I am so excited to start revealing some of what's been keeping me busy! You know that I love all things crafty and creative, I've shared my creativity with you for FOUR years now! In celebration of my four years as a blogger, I've kicked it up a notch! I am now bringing you what I call 'crafty cooking' with a new blog called TOPPER IN THE KITCHEN!
You might ask, "Who is Topper?"... well, that's ME! I'm using an old nickname to market a series of sites designed to educate and inspire in a creative and crafty way! Check out my first post HERE! It's a fun, easy way to make corndogs that are baked, not fried and totally full of flavor! So, come get crafty with me in the kitchen!
Don't worry, I won't be neglecting this site! I have some fun craftiness for you tomorrow that you are sure to love! Don't forget that I'm also giving away the STENCIL Project Cricut Cartridge this week! I will draw the winner tomorrow night and announce it on Saturday!
I am so excited to share this special project with you! My daughter, Samantha and I traveled to Memphis, Tennessee last week to spend some time with family. My cousins, Jes & Jonny are expecting. So while we were there we helped decorate my cousin's nursery as our gift to her and the baby. Her due date is February 24th so we are currently on 'baby watch'!
Our supplies for this project were very affordable:
I used brown vinyl and cut everything with a 12x12 cricut mat on my Cricut Expression 2. Abigail's name was cut with the font from BABY STEPS Cricut Cartridge at 10". Thanks to my gypsy, I was able to position all the letters on just 2 pieces of 12x12 vinyl. I then cut them out with my scissors and laid them out on the dining room table.
It was helpful that the table had lines on it, so I just used those to line my letters up. You can also use a yardstick or just the edge of a table to make sure you transfer the name/word straight.
I just 'eyeballed' the spacing between the letters, but you could use a ruler if you want to be exact. To keep the letters from moving around, I used a small piece of scotch tape to hold them in place.
The transfer tape comes in 12x24" pieces and there are two sheets in each pack. Abigail's name measured approximately 40" long, so I used both pieces of transfer tape.
To do this, all you need to do is overlap the transfer tape.
My font was cut at 10" and my transfer tape is 12" tall... but I still had a few letters go above and below the lines.
No worries though... just take a scrap piece of transfer tape and overlap it to extend over the letter.
Don't forget to burnish the entire thing with the provided popsicle stick or bone folder.
Gently peel the transfer tape back.
Ta da! Ready to apply it to the wall... except, did anyone notice that I misspelled her name? Yikes! I left out the second 'i'! Good thing I noticed before applying it to the wall, but even if I hadn't, vinyl is removeable... so it is still fixable.
Using either your gypsy or Cricut Craft Room will allow you to get the most out of the vinyl you are using. I was able to cut 112 leaves out of only 8 pieces of 12x12 vinyl.
We layered pink vinyl leaves over the brown vinyl leaf shadows (PLANTIN SCHOOLBOOK). Normally I would be OCD about the leaves being green, but because the nursery colors are these pretty pastels with a brown and white base... the pink leaves looked awesome!
(Cousin Mandy helped with this part! That was alot of leaves!)
Here is the nursery BEFORE...
I could have cut my tree trunk and branches out of vinyl too and pieced them together to make the whole thing. But it was way easier and less expensive to just purchase brown paint and paint the tree onto the wall. Samantha and I free-handed the outline of the tree with a pencil and then started painting.
Just remember to keep you strokes going all in the same direction.
Here is our completed project!
I was inspired when I found this project on PINTEREST. It was originally hand painted by a lady named Sharon Kuplack who owns 'Whimsical Walls". Talk about talented! Oh, my gosh! I truly enjoyed browsing her website and would recommend her to anyone. Of course, she lives in Wisconsin and is not readily available to everyone, but I truly appreciate the inspiration she gave me!
Let's start this week out right with a giveaway! I have another STENCIL Project Cricut Cartridge to giveaway!! Leave a comment and tell me if you have tried cutting vinyl for your walls yet!
First let me apologize for the extreme delay in my giveaway and take care of that immediately:
The winner of the CRICUT STENCIL CARTRIDGE is:
The Fillhard's said... There are some nice cartridges this month. I really like the baby shower one, a lot of it can be used for more than baby things. I also like the new Font Candy, looks like a lot a great new and different fonts. The Imagine card cartridges also looks great. Thanks for the chance to win the Stencil cartridge, I really need this for my daughters room that we are going to redo soon. Christi fillhardfarm at ymail dot com January 20, 2012 5:49 AM
CONGRATS Christi!! Please email me at cc.ladybug@yahoo.com with your mailing address.
Hold on to your socks, because I have TEN new cricut cartridges that are gonna blow them off!
BABY SHOWER PROJECT CRICUT CARTRIDGE
BRIDAL SHOWER PROJECT CRICUT CARTRIDGE
ELMO & FRIENDS HOLIDAY CARTRIDGE
FUN IN THE SUN CRICUT LITE CARTRIDGE
GIANT FLOWERS PROJECT CARTRIDGE
GREETING CARDS INSIDE & OUT IMAGINE CARTRIDGE
LETTER ENVY FONT CRICUT CARTRIDGE
CIRCLE EXCLUSIVE
MY QUIET BOOK PROJECT CRICUT CARTRIDGE
OLE CRICUT CARTRIDGE
TYPE CANDY FONT CRICUT CARTRIDGE
Talk about FUN cartridges!! I really love the two font cartridges! Which ones are your favorites? Leave a comment and let me know. I will give away the STENCIL PROJECT CRICUT CARTRIDGE to a lucky winner on Friday, January 27th!! Leave a comment and make sure you are a follower of my blog and you could be that lucky winner!
Today is HELLO THURSDAY, so I will be sharing new and exciting cartridges with you later. First, I want to announce the winner of the CRICUT MINI....
Anonymous said... I just discovered your blog and subscribed right away! I'm new to the cricut world, but am loving it already. I would love to win this cute little machine.
Megan January 16, 2012 12:10 PM
Congratulations Megan! Please email me at cc.ladybug@yahoo.com with your contact information!
Today, I'm featuring the new NEW ENGLAND SHORE digital cartridge. This cartridge represents the New England area, but I actually plan to use it on my cruise albums that I STILL have not completed! Every image on here can be used for a cruise and you can buy all six images for only $9.99.
I chose the compass image to use on a scrapbook page about how we got lost on our way to the ship! LOL! Since I am giving a cute little CRICUT MINI away this week... I will be using my MINI (noooo... not a Mini Cooper either! lol) all week!
The compass is a total of 4 pieces which I cut out at 7".
Gotta love a little inking...
To add some dimension, I used pop squares for the center part of my compass
Q
Ta-da! Looks good!
I used PACK YOUR BAGS cricut cartridge for my page title...cut it out at 2". It was perfect!
I wanted a clean simple look for this page and I love how it turned out!
Even added a little bit of bling... !
Don't forget that I am giving away a cute little CRICUT MINI this week!! Just leave a comment on any or all of my posts this week and YOU could be the winner!
