Wedding Place Cards

Wedding planning is wrapping up and I thought I'd share my new trick.  My caterer needed an indicator on my guest's place cards to know which meal they had chosen.  I played around with a few different things and found this FREE downloadable font.

The font is called Farm and Wild Animals.  I also downloaded a calligraphy font to address my envelopes!

Going Green!

For my birthday I got this cute hanging planter with my own herbs.  I am so excited to use this fresh basil, mint and oregano.  YUM!

Craft Party!

Last week one of my friends invited me over for group craft night.  We headed to Michaels with our coupons, bought everything with glitter, opened a couple bottles of wine and got to work!

One of the girls had already gotten to work on table centerpieces earlier that day.  They turned out great, this picture doesn't do it justice.

We all bought materials for making a cool holiday wreath.  For me, I got a foam ring, gold ribbon, glitter garland, and 3 red glitter floral pieces.  I tacked the embellishments to the foam wth floral pins.  It was incredibly easy and quick and I loved the way it turned out!

Here is my friend's wreath made with yarn.

My wreath looks so festive on my front door with my Dollar Tree wreath hanger!

Happy Holidays!

Personalized Floor Rug

I recently used my Cricut to make a personalized floor rug for my fiance in Afghanistan.  He sent me some pictures of his room and I saw that he had a bath towel duct taped to the floor...  I guess it worked. 

My original plan was to cut out a phase from contact paper and dab the rug with bleach to make my design.  When I got my contact paper onto the rug, I didn't think that it created a tight enough seal and I was worried that the bleach would bleed and I'd just end up with a fuzzy bleached blob. 

So, I used a sponge paint brush to dab white paint over my stencil.  It took a couple of coats.  He just got it in the mail and LOVED it!

Inlaid Wood Cricut Cards

I just made some new cards using the Boho Graphics Cartridge.  I am really excited about the way they turned out and am already thinking up some new ideas. 

I got these rolls of drawer liner at the dollar store and thought I could use them to create a really cool inlaid wood look.

I used the owl image from the free trial of the Boho Graphics and a rectangle from the Cricut Craft Room Basics that was just slightly smaller than my card.  I cut it out on both the darker and the lighter wood grain liner.

I set my needle at 3 and my pressure and speed low and slow.  Even though these images were fairly intricate, I had no problem at all getting a nice, easy clean cut.

The best part was no GLUE!  Since the material is meant to stick to the bottom of drawers and shelves, I could just stick it right to my card, no gluing involved.  This project was incredibly easy and, in my opinion, makes a big impact. 



I used the same technique with some different images and different patterned liners.

Trail Mix Container

After I used up the oatmeal in this big cardboard tube, I repurposed it to keep trail mix.  I got a 9 foot roll of drawer liner from Family Dollar for $3 and covered the tube with it.  It is a little thinner than vinyl, but it is a much better bargain and there are some really fun patterns like faux wood I used.

I used the Cricut Circus Font for the wording and the Winter Wonderland Cart for the trees. 

Door Monogram

Here's my newest Cricut project!  I'm loving monograms right now, so I decided to add my initial to my bedroom door to fancy it up a little. 

Here is my bedroom door before.

I chose the font from my Winter Wonderland Cartridge in 7 1/2 inch and printed it on sticky vinyl. 

Since this design was fairly intricate and I wanted to be sure it was level on the door, I used transfer paper to remove it from its backing.  I made sure to line up the bottom of the design with the red line on the transfer paper.  

To be sure that my initial wasn't crooked on the door.  I used my level on the transfer paper lines to position it correctly.

Make sure the vinyl is stuck to the door and carefully peel off the transfer paper.

Finished!

Beer Mug Etching

Recently I worked on some gifts I'm planning and got started on a really easy and cheap beer mug project.  I picked up a couple of glass mugs from the Dollar Tree.

Mustaches are having a moment right now so I decided that I was going to add a mustache to the front of the glass using my Cricut Lite Billionaire Cartridge. 

 I cut the mustache out of sticky vinyl putting all of my settings at 3 - 3 speed, 3 pressure, and 3 knife.  With these settings, the Cricut will cut only the vinyl and leave the backing uncut.  Peel off the design and you'll  be left with the negative cutout to use as the etching stencil.

 



Plus the cutout is really fun to play with!

 

 

Creepy!  haha The next step is adding your vinyl to the glass.  I lined my up with the top of the mug.  Make sure that the edges around the design are pressed down without any bubbles to be sure that you get a nice clean design with the etching cream.

 

 

I used Armour Etch to etch the design onto the glass.

 

 

Layer it on really thick.  I put the etching cream onto the glass using paint sponges that I got at the Dollar Tree.  They come in a package of 10 for $1.  I'm sure they could be rinsed and reused, but I just end up tossing them after I'm done since they are so cheap.

 

 

Rinse it off after 10 minutes and remove the vinyl stencil.  Use a little glass cleaner to shine it up.

 

 

Here's a close up.  I hope they like them!

 

 

 

 

 

Uh oh - Don't Drink That!

Here's my newest project I created using my Cricut and come etching cream!

This truly was a necessary project.  A while ago when I had first moved into my house.  My mom stopped over while I was still at work.  She couldn't find any of my light switches and got a little stressed out but was relieved to see a bottle of wine corked on my sink and took a BIG gulp!

Yup, it wasn't wine.  It was a bottle full of DISH SOAP!  Oops.  So, to hopefully prevent anyone else from making that mistake, I made a stencil with my Cricut machine on sticky vinyl.  I stuck it on my wine bottle and spread on a thick layer of Armor Etching cream. 

The instructions say to leave it on for 5 minutes, but I kept it on there for 10 just to be sure there weren't any flaws.  I was really happy with the finished project.  Here it is!

I hope no one drinks any more soap around here!

Furniture Makeover: Margarita Bar

After moving out of my parents house, I 'inherited' some lovely items from family and friends.  Basically got stuck with a bunch of old stuff that they wanted to throw away.  Among those items was this amazing TV stand. 

This beaut is equipped with 360 degree wheels so you can push your TV anywhere in your house with ease.  It also must have had doors on the front at one point. 

At first, I did use this as a TV stand, then it got moved to the basement to be used as a storage shelf.  Recently, I decided to resurrect this hideous piece and turn it into a hip Margarita Bar!

I first slathered on 2 coats of Martha Stewart Precious Metals paint in Copper Kettle.

The wooden box in the upper right corner is my grandmother's silver!

The Cactus Margarita glasses were $1 each from the Dollar Tree.  I got such a great deal, I bought 12!

The tequila set, drink stirs, and bottle opener all came straight from Mexico.  I collected each one from a different place and a different trip.

80 Days to Pageant Time

Today I'm meeting with my trainer Jason for the first time!  I am super excited and nervous that he's going to kick my butt!  It's been a pretty good day so far.  Breakfast was steel cut oats with nutmeg, cinnamon and a little honey. 

Also, I wanted to share my new LOVE - Rapid Lash!  It is an eyelash enhancer and it works.  I have used Latisse in the past, which you need a prescription for and it is super expensive.  Rapid Lash is just as effective and you can get it in the cosmetics department at the drug store.  My lashes are almost touching my eyebrows.  AMAZING