Coffee mugs - Vinyled

In a previous post I personalized 2 coffee mugs to give as Christmas presents and now I have more to show off!

I used the same dark red mugs with a dark brown on the inside that I found from Walmart. The front of the mugs has the individual names and then I used a different coffee design for the back of the mug. The coffee sayings and designs I found online from Laura which was on her blog, The Alliance Trader.

The pictures below show the new coffee mugs.

The next coffee mug is a gift to a hair dresser. The saying on the back says "I'm a Beautician not a Magician".

The front of the cup has the person's first name on it just like all of the other coffee mugs. Here is a picture of some of the mugs together!

I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year!

Picture Frame - Vinyled

This project was a fun project to complete as I haven't worked much with flowers and picture frames and I knew who was the intended recipient of the gift. I did make the "giver" sit at my computer and pick out the flowers, the sizes and the colors as she had a "vision" and I didn't want to change that. I also had her put the flowers on the frame.

We started with a nice frame from Target.

I then added the saying on the top that said "Friends are flowers in the garden of life." and the bottom of the frame I added the names "Grace and Olivia". The two girls are best friends and have been in daycare together since infants and now are in preschool together! Now the frame is starting to look pretty nice.

After the flowers were picked out and cut, my part was done. I wanted the "giver" to put on the flowers in the design she wanted to not interfere with the most important part of the project that you will see in a little bit. Since we are putting the flowers on the back side of the glass, I cut the designs in reverse and pointed out to put the flower on first, then the stems to ensure the layering looked right from the front.

And now the frame looks like this!

And now with the final piece completed, we have a very nice collage of pictures of the two little girls from babies to nearly 4 years of age!

I love how the project turned out and on how creative my friend is to come up with this project all by herself!

Cutting Board - Monogram

A few weeks ago my husband asked me for glass cutting boards for Christmas. It makes sense as I have made quite a few glass cutting boards for other people but yet we have really old cutting boards that are probably filled with bacteria as they have scratches and cuts all over them. So I figured, if he wants new cutting boards then I am going to decorate them with some vinyl.

And if my husband is reading this and it's BEFORE December 25th, please click the "X" in the upper right hand corner of this page as you are to stay off of this page until AFTER Christmas! :)

This project was much harder then I anticipated as I wanted to do something different. And since I haven't really worked much with arches and putting text on circles, I spent a considerable amount of time learning this task instead of just designing. The program I use isn't the easiest for doing this either which does not help at all. Then to make things more difficult I wanted to have two colors on the cutting board and trying to layer that was a little tedious. In the end, I was able to make things work and it was definitely worth any frustrations I may have experienced.

The picture below shows the design cut in two pieces based on color.

Notice I also had to cut the items "flipped" as I am putting the vinyl on the backside of a glass cutting board. I won't mention how many times I have forgot to do this important step and had to throw away a complete sign, typically after I weeded out all the excess vinyl before realizing the sign is actually backwards! Or I actually remember to flip the sign but then use "indoor" vinyl instead of "outdoor" vinyl. Indoor vinyl will not stand up to water and then I end up with ANOTHER sign to throw out as it's flipped and won't work for most other projects!

The next picture shows the red sign now layered on the black sign with transfer tape on. This step is hard as you have to line it up right the first time or you will start all over by cutting a brand new sign....there is no "redo" button!

Now the next picture shows the vinyl on the cutting board. It still looks backwards because we are looking at the cutting board from the underside of it. This is where I place the vinyl so you do not actually cut on it, it shows through the glass to the front.

And now when looking at the glass cutting board from the top of the board, we have the finished product!

I love the 2 different colors on the cutting board! Hopefully, my husband will like it too!

Christmas Charger

This post will be short and sweet as I just wanted to share a new Christmas Charger that I made for our neighbors. They always come over with a huge plate of home made goodies or other treats for every special occasion. So I try and find little gifts that I can make to return the favor, that and they are the best neighbors we could ask for!

I'm not exactly sure where I found this saying as I know I found it off the Internet. If I do not give someone proper credit for it, I apologize, but it has been sitting in my huge list of files for over a year now. I love the saying and it fits my neighbors perfectly. I used light beige, outdoor vinyl on a dark red Christmas charger and here is my finished product.

I like it as the plate and design is nice and simple, but displays a very meaningful message. I hope my neighbors like it as well!

Kitchen Aid Mixer - Subway Art

I love Subway Art and recently came across a wonder blog, called "A Little of this, a little of that" and the topic I read was about Subway Art. And the lady, Sarah, designed a file using Subway Art specifically for her Kitchen Aid mixer! The finished designed was awesome and I was able to get the file from her!

This is my boring Kitchen Aid mixer.

And this is my Kitchen Aid mixer with dark red Subway Art!

And these are my two little bakers using the newly decorated mixer!

Personalized Coffee Mugs

My youngest boy is in his first year of preschool and loves it! There are 20 kids in class with 2 teachers and after each class Kevin is bragging about what they learn, the snacks they ate and every other little detail of class. With Christmas coming, I wanted to give a small gift to the two teachers and decided on this:

Ok, I am not going to just give one coffee cup as a gift where they must take turns using it...that would be a little cheesy (and cheap!). I picked up two of these coffee cups and then turned to my ever loyal Cricut to dress it up a bit. I first started with their names.

Just adding the names makes the cup look a lot better (and not so cheap!). Then I found a coffee saying online from Laurie at her blog, The Alliance Trader. Now my cups looks like this!

I haven't decided what yet, but I will fill up the cups with some yummy treats, add our family Christmas card and have my son give his teachers their present at their Preschool Christmas party. The project was very simple but I'm hoping adding a little bit of vinyl makes a nice, personalized touch for the teachers.

Cindy

Christmas Ornaments

Christmas ornaments are fun to make and very popular. Each ornament has a name on the front and then 3 or 4 snowflakes around the ornament. Last year I made a bunch and now have a few more to show off. It is very difficult to take decent pictures of these (or maybe it's just me) so I apologize ahead of time for the quality of the picture. In person, the ornaments look great!

And here is another example of the one set of ornaments. I have a new camera so am trying different settings to see how things turn out!

Cutting Board - Bon Appetit!

I have done several cutting boards in the past and am now receiving more requests for these with Christmas almost here. This is a new design that I have for the cutting board and I think it turned out great!

I used outdoor, dark brown vinyl on a 10 x 15 cutting board. I cut the image in reverse and placed it on the backside of the cutting board. So it's safe to cut, safe to wash and you have a nice picture to look at or display while using the new cutting board!

Modern Typography Birth Print

In a recent post, I vinyled a ceramic Piggy Bank for a baby gift. This time I went for the modern look and created a custom picture frame with the important birth information of the newborn. I did not think of this all by myself but found some really good ideas on the Internet, specifically from the Mosies Posies shop on Etsy. Her specific idea that I loved and wanted to recreate looked like this:

I took the idea of the custom birth prints and recreated it using Microsoft Publisher and Word Art. I found out that the nursery is decorated in soft green and dark brown so I used those colors and then added pink (it's a girl!). I also took an old picture frame and spray painted it white. And my "Modern Typography Birth Print" looks like this!

Christmas Subway Art with Canvas

With Christmas arriving very soon, I have many gifts to make and orders to fill. I really like the look of Subway Art and wanted to make something special for my son's Kindergarten teacher. While looking online for ideas I came across the Crafty Sweet Peas blog and the perfect Subway Art file! I normally design my own but after seeing how nice this design was I went ahead and purchased Barbara's file.

I painted a 11 x 14 canvas a Santa Red and then used white vinyl. And this is my finished Subway Art canvas!

The canvas above was completed with indoor, non-glossy vinyl. I really liked how it turned out and with the vinyl sticking so well on the painted canvas I could have just quit here. But I wanted a shiny finish so I covered the canvas with 2 coats of Modge Podge to achieve the following glossy finish.

It may be hard to see the glossy finish in the pictures but if you could see it in person, there is truly a big difference. And Special Thanks to Barbara Sweetpea from Craft Sweet Peas for the file and for her genuine and thoughtful emails in regards to my project, the file and everything else!

Cindy

Ceramic Tiles - Vinyled

I will have more Christmas items posted very soon but wanted to also post on two vinyl ceramic tiles I just completed. I have used the sayings before but they were on black Marble tiles.

The pictures below show the two new tiles I just completed. : )

Vinyl Signs

I just posted a blog on the Ceramic Pig with my new camera and then realized I have several vinyl signs I made that I could also showcase. Of course, those signs are now in the mail and you will have to settle with the pictures off of my old, and very obsolete, camera. : )

I have three signs completed in dark brown vinyl in three different sizes. The first sign says "Home Sweet Home" and is about 24 inches wide and 6 inches tall.

The next sign says "The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home" and is 24 inches wide and about 12 inches tall.

The last sign I had to cut on 2 sheets of vinyl. You will see temporary markers on the sheets and that is to help the customer line up the sheets on the wall. The overall sign is 36 inches wide by 12 inches tall. Because I can only cut 24 inches wide, I had to use two sheets to complete the sign.

Ceramic Pig - Vinyled

Today is a great day! My Christmas present came early and I am trying it out for the first time on my newly vinyled Ceramic Pig! I have many new settings and upgrades on this camera and that may be reflected on the upcoming posts as I'm trying to figure out how to use it!

Anyway, I just finished a special baby gift by using vinyl, a hair bow and a ceramic pig. I chose two different shades of pink for the main colors and a pink bow...can you tell the baby is a girl?!!?!?

Below is my finished product!

Christmas Tile - Vinyled

This project was another "prize" I made for our first ever Cookie Exchange party! This prize was super easy to make and turned out great! Last Summer a good friend of mine gave me several boxes of 12 x 12 tile that she no longer needed. Some of the tiles in the box was broken but I didn't want to just throw them out. I found a tile that was broken perfectly so that instead of it being 12 x 12, the tile was now about 9 x 12.

I took this tile and painted it red (took several coats) and then added a coating of Modge Podge on it. With the "Merry Christmas" sign I found and purchased the file online, then can cut the image with my Cricut. Once I placed the sign on the tile, I added another layer of Modge Podge to secure everything and to give a nice, glossy finish to it.

My broken 9 x 12 tile now looks like this!

Christmas Subway Art

In an earlier post I talked about the first ever Christmas Cookie Exchange Party I co-hosted. In that post, I needed to make some prizes for several contests we were having at the party. My first prize was a Christmas Subway Art picture frame that I designed. The supplies I needed was a large picture frame, blue poster board and white spray paint. I went to my local Goodwill store and found a picture frame for $3, the Dollar Store had a big sheet of light blue poster board for $0.50 and then my husband picked up a bottle of satin white spray paint at the hardware store. This is what I started with:

And this is my finished product!

Normally, when I vinyl picture frames, I cut the vinyl in "reverse" and then place the vinyl on the backside of the glass. This way you can easily clean the front of the glass and not worry about putting any cleaning spray on the vinyl. But, this time I placed the vinyl directly on the blue poster board. I really didn't notice much difference in the end result by doing this. My other reasoning behind this was that you could easily change out the poster board and add other subway art designs for other seasons. I could make a red subway art sign for Valentine's Day or 4th of July, etc... and can re-use the same frame.

Anyway, I found the original idea of the Christmas Subway Art on Etsy and the person was selling just the vinyl for $20. For under $5 I not only have the Subway Art vinyl but the entire frame by using a little spray paint, checking out Goodwill and the Dollar Store and using my Cricut!

Cookie Exchange Party

I know it's been awhile since my last post but with a very busy Thanksgiving weekend and the holidays quickly approaching, time is going by way too fast! One of the activities that I have been working on for the holidays is a Christmas Cookie Exchange party! The last two weeks I have spent quite a few late lights, along with my best friend who co-hosted the party with me, making prizes, establishing a set of "rules", creating decorations, baking and everything else that a successful party requires! The "rules" was my favorite part of the party, this was needed to ensure that all cookies were "baked", everyone came with a minimum number of cookies, everyone had an ugly Christmas sweater and most importantly, no kids or husbands came to the party! This was a Cooke Exchange Party, but it also was a fun night for just the ladies!

This was our first attempt at such a party and is now going to be an annual tradition. Including us (the two hostesses), we had a dozen people at the party with nearly 40 dozen cookies plus plenty of appetizers and drinks. The picture isn't the greatest but here is the table with all of the cookies the ladies brought to the party!

We also had prizes for 3 categories which was the Best Looking Cookie, Most Creative Recipe and the Ugliest Christmas Sweater. We obtained a copy of each recipe ahead of time, made copies and handed them out at the party so everyone went home with a recipe of all of the cookies at the party. And this allowed everyone to vote for the "Most Creative Recipe". I should have taken pictures of the winners of each category, especially the "ugliest sweater". It may be too late for that, but I do have pictures of the prizes that I made for the party. Each prize was made out of vinyl and I think turned out great! The Red Vinyl sign is made out of tile, the Subway Art Sign was a Goodwill frame that I re-painted, both of which I will post a separate blog on how I made them in more detail!

I wrapped up all of the "prizes", we placed them under the Christmas tree and the winners unwrapped their presents to reveal their prize! I hope everyone had a lot of fun and I think, come next year, there will be very little things I would want to change when it comes time to prepare for our "2nd Annual Cookie Exchange Party"!

Super Hero Room - Finished!

Finally, after many posts on my son's Superhero room - it is finally finished! I am sure....that I will find more "little" things to add, but for now it is done. I love the fact that nearly the entire room is made by "me"! The only things that I could not make was the bedding, new trash can (aka laundry basket), and the Superhero wall stickers.

I will forewarn you that this post will have many pictures but short of taking a video, this is the best that I can do. I will try and explain things the best that I can while showing the pictures.

As you open the door, this is the first thing that you will see.

The sign is a picture of Batman and Robin that I made in vinyl. To finish the picture I added the words "Welcome All SuperHeros" in dark blue vinyl.

To the very right of this wall, we took the Batman logo we had made for a different project and oversprayed it with black spray paint. Then I took bright yellow vinyl and added "Batman" inside the logo to achieve the following effect.

To the left of the "Welcome All SuperHeros" sign, is the main part of the bedroom. Following around the wall is the closet. I moved my son's letters that was on a different wall and placed them to the right of the closet. And then added just a few small Superhero stickers on the closet doors and above the closet.

The next picture shows part of the closet and then the next, main wall of the room. This is really the first wall you see once you walk past the door and this is where my son's name was previously placed. The picture below shows the new Batman sign we made, which is just fabric wrapped around a wooden frame my husband built. And you will see a few Superhero stickers on the small "dresser" that is below the Batman canvas.

This next picture shows the entire wall. The Spiderman canvas is another piece of fabric, but this time we wrapped it out of 1 1/2 inch stryofoam that we had Lowes cut for us. And the Incredible Hulk sticker I bought online. I made "The Incredible Hulk" in dark green vinyl.

To the left of this wall, is the Captain America sign that I made out of stryofoam. I have never worked with stryofoam before and was amazed by what can be created with this and how inexpensive the product is. I have several posts about the stryofoam signs I made so I won't go in detail here. But this is the Captain America sign I made and then I added a small Captain America wall sicker next to it.

The next picture shows the entire wall. The Spiderman window valance, I made out of stryofoam. Super easy and super cheap! Again, I have another post on that (I think...if I don't, I will make one soon) and then the "Super Hero in Training" canvas to the left of the window, I also made. That I used vinyl and a basic 16 x 20 canvas. The rest of the wall has small Superhero wall stickers.

Here is a close up of the canvas I made!

The next picture shows the bed which has new Superhero bedding and the Batman sign above the bed. The sign is made out of stryofoam and looks so nice in person! Around the sign is more, small Superhero wall stickers. To the left of it is a preview of the custom made photo canvases!

The next picture shows a lot of stuff! The trash can is the laundry basket and the lid (aka shield) is one of my son's favorite part of the room! To the right of that is the dark blue cubbies. I have baskets sitting on the top which holds all of the kids' Superhero masks in the green basket and the costumes in the blue basket. On the wall above the cubbies, is the NYC skyline with Spiderman flying down from the canvases. The photo canvases I made with styrofoam, black fabric and black & white pictures (more info on an older post). Then above the photo canvases, I have in dark blue and red vinyl, "Sometimes Friends (and my Brother) are Better than Superheroes". To the short wall on the left, I made out of stryofoam the Superman's logo. Below that I made the "Bang" sign out of white vinyl.

Finally, as you walk out the door, I have one small Superhero sticker and a small vinyl sign that says "POW".

So, that's it! This project took a long time to do, but it was definitely worth it! My son may not appreciate that nearly everything is home made but I love the fact that it is and my son is very happy with the end result!