Custom Canvas Bag

Well if you remember I had a fiasco making a tee shirt using freezer paper as a stencil and some paint. Not being swayed by the failure I braved creativity in the pursuit of making a custom canvas bag.

After a recent trip to Yosemite and being deeply disappointed with their shopping bags I decided to make my own. So after downloading some images for the Silhouette and cutting them out with freezer paper, I was able to make my own bag. Not the best but not a bad attempt either.

Bathroom Rules

I love my silhouette and everything I can do with it. It's so versatile. And I think my daughter loves me being able to make all these fun things for her and the boys.

This project came around after I had seen a funny sign while in England so I knew instantly I wanted to make her a sign for her bathroom given she had 3 boys and when she opted for some blue and orange cups to help her organize her bathroom we both instantly thought Surfing and I knew I would use those colors to make the sign.

I purchased a standard white frame from Michaels and then just cut the lettering and adhered the vinyl, it looks great on the outside of the glass but I did think for those that did not want the lettering on the outside it would be simple enough to reverse the lettering and place it on the inside.

I also made her some larger orange fishes and "Surf's Up" lettering in blue to put on her shower door. She hasn't seen these yet but I am sure she will be delighted.

If at first you don't succeed

Try, try again, although I didn't really do the exact same thing. Just conquered making a tee shirt that I messed up earlier (if you remember this).

Since I originally bought the shirt in red online, I wanted to get this done so Marshall could wear it before the 4th. I went to Old Navy and bought a blue shirt which had a pocket. I removed the pocket and then applied the vinyl and while my daughter and I were out shopping we spied another shirt that a little boy was wearing and my daughter said she wish she had that shirt for Zack, so wish granted and I just bought and extra shirt at Old Navy and did these both in less than an hour.

And of course we went to A Children's Place lookign for solid tees which I didn't find any but did find these so bought these cute shorts for the boys. Light ones for Marhsall and Dark ones for Zack. I think they will look adorable with their 4th tees.

And another layout using a song lyric

So here is the other layout of my other grandbaby. The complete opposite and a really mellow and sweet guy. Obviously he deserved Elvis Presely's Burning Love.

How about a layout

I am a terrible grandmother, really I am..I took this photo of my grandbaby having a meltdown. Unfortunately he does this a lot. Mostly because he is at that awkward two year old stage and his speech hasn't fully developed for him to say what's on his mind. And pretty much anything can trigger it because he is a very emotional person. We have even joked that since my daughter didn't have any girls this is her drama queen. So I had to scrap it.

I love using music titles or lyrics for layout pages and when I saw this photo the song Emotional Rescue by the Rolling Stones immediately came to my mind. And since I was on a roll, I also made another layout which I will show later of my other grandbaby using another song lyric for a title.

Kraftin Kimmie Guest Contest

Ok I couldn't resist this challenge which simply asks that we use some bling and so far I've made two cards and not sure if I will have time to make more or not but at least here is a start.

First up is one of my favorite Mermaid stamps, Nerrisa and I used some diamond plate paper and a few jewled stars colored with copics for my take on bling.

Next I used Rachel and being influenced over the hexagon look I thought I would try it with hearts. And on this card Ijust simply used good old fashioned Swarvoski crystals along with some shiny epoxy hears from K&Co. And if you can count the Spica Copic pens which add some glitter as bling then I used those too! Wish I could have captured the nice sparkle the cyrstals give off so you'll just have to trust me it's there.

One Good, One Bad

Well, what can I say. Sometimes life just doesn't go the way you want it to. I wanted to make 4th of July tee shirts for two of my grandbabies and after figuring out my tee colors and the designs I decided to do one shirt with Vinyl and the other one with Paint. One went well and the other horribly wrong.

Now I am not afraid to show you my mistakes because I just feel it's good to learn from them and even better when someone else does it for you thus I choose to share with you my boo boo.

First up, lets look at the good. This shirt uses both vinyl and paint. I used a "Minnie" font to give it a bit of a child's look and thought it was a bit plain with just the text so added some fireworks that I did use with paint using the Cameo and freezer paper.

Freezer paper, if you didn't know is the poor man's stencil paper that works quite well. Lets face it I like to save money where I can but I also like to pay for value when it's needed. With freezer paper it's really about saving money and it's readily available in stores so you can use it when the mood strikes. It has a shiny side which you can iron on to various materials and it affixes quite well, sealing the edges of your stencil. You can use it with paint or sew with it. And in this case I choose to paint. And for the most part all went well on this shirt.

Now for the bad. I am still scratching my head wondering what went wrong. Again I used my cameo to cut my stencil, ironed it on to the shirt (I did have a bit of extra ironing because the centers for all those letters had to be applied) then painted it and let it dry overnight. When I went to remove the stencil..it was stuck to the shirt..it ripped, it peeled up the paint, it was just plain ugly. Frustrated I didn't want to give up. I tried to free hand and fill in the missing areas, but decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Then I thought I would just recut the stencil and iron it on, then I would simply paint in the missing spots. Sounds like a good idea, right? Wrong. The stencil would not align despite pulling the shirt up and down..over to the right, over to the left. I finally got it as close as I could, well it just didn't work and the shirt became one hot mess. The outlines of the letters were thick in some areas, extra thick paint in others despite my careful painting and I finally just decided to toss it and will simply try again.

What did I learn from this? One don't let the paint dry overnight. Remove it as soon as the paint has setup after about 5-10 minutes. Two if you really can, use vinyl first (which in hindsight I see that I could have but just simply had wanted to try paint)..and that is what I plan to do when I remake this shirt.

I will say this didn't kick my butt so that I am afraid to do it again, In fact I already have another project I plan to try and use the freezer paper and stencil on..I just hope I am now a little smarter. So there you go, lesson learned.

My latest discovery

So I have to tell you I love pancakes and waffles and we eat a lot of these at my house for dinner and for breakfast, imagine my extremely pleasant surprise when I stumbled across these ever so yummy sounding mixes called Shortstacks from Southern Culture foods.

I immediately went to their website to investigate but when I tried to order them through their website my browser and their site were not playing nice together so I travelled over to one of their suppliers Abe's Market. Little did I know this would be my new favorite place to shop.

Look at all the amazing goodies I bought, all natural products because that is all this store sells. Maybe others know about this gem of a store but for me it was a  new found best friend.

My haul....

I also have a deep fondness for Marshmallows..had to limit to these two flavors but they had many more

I think I had trouble stopping (ordered Peanut Butter Choc Chip, Bourbon Salted Pecan, Banana Pudding, amd Oatmeal Raisin)

Who can resist this yummy looking fudge, not to mention it was highly recommended by others

And lastly these granola bars to try. Wheat Free, Dairy Free, Soy Free and Vegan, hope they taste as good as they look. It's a great mid day afternoon snack to have at hand for work.

Because it felt so good

Well I have to admit it felt really good to color and play with some art supplies again so I decided to make just one more card. Again new KK stamp (just love these beach gals) and I think I got a little carried away with making a little scene. Anyways I used some Basic Grey and Echo Park pp along with Memory Box's Palm Tree dies and colored with Copics.

I ordered some shirts for the grandbabies so hope to have some 4th Of July Tee Shirts up soon. That and after my trip to Yosemite I decided their reusable shopping bags were lackluster and I decided I am going to try my own hand at making one.

Finally back to some craft time

After not being able to scrap for what seems like a good month I couldn't take it any longer and had to sneak in and at least do some coloring. It didn't hurt that I just got a new batch of Kraftin Kimmie stamps that are perfect for summer so after mounting my stamps I got right to work.

I just felt this cutie needed some summertime fun and decided to add some sand and if you can remember Magic Scrap products that's exactly where my sand came from. I love how it has a bit of glitter to make is shimmer and of course a few sea shells to bring it all together.

A glimpse of Giverny (Monet's Garden)

My mother and I both love to garden and of course both being fans of Monet's we knew this was one place we needed to visit while in France. I wanted to share with you a few pictures which honestly don't do it justice. It did rain on us that day one of the few days in our 2 week adventure in Europe so I feel we were pretty fortunate to have nice weather for most of our trip.

 Beautiful Tulips everywhere

Out at his lake. If you remember his water lilly paintings, this was his inspiration

Monet made his mini lake and used to haul things and bring vistors using boats. I don't think these are the original but adds a nice touch

Monet loved all things Japanese and had many drawings in his home (we weren't allowed to take photos) and as you can see the Japanese bridge and the whole lake was Japanese themed. This is the famous bridge that can be found in his paintings. There were two but this is the one he painted, thus why everyone felt the need that they had to cross it.



Here you can see his house in the backgound

One set of chickens on the property there was another kind (more long haired) but I only took pictures of these 

Tea Time - Gift Packs

When you have friends and you travel to Europe you kind of feel like it would be nice to bring something back that is reminiscent of the place you've been and at the same time doesn't cost a fortune to buy..so what to do what to do..ah I know how about some little packs of tea. Perfect for London. So being in Fortnum and Mason (known as the Queen's Grocer) and having Afternoon Tea (yes there is a difference from High Tea I will explain below) there I had the perfect opportunity to hit their store and find a nice assortment of teas.

One I got home I knew exactly what I wanted to do, wrap them up in some pretty ribbon and attach a gift tag. Hitting the Silhouette store I found a set of tea pots and cups and after ungrouping them I selected the cup and then resized it to fit the gift bags a little better. Then it needed a bit more so I spritzed the flowers with some Perfect Pearls to give it a little sheen and attached some leaves with the flowers..viola a nice gift for my friends for less than $5 ea.

What is the difference between High Tea and Afternoon Tea you ask. Well high tea is more of a working man's tea. When the workers would return home they would have a hot meal with tea which is more closely related to dinner.

Afternoon Tea was developed back in the mid to late 1800s by the 7th Duchess of Bedford. Basically tea was a high commodity imported from China and Japan and it was kept locked up to keep the servants from pinching it. The Duchess felt that taking tea late in the afternoon before dinner (even though they ate like 6 times a day was obviously not enough and dinner was often served around 8pm) found it to be very refreshing and began inviting other high society ladies. Tiny sandwhiches and petite desserts were served on the best china and thus it turned into a big social event with these women, sharing gossip and talking about all the latest fashions and of course you weren't anyone unless you were invited to one of these very elegant tea parties.

So whenever you want to try tea somewhere make sure it's an Afternoon Tea or Low Tea rather than High Tea otherwise you might be disappointed with what you are served.