Weddin' Work

Done!  I just finished scoring 200+ tent cards so we can get the little cow, chicken, or carrot stickers on them.  I don't want to give too much away, but this is just a peek at what Madison and I have been up to lately.  We are helping a friend of a friend with their wedding this weekend and just getting the finishing touches on a few things....and just starting a few others ;0}

I think you could sit down with a fresh bowl of ice cream and search Pinterest for a good solid 12 hours for placecard ideas and walk away more confused than when you first sat down.  Lucky for us, the bride and groom knew just what they wanted.  They ordered these SoSweEt luggage tags to let the guests know what table they will be sitting at.  Also, instead of table numbers, the tables will have names of places significant to the bride and groom.  Our job was to print the tags with the guest name and table name, then assemble the luggage tags back together.  I also have to make some holder thingys....like tomorrow.  3 more working days.  Keep your fingers crossed!

I spent a few hours designing signs too.  Here a just a couple...Remember these are mock-ups, or options, not final products!

Game Room signs.  I am kinda partial to the bottom one, but whatev.

Restroom signs.  Again, kinda partial to the bottom one, but who's counting.

And even funner {it's a work in my world}, The 7-11 signs.  The last name happens to be Levy!  How handy is that.  Let's start playing on words people!

And I guess you will just have to wait to see which version the bride and groom went with for over their slushy machine.  My backup plan was...

Love is Mushie

Have a Slushie.

Brilliance, I know.  Where do I come up with this stuff.

One last sign, I found a cute photo sign HERE 

and just added to it to make the sign below...

For the photo booth area.  Otherwise, people will just think it is a dress-up station at a wedding and that would just be weird.  It is obviously past my bedtime on a day of 16 hours solid staring at computers and papers that came out of computers.  I will save you from more torture and go to bed.  Have a great night!  More wedding worken' coming up!

Graduation Sign-In Sign

Alright, remember last week when I posted about the grad party???

Well, I forgot to tell you about my sign.  It isn't anything special, but I seriously went to bed thinking about it, then woke up in the dead of night, sitting straight up in bed with this sign in my head.

I tried to type it into my note app on my phone, and made a miserable mess, but this is basically what I came up with.

It was supposed to say When you're college bound, 

New friends, New town...

But graphically, it fit better to switch the friends and town.  However, for the rest of the week I had this little nails on chalkboard feeling in the back of my head about that being switched.  I am sure it is just an OCD thing, but still it drives me crazy.  

I have the file and a silhouette cut file in my dropbox if you want them.  Feel free to move the friends and town back the way they are supposed to be to make the little rhyme flow better ;0}

I cut the words out of vinyl, and added them to a piece of wood I had already painted and ready to go from some other project.  Lucky for me they fit and I was off to another party plan ;0}

Personalized Wooden Cars Sign

My cute little friend at church asked if I might be able to make a Cars sign for her son, but personalize it with his name.  I was originally thinking she wanted like Lightning McQueen with Brody's name on it or something like that.  I guess it just shows how long it has been since my little boy was all about the movie Cars. 

I was a little taken back by this symbol, but eventually figured it all out.

First stop was to make the printable.  It took a bit to get shadows and such with my measly little scrapbook program, but I was thrilled with how it turned out.  The original idea was to make the printable and just mod podge it to a wood cutout.  Once the printable was done, I started to think a wooden sign would be possible.

I grabbed a couple of handy panels of mdf and got cutting.  This sign is actually three pieces stacked together to give depth.  I used 1/2" mdf for the back piece, an outline of the whole sign.  It would be possible to just cut the v shape that is in the background, but it wouldn't be as sturdy or ...just nice, as it is when the back piece is solid.  

I then cut the whole grill front out of 1/4" mdf and then just the red name plate out of 1/4" mdf as well.  

I painted all the metal parts grey, and then with a sparkly metallic paint.  With those metallic paints you want a solid color base coat or they don't show up as well.  I painted the name plate red, then used a burnt umbery, brownish red to make the subtle chevron background.  The original image has stripes, but since the chevron is trending right now I went with chevron as the background.  Either way you go, it is really a nice touch to add that slight contrast in the background.  Having a pattern in the background softens it and adds texture and complexity to the project with little effort.  Those additions make things more exciting ;-}

I was going to cut the name out of wood, paint it and try to glue it on there, but let's face it.  I have been overcome with laziness with this long winter and I just didn't have it in me.  I ended up cutting the name three times out of vinyl.  I cut the black name above out of black vinyl and a medium grey vinyl, then I cut the grey name above out of a shiny metallic grey vinyl.  Once I had all the extra scraps of vinyl weeded off the backing sheet, I used my transfer tape as the tool to line everything up before placing on the board.  

I stuck the transfer tape to the shiny metal, bits and pieces Brody vinyl.  Once that was all attached to the transfer tape I pulled the transfer off the backing and then centered the attached shiny metal vinyl over the medium grey vinyl so they were right on top of each other.  After I had two of the three vinyl names stacked, I added the third by once again centering the transfer tape over the black, triple checking that everything lined up, and then placed the transfer tape on top of it so that the black was shadowing the grey.

Here is that picture again.  

Telling you what I did with the vinyl is way more complicated than actually doing it ;0}

I triple sprayed everything with Rustoleum 2x clear spray paint, glossy, to give it that shiny Cars shine, lightly sanded edges, then wood glued it altogether.  So fabulous!  Wow Lauren.  That was a totally fulfilling project.  I wasn't sure how I was going to do it at first, but the finished product made it all worth it.  Thanks for asking!

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:

Cars Sign .png

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!

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. 

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/11/blue-gold-early-birds.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/04/blue-and-gold-inspiration.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/western-theme-blue-and-gold-prints.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/great-outdoors-photo-cubes.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/angry-bird-printables.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2013/01/magic-b-cubes.html

Pirate printables HERE

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}

B&G Lego Cubes

Yep!  Another set :0}

Have I mentioned that I REALLY like the Cub Scout program and what it does for little guys?  

Here is a set of printables for a LEGO themed Blue and Gold Banquet.  I made these prints thinking the cubes could be painted blue.

I have to say, this set of prints was actually the worst set to do.  The LEGO font wouldn't work in my program I normally use, so I had three different programs up trying to copy and paste and cut back and forth between all three programs.  Not Fun.  Totally worth it if even one scout troop can use them, but...not fun!!!

{Te-hee}  do you like how my lego cub scout has his two fingers up whilst reciting the promise?  I am just so clever.  Or at least a bit sleep deprived.  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. 

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/11/blue-gold-early-birds.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/04/blue-and-gold-inspiration.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/western-theme-blue-and-gold-prints.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/great-outdoors-photo-cubes.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2012/01/angry-bird-printables.html

http://sewcakemake.blogspot.com/2013/01/magic-b-cubes.html

Pirate printables 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}

On Loan

Just working on my lesson for tomorrow.  I am teaching about the principle of tithing.  This quote by John MacArthur really stuck out to me.

Here is a full page version that can be printed out for the class.  Want a copy?

You can download it for free HERE with dropbox :0}

Happy Saturday!

New Cub Scout Printables...or just different :0}

After a special request for a BLUE version of this print, I was shocked I didn't think of it myself!

Here are a couple variations on the popular original {black and white}

If you are in want of any of these files they can be downloaded from my Cub Scout file found HERE with  Dropbox.

Girls Camp Paper Bag Album

It is done!  I stayed up until 3 am finishing the kits for the girls so they could have them today as they headed to Wisconsin for camp.

Brace yourself for lousy pictures and terrible grammar travesties thanks to my overwhelming lack of sleep.  Madison woke me up to the fact that the dryer didn't dry her clothes and she was an hour from leaving for camp.  I woke up just enough to tell her to put them through the dryer again, only to find out a half hour later it still didn't dry her clothes.  I tried to hold my tongue as long as I possibly could before the "you never wait until midnight the night before leaving to wash your clothes" speech came tumbling out of my mommy mouth.

Dad discovered that there was a huge, huge ball of lint in the dryer exhausty thingy...speaking of exhaust...um...yeah, OK, so we ran Madison to her ride to camp and dried her clothes.  I will be running them to the second load of girls going up to camp and then finally getting a little more sleep...if Emmers will let me :0)

OK, so I made up 15 kits.  Surprisingly, these albums only cost just over $1 each to make.  I did use some supplies I already had on hand and did not include them in the cost breakdown, but they really were cheep to make.

I made the books out of 8 paper lunch bags.  I will show you how to assemble a book at another time {really want to do our Disney books this way FINALLY}, but for now you will have to settle for the lousy phone pics of the pages.  My camera was dead when I set about taking pictures last night.  After staring at the wall for like 10 minutes I remembered that my phone takes pictures too :0)  

I am telling you, it was a very late, very non-brain-involved night.

OK, Front cover.  You will notice that the clipart I made last week is used throughout the book and has been colored with colored pencils {thank you Madison!-gotta love slave labor}

I ended up using my sizzix to cut the bag-opening-end of four of the bags so you would notice the note cards inside just a bit better.

The leaders requested extra journalling space, so I just used 4x6" index cards.  They were so fabulous I used them on most of the pages as well.

Tent Sweet Tent

Notice that the tent clip is glued onto a half page, made by gluing the folding ends of two paper bags together.  Love the half pages!

The "S'mores" clip is on the other side of the half page from the tent.  I used my sizzix to cut the scalloped circle shape into 4x6 index cards. 

Girls Camp Buddies

Next is the leader set of pages.  Above is the page for adult leaders.  The white card is also an index card.  It sure cut down on my work making the kits to just use the pre-cut index cards!  And they are only $1 for 100!!!  

I figure they can either glue a picture over the index card, or use these books more like a yearbook and have leaders and friends sign the books.

Page for the Youth Camp Leaders

Canoeing.  Again, either put pictures here or journal about the water fun.

Hiking.  I thought it was a little funny that I made the clip are say "I hike by faith" and then found out that our theme this year was Faith.  I did worry that the "hike by faith" thing was a little cheesy, but Madison assured me it was fine.  We will find out if she is right.

Random page...

Campfire songs and archery pages.

And the last two, a journaling page and a page for the testimony meeting.

I figure the girls can either put a picture here or write their testimony, or both!

I bought all my paper at Joann's last week when it was on sale 5 for $1.

I left the back blank.  The paper lunch bags come 100 to a pack, so if you do 8 bags per book you can totally get 12 from one $3 pack of bags.  Nice!

Now, when you put the pages together, you can do it so you don't need to bind them.  Since this is a book about camp and rustic is totally in for that theme, I went ahead and just tied each page into the book using hemp string.  Then I tied some random ribbons on the binding for added flare.

Here is a top view of the paper bag album.  Had I just a tad more time, I would have made these cute bands to hold the books shut...

shown over at FabYouBliss.

Here are some of the tags.  I only did four in my sample book, but all of the bag pockets are open so they can be stuffed to the brim with pictures, handouts, and random bits of nostalgia.  

I originally punched holes in the tags, but ended up just stapling the ribbons to the ends.  I would recommend that method to anyone :0)

So, just in case you missed my clipart post, 

The file is free to download HERE with dropbox.  No account necessary, but after using dropbox for a few months, I really can't think of a single reason why you WOULDN'T want to use it! 

 I {HeaRt} DropBox!!!