Thursday, February 20, 2014

Crushing On Cars

Know a little boy that is totally crushing on the movie Cars???  Really, what boy isn't.  I had a request for a name sign made out of the cars sign.  I worked on it all morning and finally think I have about as close a replica as I personally can possibly do.  Guess what???  I have a copy for you!

This image is available in my dropbox:
Is is a .png file so you can simply drop the image into any digital scrapbook page or picture and it will not have the white block around the outside.  I added the name using the font Magneto Bold found for free on FontZone.  If you do go to download the font, don't fall for the trick I fell for.  The bigger green download button at the top of the page is NOT to download the font, but some dumb program.  After the hastle of uninstalling the said dumb program, I went back and found the much smaller, over to the right orange download button and got the font I was looking for. 

I typed out the name, ran it through a couple filters to make it dimensional, and BAM!  
Brody's own personalized Cars name sign.
I hope you love it!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Secret Agent/CSI Blue and Gold

Just finished my Secret Agent slash CSI {Cub Scout Investigators} cubes!  This should be my last set this year.  

As usual, I could NOT make up my mind, SOoooooOOo, I have several versions to chose from.






Once again, you can download these printables, meant to be printed up on 4x6 photos, for FREE from my dropbox HERE.

And, here are the usual instructions:
 I cut the blocks out of 4x4 {actual size 3.5 x 3.5}  posts.  It is my understanding that if you don't have a saw or a dad in the pack that can cut wood, Home Depot or Lowes will cut them for you, but you might have to pay a little extra.  If they happen to say no, I would say the small ma-n-pa lumber stores will cut them for you.  Just tell them to cut them to 3 1/2" long.  

Now, the cube prints are actually sized for 4x6 photo prints.  Just send them to your favorite photo lab.  Most labs will let you email the files over now.  I print one of each file for every cube you are going to make.

Paint the cubes {technically you only need to paint about 1" in from all the corners since the photos will cover the middle of the blocks}.  Cut the photos down to the square {they print on a 4x6 photo, but the actual print is only 3.5x3.5 (or actually smaller) square.  I use mod podge to glue the pictures to the blocks.  Paint one side of the cube with mod podge, a nice even, healthy coat, then place the print on top.  I rub it down, then use a credit card or old gift card to kinda squeegie across the print to make sure there are no bubbles underneath.  Be sure not to squeeze out all of the glue though.  It will cause your picture to pull away from the cube as it dries and result in bubbles under your picture.   {somewhat of a visual on how I paint my cubes at this posting}

Normally I do one print on all of the blocks, then start back at the first block and do print number two.  Do all the sides in this assembly-line-style until you are finished.  Once all the prints are glued to the sides AND THE GLUE HAS DRIED, paint an even coat of mod podge over the top.  You may have a couple edges not stuck down.  This is a good time to shove some glue underneath and to rub the print down, then mod podge over the top.  I set out bbq skewers across my covered table to rest the blocks on while they dry.  You do not need to do anything to the bottom of the cube, but it is nice to paint that side completely just to give it a finished feel.  If you are a crazy overachiever, you can glue some felt to the bottom.

Here are links to the other styles I have so far. 

Lego HERE
Secret Agent/CSI HERE

Good luck all you fabulous CubScouty leaders

 out there!

ATTN:  All, yes I said ALL cube printables are

 available HERE for FREE DOWNLOAD 

through Dropbox.  You can either download

 everything you want, or just open your own
free dropbox account and transfer the files 

there without downloading on your own computer.


Let me know if you have any questions!!!  I 

have tried to make the prints with dates in 

multiple years, so check the dropbox file for a 

new year first ;0}

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Loven' On The Porch

Well it is about time!  I have had my little love sign on the porch for weeks now and I am just getting it on the blog!!!  

Truthfully, I had to wait until I had my Valentine's Owl done so I could take my snowman down first.  A LOVE sign next to a snowman....Ha!  Disgraceful ;0P

I used four 1x4's to make this shutter-like thingy.  I cut just enough length off the 8 foot boards to have the cross pieces of wood.  I nailed/glued the cross boards on then painted the whole thing white and sanded to rough it up.

The letters were cut out of 1/8" wood.  LuCK coming in a week... I hope.
I drilled a small whole just off center in all of the letters, then nailed small nails into the board.  My plan is to just slip four letter words on and off this board all year...nice four letter words, like LoVE, LuCk...and others.  I am having a brain block  Brain Cloud {Joe vs. the Volcano reference ;0}  This is going to be a very interesting blog post to read!

One Saturday afternoon, Scott and I were gone to a meeting and my kids decided to make a surprise for us.  We came home to dozens of lovely wax paper and crayon hearts hanging all over our front windows.  It was SO SWEET!  Just precious.  My Madison was the pinterest-loving mastermind behind the surprise.  Gosh do I love her XOXO!

They are even in the little window by the door.

And PHOTO BOMB!  That is my boy.  Totally loves to photo bomb.  Maybe if I put them online he will stop doing it ;0}

So my little Valentine's Owl.  I made the pattern for her back about three years.  In fact, my sweet friend Season was over the day I was cutting the pattern out.  I was so embarrassed to show her an owl I was thinking about for a Valentines decoration.  Now that she is gone, I will think of that moment every time I see this little hooter.

Perched atop her lovely little branch she sits.  Love is blooming right beneath her feet.

Originally, I was going to make a really massive heart to put behind her...and I still might...but for now, I really like the hearts just behind her ear.  I like that the hearts balance out the branch of flowers, both because now it hangs evenly, AND because it looks nice to me.

Anyway, I cut this darling little porch lover out of 1/2" mdf.  All of the additives are cut out of 1/8" mdf.  I used to buy the 1/8" mdf from Home Depot in Arizona, but they don't sell it up here.  I did finally find it at Menards.  I like the 1/8" over 1/4", one for the price {cheaper than the 1/4"}, and two, it doesn't stick out quite so far.

So that is it.  My new this year Loven' on the Porch Valentine Decorations.

After a winter like we have had, it is really fun to have something bright and adorable on the porch when you come home from another blustery, dreary, overcast winter day...way, way WAY below zero...again.
The bright colors and cut little owlie face make me smile every time!

Monday, February 10, 2014

Valentine's Day Skirt

Emmers wanted to show off her cute little Valentine's Day skirt today.  She got to wear it to her class party and was looking very festive.

I usually try to make her skirts a little big so they fit for a couple years...
This one may be just a tad big.  I am totally fine with it though.  It makes it even better to twirl in!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

A Foxy Kind of Love

Do you love it???  I have been trying to complete this set for about three weeks now...maybe longer!

I LoVE my Foxy Family!

Small GIF Bags/Paper Material (FC-W-0142)
I saw this paper bag fox a month or two ago on pinterest.  You can find it HERE with the original post and pdf printout of the pieces for the bag.

 and was inspired to make a wooden version...

Little Miss Foxy

And the Mr.  Love the bow tie!

You have probably read a little about my eye anxiety.  I usually stress for months over eyes for my guys.  Not with these two.  Finally, I made some eyes that I love.  Mr. Fox is on his second pair ;0}  but this little one lash eye setup is fabulous if you ask me.  Now if only that would work on my Frankenstein I started Halloween of 2012....

And, their sentiment sign.  "We've Got a FOXY Kinda Love"  Just like me and Mr. SewCakeMaker....OK, so our friends would not consider us very Foxy, but we are kinda crazy for each other.  Or just crazy when around each other.  or just crazy.  Whichever way you add it up, we belong together...just like this Foxy little couple.  Ahhhh, don't you just LoVE that it is Valentines time again!?!

Last Minute Lessons: Purpose of Life

I get to give a lesson in the morning about the purpose of life to a room full of teenage girls!  I am actually really excited to share what I have learned through my studies.  This past Christmas I was slammed with the loss of my sweet friend, while remembering the tragic loss of several friends this past year and family members we have been struggling several years to live without.  There were two particular addresses shared in relation to the purpose of life that really helped me with this lesson.  One was from Thomas S. Monson, The Race of Life, and the other by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Of Regrets and Resolutions. 

Both of these talks mentioned the importance of looking at life, perhaps, from the end.  What, when your life is over, will you wish you did differently?  What will you be so happy you did?  What kind of things do you want remembered about you?  Now is the time to be that person.  Today is the day to make the changes, clean out your personality closet and be who you want to be in the end.  It is just too easy to get caught up in the craziness of life and suddenly find yourself far from the path you planned on traveling.  

Near the end of his address, Uchtdorf talks about letting ourselves be happy in life by finding the good in each day.  He says,


I really loved the quote he used, "One sees clearly only with the heart.  Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."  I followed the footnotes to look up where he found that quote.  I was lead to a children's book and made a crazy discovery.  In order to understand more, you must know that Dieter F. Uchtdorf is a pilot.  The author of the book, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a pilot in 1943.  The book is The Little Prince.  Apparently the author wrote the book just one year before he died in a plane crash.  {source}

Please forgive my copy&pastiness here, but it is late and I am too brain-dead to reword what I have read.  I found the following clip on ABEbooks.com:

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator 
is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey, the narrator recalls. Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket. And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions. 

The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. 


Please realize I only discovered the book tonight and I have not seen or read it myself, but it is certainly the newest book on my to-read list :0}  And as a children's book, it will be one that Emmalee and I explore together snuggled closely on the couch under a warm fleece blanket in the near future.  

Until then, here are the little handouts I made to go along with the lesson using the quote mentioned above.
I found these adorable blister party favors in the clearance section at Archivers, our local scrapbook store.  I found them just before Christmas, and now Archivers is out of business!!!  I searched online for where you would be able to find them, just in case you wanted some....and I can't find them!!!

All I found was that they are by Bo Bunny.  The are called Bo Bunny Clear Party Favors and the last post I can find where anyone mentioned them is this one by TheJoyofCrafting.  Soooooo...

Check your local scrapbook store to see if you can find them in the clearance section ;0}  In the meantime, my girls are going to each get a favor to remind them to look at life with their heart and not their eyes.  Find the joy in the journey, cause life is HARD but there is so, SO much good in life if we will seek it.

Have a great Sunday.  Take a little time to enjoy the simple things of your day ;0}

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Grand Birthday Slam

I made these birthday invites for Eli over the weekend.  He is turning 13 and is a little trickier to make birthday invites for.  We are going to a local party place called Grand Slam, so I jumped on the baseball theme right away.  I used the font "Team Spirit" downloaded a couple years ago from DaFont.  Once I had the card laid out, I used the Silhouette to cut the red, white, and blue papers.  I used the same shape from the front of the card to make the back of the card.  

The offset function of the Silhouette software made it all possible.  Let me know if you want to know more and I will make a tute, otherwise, I better get cracken' on my next project!
Have a great night!

Come Unto Christ

 
Worked with my Come Unto Christ image just a bit today.  Here are the versions I came up with.  Eli is demanding the computer, so I will be brief ;0}







All versions and a couple others are available HERE from my Dropbox!!!

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Kindergarten Party Prep

I have a Valentines Day party to get ready for!!!  I made a couple of printables today to use at the party on Friday.  Above is a Hershey Kiss Matching game.  Basically, you just use the kiss candies with images glued to the bottom as the matching cards.  Lay them out on the table, image down, and if you find a match, you get to keep the candy!!!

Oh, I forgot!!!  This file is a silhouette cut file!  That is why it isn't a full page of labels.  I had to leave those spots blank for the silhouette to do it's stuff.  You can download the file HERE from my Dropbox.  In case you have that Silhouette machine sitting on your table and you really have no idea how to use it {I have been there!!!}  Open this file when you are inside Silhouette Studio {the program that comes with your electronic cutter} and Click Print!   Once it is printed out, lay the paper like it looks on the screen, landscape style, insert the image on a cutting mat into your machine and push cut.  That is it.  I did all the work...until you break out the kiss candies ;0}  You know it is going to take a while to glue those labels on all the candies...but it will also be a huge hit with the kids!!!

Next, we will be sorting conversation hearts.  I made up these sorting cards using parts of the free kit mentioned below.  I plan to print out 6 and laminate them.  I don't plan to make one for each kindergartner, just enough for one station to use.   I plan to use this with the free printables I found over at PocketFullOfCenters.  If you follow the link, it is the very last option she has there.  It is free.  Did I mention that already???  You do have to sign up for Teachers Pay Teachers in order to get it, but it is totally worth it.

Anyway, we will give each student a box of conversation hearts to open and sort.  I plan to have the Tally sheet ready to do if there is time...or should I do the graph....I really can't decide and will probably keep changing my mind all the way up until Friday.  Ugh.

I also paid $1.50 to the same cute lady and bought her Colorful Hearts book.  
I played with it a bit to make the books quarter sheets instead of half sheets just to save on cost, but..ahem..totally worth paying a teacher $1.50 for such an adorable book.  I plan to cut out heart crayon holders and have the books put together and ready to go.  The kids will have 5-10 minutes to color their books and then move on to the next station.

Free Printable Valentine's Bingo Game
I think we will also play this free Valentine's Bingo game from CrazyLittleProjects.  Again, I will print out 6 cards, laminate, and use this game as one station at the party.  

Here is my dilemma.  We are only going to have four stations...1, 2, 3....4.
I already have four stations...
But I really wanted to make these cute little guys...
Valentine Pom Monsters

or..
Preschool Crafts for Kids*: Valentine's Day Mouse Preschool Craft
These little love mice from EasyPreschoolCraft.

orrrrr...
any of the other thousand things I pinned the other day.

Plus, I already bought sprinkles to decorate cookies.  


Sigh.


I guess I will have to make some choices eventually.
Anyway, here are some printables if you want them :0}


Novelty Print Quilt Pattern

I have had a hard time finding good quilt patterns for novelty prints the past couple times I purchased them.  I made up this pattern so tha...