Book Report Shirt

My little girlie has had an awesome school year! She's had a great teacher that assigns the kids in her class to create creative book reports (something more than a written essay on a piece of paper). When my girl came home from school and asked if we could make a book report tshirt at first, I told her, "no" and continued on with my day. I kept the thought of a book report tshirt on the back of my mind, before I decided that we could make it happen and that it would be good AWESOME project. I let the idea kick around in my head (and my girlie's head) for a couple of days before we got started. We talked about several different ideas (some of which included sharpies) and then dove into the project with a few supplies. My Silhouette Cameo was my best friend for this project. You should also know that I get ALL my vinyl from Expressions Vinyl, they're AWESOME!

 Book Report Shirt:

• Black Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Printable Heat Transfer Vinyl
• Glitter Heat Transfer Vinyl 
• White tshirt
• Silhouette Cameo

I started this project by taking a photo of the book my daughter was doing her report on (Jackie Ha-Ha).  I cropped the photo so just the cover of the book was showing in the photo and opened the photo in the Silhouette Studio software.

Tip: ALWAYS mirror your cut files before sending them to your Silhouette software when working with heat transfer vinyl. If you don't, you're image will be backwards when you iron it. I think that's the most important thing to remember. In the above screen shot you can see that I had mirrored the book image but not the words that go under the book. (I did mirror those images before I sent the other text to be cut.)
After I made sure the text matched and was the right size for the book cover, I removed them from the cutting mat and just printed and cut the book cover.

 This is what the printable vinyl looked like before I ironed it to the shirt. This printable heat transfer vinyl is seriously so cool! I can't wait to create more projects with it. My head is swimming with ideas!

 I kept each type of vinyl (ie. printable, glitter, and black) on separate cutting mats. It's just easier for me that way.

When my daughter had her summary written I typed it in the Silhouette software. I use a really basic font because there was so much text and we wanted it to be easily readable. 

I changed the mat size for the back of the shirt to a 12x24 mat size and cut the vinyl without a cutting mat. It worked like a charm.

Once we had all the vinyl cut and weeded, we were ready to start ironing. I just used my iron to transfer the vinyl. I have a heat press on my wish list, it would have made this job a lot easier. 

Everything fit just as I hoped it would and looked great! I added a piece of parchment paper over the vinyl. I just wanted to protect the tshirt. You could also use a heat transfer cover sheet. I had parchment paper on hand, so that's what I used. 

I started by transferring the book cover first (the printable heat transfer vinyl portion). I was giddy when I saw how it turned out. It looked awesome, so much better than I could have hoped for. 

I wish you could see this shirt in real life, it's SO cute!

The back of the shirt turned out awesome too. I was worried about transferring SO many letters. It worked perfectly though.

I think it's safe to say that my girlie had the best (most creative) book report in her class that day. She was so excited to wear her shirt while she gave the oral portion of her report. 

 

Just in case you're wondering, she did get an A on her book report ;)

This entire process was a lot of work but it was easy. I'm a huge fan of creative book reports and I think we created an awesome book report shirt, my girlie was happy and that's all that mattered to me. It's always nice to get a "mom wins" moment when the kiddo is happy!

How to Create a Handstitched Card Using the Silhouette Cameo

(This post contains affiliate links. For more details check my disclosure page)

Hello, I'm excited to share with you a tutorial for an adorable card using the Silhouette Sketch Pens. and the Silhouette Cameo. This is the card I created:

 I started by opening the “love” cut file in Silhouette Studio. I placed the cut file on the mat where I knew my card base would be. Then, I adjusted my cut setting to work with  the Silhouette Sketch Pen.

Then I sent my card base through my Silhouette Cameo with a black pen.

What I like about this technique is that you can use any color of pen or pencil to match the color of the embroidery floss you’d like to use for your hand stitching. For this card, I chose black.

After I had the lines drawn, I poked holes along each line with a paper piercer. I poked the holes about ¼ to ⅛ inch apart.

Then, I stitched all the way around the word “love” with black embroidery floss.

After I finished stitching I added a couple of small embellishments, a couple of strips of patterned paper, and a sticker to finish the card.

I love adding hand stitched elements to my paper crafting projects. It adds a personal handmade touch to any project.

Using the Silhouette and the sketch pens makes hand stitching that much easier.

I hope you love your Silhouette as much as I do? What is your favorite project using the Silhouette?

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Thanksgiving Favors

Today over on the Scrapbook Expo blog I'm sharing how to make these adorable Thanksgiving favors

Titles Die Cut into the Background

Christmas preparations are in full swing at our house, that's why it's been really quiet here on the blog. We're running from school events to church events and doing a little bit of shopping here and there. (I'm *almost* done shopping...not even close on wrapping though.) I'm looking forward to having the kids home from school for a while throughout the holidays. We're going to spend lots of time baking, reading, watching Christmas movies, and spending time with family. Now, if only my Mr. had a few extra days off work... 

While I taking it easy a few days ago I was very slowly working on some projects for Elle's Studio (they were supposed to be revealed on the 10th, oops!). For my last month working with Elle's Studio I decided I wanted to do my three projects with my titles die cut right into the background of my pages. This technique works best when you have a title that isn't very long and you use a blocky font.

 I cut "Cowgirl Princess" out with my Silhouette and outlined it with a black pen. I then placed a piece of red patterned paper behind the white cardstock...and I had an easy peasy title!

This next project is a little bit different because I used 2 fonts. I used a script font for part of the title and I used a blocky font for the main word in my title.

 If you're going to use this technique with a script font make sure the title is short enough that you can cut the letters in a large size.

 Instead of putting one solid sheet of patterned paper behind the "ROLL" portion of the title I put several strips of patterned papers behind the white cardstock.

 This last project was the most difficult. I did a lot of welding and very carefully placed the words in the title on this one. I wanted to make room for the embellishments on top of the white cardstock. I used a script font and a blocky font on this one too.

 Isn't that an adorable little tree? It's a cut file from Elle's Studio. You can find it HERE. I cut the tree out of green patterned paper and added a few enamel dots to make ornaments.

I love how my background die cut titles turned out. It was an easy (and inexpensive) way to make a big impact using only patterned paper and cardstock. Do you have an easy way to make your titles stand out? I'd love to hear your ideas.

American Crafts Valentines Blog Hop

 Happy Valentines Day!

Welcome to my blog for the American Crafts Blog Hop! I'm so excited to share a project about LOVE with you today. It's about love for shoes! I used the Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party collection for most of this project.

 I've been anxious to try die-cutting some of the transparencies with my Silhouette. It worked amazingly well! The little hearts are adorable. I hand stitched with red thread around them to make them stand out against the white background.

 And here's the final project! I simply adore how it turned out! Now, even though my little lady's shoes are gone we'll have the memory documented in her scrapbook.

Now you're off to the amazing Ashley Horton's blog. I know she'll have something incredible to share with you today! Thanks for stopping by! Please click the blue button to the right that says "join this site" so you won't miss any blog posts!

 {here's the full list of the hop so you won't miss anything}

Paige Evans

Meghann Andrew

Katie Ehmann

Patricia Roebuck

Lilith Eeckels

Becki Adams

Ashley Horton

Heather Leopard

Elizabeth Gardner

Gina Lideros

Diana Waite

Janna Werner

Jill Cornell

Erin Stewart

Angie Gutshall

Madeline Fox

Allison Waken

American Crafts

Have a wonderful day!!!

 

Turkey Dinner 2012, Documented

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away it's only appropriate that I share a project I created to document Thanksgiving of last year. My assignment from Bella Blvd was to create a layout using the Daily Chevies line combined with the Thankful line. Both of these lines are amazing (Thankful is one of my favorite collections ever) but I had no clue how I was going to pull them together with out it looking awkward.
When I got finished with the background it reminded me of a quilt, which is perfect for documenting a family turkey dinner.

So, let me know what you think. I kinda love it!

Have a great day, thanks for stopping by. Come back tomorrow. I'll be showing you my Thirty Grateful Days Album.