I made for three special little girls.  I used a set of Christmas Teddy Bear Trio, and etched their names on the back the same way as the ones above.  These also traveled, but this time just across the Atlantic to Algarve, Portugal :-) One of them, though, still had a connecting flight to London, England!  I feel so important! :-)  My ornaments are travelling all over the globe :-)

I enjoy making these ornaments. They are easy to make, bright and cheerful, very festive and perfect as gifts as they are light and travel well.  They are glass, but I haven't had any break on me yet!

I hope you enjoyed your visit and I hope that I've inspired you to make your own ornaments to give to loved ones next Christmas.

Till next time

Happy Crafting!

Personalised Caddies

My daughter bought 2 cupcake caddies and wanted them personalised, so I got out my vinyl and my trusty Cricut and went to work.  This is what I came up with ...

 

She loves the beach and everything related to the seaside, so for the first one I cut out her name using the Storybook cartridge and these cute little flip flops from the Life is a Beach cartridge. I added little flower rhinestones. 

 

 They came out very cute but will have to be hand washed because I don't think that the glue holding the little flower gems will hold in the dishwasher.

 

 

For the other, I used seahorses, also cut from LIAB cartridge.

 

 

In addition to these caddies, she also wanted her cake carrier to have her name on it, so I went with the dolphins for this one, also from the LIAB cartridge.

 

 

She was very happy with the way they came out and with the fact that now, everyone will know that these containers are hers :) No more mix ups at parties, barbeques, etc.

 

One more thing I need to mention is that I used the vinyl transfer tape in order to keep all the letters straight. It works perfectly and really simplifies the whole project.

 

As always, thank you for visiting my blog and for the wonderful comments you leave.

 

Blessings,

Lena

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Monogrammed Beer Glasses

Good morning everyone. Today I have a glass etching project to share with you.  I bought some beer glasses for my hubby and decided to monogram them with the family initial. It was really hard to take a picture that shows how pretty they came out, but this one should do the job. I did 8 of them.

 

I used the font from Tie the Knot. I cut it out of vinyl on my cricut but used the negative image to place on the glass to etch it.  Hubby was very happy with them.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and for all your sweet comments.

Hugs,

Lena

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Mother's Day Gift

One of my customers ordered a cake taker from me to give her mom on Mother's Day. They are so useful and what mom wouldn't like one of these? :)

Another Cake Taker

I enjoy making these - they always seem to come out so cute. Here is another order I got. I love this colour combination and I guess my customers do too :)

Cake Taker

I hadn't done any of these since last summer, but I'm starting to get a few more orders in now. Here is the first one I made. Doesn't it look pretty? By using outdoor vinyl, you can still handwash them with soapy water and the vinyl won't peel off.

Altered Journal

I bought this journal and matching pen at M's for my daughter. Although it was pretty on its own, I thought that it needed a little extra something, so i decided to personalise it. The mat was made using the Elegant Edges cartridge. I then used her initial in bling, of course, and a few roses. The little paper roses are from my stash. They were actually a very pale baby pink, so I took my bic marker and coloured the edges of the petals to make them look like the ones that were printed on the side. I'm glad I found the bling "S" in the light green colour. Not only does it match the journal perfectly, but it's also the colour of her birth stone which is the peridot.

Working with Vinyl

The students in our school band this year were given water bottles to carry with them to all games and performances. A good thing too, since our temperatures have been hovering in the 100's for the last couple of months! We were asked to put the student's name on the top and on the back so that they would be easily identifiable. Considering we have close to 300 kids, it really needs to be nice and clear. I'd been using a sharpie to do this, but it soon got old as it keeps washing off. I decided to try it out using outdoor vinyl. It really looks great and much neater!

I used the font from Plantin Schoolbook - the top letters are cut at approx. 3/4" and the ones on the back at approx. 1". I say approx. because I actually sized with DS and I forgot to look at the exact size.

Glass Block

I have seen many of these and have always wanted to make one. Recently I finally got the chance. I made this as a birthday gift for a young lady who turned 9 and absolutely loves mermaids. In fact, she has an accent wall in her bedroom that is completely painted with a mermaid scene, so I thought that this night light would go very well with her decor. I will definately be making more of these as I enjoyed it very much. I am thinking of trying it a different way ~ when and if I succeed, I will share it with you :)

Personalized Gifts

Here are another two cake servers that I personalized. I think these turn out great and they are so handy. I use outdoor vinyl, the same that is used to put advertisements on cars, etc. This prevents peeling off when you wash them. You do have to handwash them in cold water and dry them immediately, but they last you a very long time. As some of you know, I'm currently taking some cake decorating classes and get to use mine all the time and I haven't had any problems.

The top one was for my first cake decorating teacher and the bottom was a gift for my son's band director. She was an absolute gem the entire year. It was through great dedication and hard work that she got the best out of her students and she did it in such a way that all the students loved her. Our Junior High band was playing at a level that had judges giving them a standing ovation!

Personalised Items using Vinyl

If you are like me, when you take something to a party, a picnic or just any function really, you loose track of your dishes. I have lost more tupperware this way than I care to remember. Often I don't even realize that I'm missing the container till the next time I need it and can no longer find it. It is then too late to remember where it was left behing. So, with this in mind, I recently bought a cake holder and decided to personalize it. So, using my cricut and some vinyl, I came up with this and I must admit that I'm very happy with it. It was a great hit and I have had a couple of orders for these. I'm also thinking that they make great gifts for teachers for the end of the school year. Now if only I could figure out what to get the male teachers ?!

Another item I personalized was my husband's hard hat. He wanted his name on it, so that when he visits construction sites, it is easy for him to identify his hat amonsgt those of his colleagues. I used my cricut to cut his name using vinyl. Then I used the transfer tape to transfer the cut to the hard hat and voila, one personalized hard hat and one happy hubby :)

Personalized Christmas Ornaments

I decided that this year, instead of trying to find that special ornament for that special person in my life, I would just make them a personalized one. They've been such a great hit, that I have had already a few orders from friends for their families. If you would like one, email me at lenfon@msn.com or call me at 832-492-1342. All orders welcome :) Comments are much appreciated.