Big Brother Shirt!

For my nephew's 3rd birthday, I made him a big brother t-shirt. He became a big brother back in August and I was looking for one around Christmas but just couldn't find one I liked.

So I did what any Crafty person would have done... I made one!

For Christmas this year, I got a Silhouette Cameo machine from my parents. Before this I had a Cricut Die-cut machine, which I loved. However, the Silhouette can do quite a bit more! I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed at all it can do!

With my machine, I also got a Heat Transfer Starter Kit - I was excited at the possibilities, but intimidated about how to get started. So I procrastinated and watched a LOT of YouTube videos. Finally I was inspired and felt that I could tackle this project!

I found this file on the Silhouette Online Store that I really liked. I read the instruction book that came with the starter kit a few times to make sure I wasn't going to miss any details and jumped in.

I cut out my file on paper first so that I could make sure I liked how it came out, and to make sure it would fit on a 3T t-shirt! (I laid my cutting mat over it to measure)

The instructions say that you can cut the vinyl with out a cutting mat, but I couldn't get my vinyl to feed into my machine so I opted for a mat. When you go to cut your pieces, the cut screen asks if you are using a mat, so I just selected that I was and all was fine.

(* Note: when using Heat Transfer - remember to MIRROR YOUR PROJECT IF IT HAS WORDS!! Thankfully I remembered this before cutting on my vinyl, but I can see myself making that mistake a few times before it truly sinks in!)

I laid all of my pieces out together to make sure everything was sized right and I liked how it looked. (also sent many texts to a few friends to see if they agreed that it looked as good as I thought it did!)

Next I laid it all out on the shirt to get the position right and make sure I liked the spacing once.

Finally I got out the iron, set it to the cotton setting and dove in. I actually had to move off the ironing board and to an ironing mat (a few towels would also work) on the floor because I couldn't put enough pressure on it with it up on the ironing board. Ironing each piece on took longer than the directions stated. I had to press on each piece for a total of 2 minutes before I could cleanly peel the backing away. (my iron has a 30 second safety setting so I would have to tip it back up for a few seconds and then press again)

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's adorable and I can't wait to see him in it!

Next Heat Transfer project:
The Little Brother match to it!

Be Mine Silhouette Valentines Card

This is my second card project with my Silhouette Cameo. I am a cricut convert!

 I used my Sizzix Embossing machine to do the dot texture. It's a handy little unit that works great with the metallic paper!

I used WausauPaper, Metallics Cardstock for the shimmery white background. I only have a little bit of this. (note some sarcasm here - that bin is full of only this type of paper!) Our wedding colors were silver and navy - this was the only way I could find silver shimmery card stock to use for place cards and table numbers so I bought quite a few packs from amazon to have enough of the 4 pages of silver in each pack!

The red paper is also a shimmery cardstock but the cover has since ripped off the package - I'm sure it's from Joann's though.

I'm not sure what made me come up with the idea, but I like the simplicity of it (it's all one piece!) and it didn't take too long to do. The challenge was gluing it down. The dots make it a little difficult since I only  had a glue stick (ran out of spray adhesive!) but after putting it under my fabric cutting mat for a few minutes, it all stuck and we are good to go.

It's a very basic card, and now that I have the template made, it should take maybe 5-10 minutes to put this card together.

Batman Birthday Card!

My Husband is a huge comic book fan. He loves Batman, Superman, Spiderman etc... but Batman is his favorite so I thought I would use my new Silhouette Cameo to make him a card!

 I actually ended up using both of these. I was making the card and then came across a 'print and cut' file and had to investigate what that meant. SO COOL! I cannot believe it can do this!  I printed a page on my computer printer, brought it to my cameo and it lines up and prints out the image this close!

Now that I know how cool this thing is, I'm VERY excited to learn more and more about it!  (and also take more pictures of the processes of these things so my blogs are a little more informative and not just bragging about my cool BATMAN cutout!

Waiting... and Living...

This is very true. We wait for the weekend, we wait for a day off, a vacation, a visitor. We spend our lives waiting, when we should be spending it living. I know I am guilty of this, and would really like to try to do more living and less waiting.

What about you?

Organizing The Pantry

So I'm a Pinterest junkie-  I pin but don't usually do much with the ideas from them.

Today I did!

I've been looking up pantry organizational ideas this week. Lots of baskets and canisters, but those things are expensive. So I went to the dollar store for inspiration! I got all of these for $8.50 (3 of the bubble baskets, 3 of the wire shelves and 2 of the stacking bins)

I used the stacking bins in the closet close to our keurig to keep my tea k-cups. Iced varieties in the bottom, hot on top. 

I used the rest in out bigger pantry that was in need of organization. Here it is before:

It's all in there, but a bit of a mess. Things shoved wherever they won't fall out. So I used my bins/shelves to clean it up. I took out 3 items that are rarely used and could be stored in the basement, and added a basket of baking extras. 

The finished project: