Vinyl for Mylar Balloons!

Yet another use for vinyl! My son participated in a PURITY program that our church (Christ Community Church) teaches our youth (so proud!). Last Sunday was the ceremony where those who pledged their PURITY received a ring symbolizing that pledge and we had a banquet afterwards. I was asked to help decorate for the banquet by designing a centerpiece for the tables. We wanted to use alot of white to represent the word purity, and it was suppose to 'look' similar to what a wedding would look like... but not completely. So, I decided to make it more age appropriate by using mylar balloons and found these all white mylar stars and all pink hearts at my local Dollar Tree store. (I was actually there picking up all those glass candleholders for one of my cricut classes!) Well... the idea of using vinyl to personalize the balloons hit me, so I bought one just to test it out and see if it would work well with the balloon. I cut the crosses from the WEDDING SOLUTIONS cricut cartridge at 7" and place it on both sides of the pink heart.




Cut the word PURITY at 3". That went on one side of every balloon and '09 went on the other side.



I tried applying the vinyl both ways... with the mylar already filled with helium and with it flat. It was easier to handle without the helium... duh! Lol!



The Dollar Tree allowed me to purchase all the balloons... take them home flat... decorate them and then take them back to the store to have them filled with helium for no additional charge. As a matter of fact, the store manager, Ranay (in Frisco on El Dorado) was wonderful and very helpful with collecting all the white balloon weights and balloons.

Each centerpiece held 3 white balloons and one pink all tied to a white balloon weight.




So, I purchased 36 white stars and 12 pink hearts to make the 12 centerpieces at $1 each (that included the helium!) add the 12 $1 balloon weights for a total of $60. I used 1 pkg of white vinyl to cut 12 crosses and 2 pkgs of black vinyl for the word purity and '09 which cost me only $18. Total cost for 12 really cool, personalized and festive centerpieces = $72! My original budget was $120 ($10 per table). I was pretty pleased and so was everyone else. Everyone got to take the balloons home afterward!







Here is the pledge they made and signed, gonna be framed and hung in his room!



And here is the ring that my husband placed on our 17yo son's finger during the ceremony.



So... now you know... vinyl works well on mylar balloons too!

HOME DECOR Vinyl Wall Art

Now that I have discovered how to do wall art... I LOVE IT! I think I have actually bought more vinyl than paper lately.... okay, maybe not... that would be crazy! Doncha think?! LOL! Regardless... I have have been loving me some vinyl. This was a small little kitchen at a friend's place and we decided to use the 'Bon Appetit' from... you guessed it!... HOME DECOR!

The cake is from the CELEBRATIONS cartridge... that's a good ole faithful one! As a matter of fact, I will be teaching next week's creative critter classes featuring the CELEBRATIONS cartridge. I just love it and if you haven't fallen for it yet, take a second look. It's got some really fun stuff on it.

STORYBOOK CLASS

Wow! What a busy week! We started it with a Monday night Creative Critters class on the Cricut Storybook cartridge. Everyone got the Storybook manual in 8.5x11" format that has all the images numbered. The project for this class was to cut a stencil (using vinyl) from the STORYBOOK cartridge so we could use it to do some glass etching on a candleholder. We learned how to use the MIX 'N MATCH and FLIP creative features on the cricut expression.


First... I started by buying just a few (lol) candle holders at the dollar tree... yep, they are only $1 each.






Myriam & Sandy from my Monday night classes are loading the 3"x12" vinyl onto their mats.




More of the Monday night gang...





Lizzy & Marianne are loading their vinyl, I always recommend using a brayer to smooth the vinyl out and adhere to the mat better.





Lynn & Kenna from the Tuesday class just cut their stencil (full instructions are at the bottom of this post)






Everything in the stencil is from the STORYBOOK cartridge. The trailing butterfly is used on both sides of the word, but the one on the right side was flipped to face the other butterfly.









TIP: For small projects, I recommend that you use the sticky mats instead of transfer paper (as Kenna is doing below). It will save you time and money.



Because of the shape of our candleholder, Joy was able to just roll the glass container from one end to the other, eliminating wrinkles and air bubbles.




Line your edges up to the lip of the candleholder as you roll so that the stencil goes on straight.






Then you apply the etching cream generously.



There are several different kinds of products to use for etching glass. Some good... some not so good. The first one I chose was made by DELTA (Glass Etching Paint Kit) and was only $4.99 at my local Hobby Lobby. I thought, "Huh... only $5 bucks... I'll give it a try!" Well... don't do it! It was a total WASTE of my money! And you know what they say... "You get what you pay for!", and I did. So, I went back with a 40% off coupon and bought ARMOUR ETCH glass etching cream. It was $19.75 for a 10oz jar, but it works like a charm and fast too! The other stuff was messy, drippy and took up to a total of 10 days to complete! No lie! 10 days! The ARMOUR ETCH took only 2 minutes and was thicker, so didn't drip.



As you can see below, we just gooped it on...



waited 2 minutes...



Then after 2 minutes, remove the excess cream and put it back in your jar. Its expensive stuff, so reuse what you can.




Using regular tap water, just rinse the rest off... remove the vinyl stencil and wash thoroughly... and VIOLA! Instant personalized gift!



Truly these pictures do not do them justice... these turned out great. You could easily use them as candy dishes or candle holders and would make a very nice Mother's Day gift.





STORYBOOK was perfect for this project!

Louanne made this as a gift for her sister... turned out great!

Now here are the instructions so that you can do this too! Feel free to comment me any questions you may have!

SUPPLIES:
Glass Candle Holder
Adhesive backed Vinyl (approx. 4”x12” sheet)
Armour Etch Glass Etching Cream
Foam Brush
Water

CUT VINYL:
Load vinyl onto mat
Move blade housing in 1” and down 1” (this is important for making a stencil!)
Turn MIX ‘N MATCH feature key on
Select creative feature TALL/BORDER
Select Shift KEY 43 (butterfly2)
Select KEY 46 (M)
Select creative feature SHADOW
Select KEY 28 (O)
Select KEY 46 (M)
Select Shift KEY 43 (butterfly2)
Select creative feature TALL/BORDER
Select FLIP feature key

Check your PRESSURE (4/HIGH) and SPEED (3/MED)

Then CUT!

PLACE VINYL ONTO GLASS:
Gently pull the negative cut vinyl from the cricut mat
Place the vinyl face down onto the bottom of the cricut mat
Starting at one end roll the candleholder over the vinyl
Be careful of bubbles or creases
Lift ‘center pieces’ from mat and place on candleholder

GLASS ETCHING:
Apply etching cream as with a foam sponge, be careful not to get cream outside the edges of the vinyl. Wait a few minutes for the cream to set, then wash with regular tap water. Peel vinyl off and wash again. Then thoroughly clean the glass using glass cleaner.

Cricut Classes at the Hobby Lobby!

I was asked to 'demo' the cricut machine at the Frisco Hobby Lobby on Preston Road! What FUN!



I made this CUTE (at least I think so! LOL!) sign using MICKEY FONT for the word Cricut and of course, the word Demo is cut out of STORYBOOK... I wanted to put the 'socks' on the letters, but was afraid it would be too busy, so I just cut them at 6" in white and shadowed them in pink. I cut the Cricut word at 5" out of spring green gingham and shadowed it with white. I then cut the arrow out of a flowery paper with Graphically Speaking at 3". I printed a little sign about the classes on my computer and matted it with the matching green gingham paper and added a cute little flower w/a rhinestone on the top corner.



My 17yo son, Matt helped me with the demos and used the baby bug to cut out these cute little Happy Easter tags... he had all the teenage girls gathered around a couple of times and they all had fun.



These girls got really creative with their tags! They were so cute!



I demo'd the Cricut Expression with the Jukebox and advertised the new Cricut Classes that I will be teaching the Creative Critters Club EVERY TUESDAY in the month of April! Woohoo! Here are the dates & times:

April 14 - 9:20am: Feature cartridge is Storybook
April 14 - 1pm: Feature cartridge is Plantin Schoolbook
April 21 - 9:30am: Feature cartridge is New Arrival
April 21 - 1pm: Feature cartridge is Celebrations
April 28 - 9:30am: Feature cartridge Home Accents
April 28 - 1pm: Feature cartidge is Walk In My Garden

You can get more information and register for these classes at http://www.cropallday.com/ or comment here your questions or requests.

I am so excited about this new venture!

WILD CARD - Key30 Doily Card

I think that I just might like this card as much as I do the Argyle card! I made this one last month to send to my daughter for St. Patrick's day...

I started by cutting the envelope in green (envie as some would call it) FIT TO PAGE. It cut at 5".

Then I cut the liner for the envie in white at the same size. Each envelope on this cartridge comes with a liner option, they are not required, but add an extra touch to the envelope.

The scalloped card was cut at 5" too. I chose not to use the liner for the card and cut the word LUCKY from INDIE ART at 2".

The wording is stamped on and then I stickled the word LUCKY to make it shine.

One of my Creative Critter students, Deeann liked this card too and decided to make her own version...

I love how it turned out!

And I always think it is a compliment when someone uses something I made as inspiration! If you like this card and make one, too... please post a picture or link here... I'd love to see it.

CCC - Home Accents & Vinyl Lettering

FUN! No need to say anything else! Saturday's cricut class was great! We played with vinyl and everyone named and/or decorated their cricuts. We explored the HOME ACCENTS cartridge and learned how to use the transfer paper with the vinyl.

Deeann named her baby bug "Ribbit" because she really likes frogs... WAIT!... don't frogs EAT cricuts!! LOL! Below she is using the transfer paper to apply the vinyl letter to her machine. She chose to cut her lettering from the STORYBOOK cartridge.

See! Centered and straight! Thanks to the transfer paper!

Diane cut "Inspire" for one side and "Create" for the other side (both from the HOME ACCENTS cartridge)... it was beautiful. You definitely want to use the transfer paper for this cut, it

I love hearing the stories behind the names that were chosen for the cricuts. Marianne's nickname is "Weeble" because she had her knee caps removed when she was younger (seriously!) and has been known to wobble on occasion (Lol!)... and you know that ole' saying... "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down!" Hehehee So, she named her cricut, "Weeble"! The lettering was cut from the CUTTIN' UP cartridge and she used the 'Corner 1' from the HOME ACCENTS cartridge. The smaller cuts you see above the name are from the same key using the 'shift'.

Cheri used the DOODLETYPE cartridge for "Butterfly Baby" and the HOME ACCENTS cartridge for the delicate butterflies.



Here's the back...





I gave hugs to Cheri for doing so well!





I love it when my cricut students jump in to help the cricut beginners! Way to go Marianne! This was Nalani's FIRST cricut encounter!

I served yumdillyishshish chicken salad sandwiches for lunch, but since we were cropping til midnight... we HAD to make a dinner run to Rudy's BBQ round the corner!



Mother/daughter team, Marianne & Deeann.



Lastly, but not least... we just HAD to stop at the gas station on the way back from dinner so we could all buy lottery tickets! I not a usual lottery-playing-Texan, but it was fun to dream of winning for a couple of hours! LOL! And we all chipped in $1 and planned to split it if we won!




Oh... yeah... we didn't win! But it was still fun anyway!