St. Patrick's Day Chalkboard

For my St. Patricks Day Chalkboard I wanted a large oval as a border. I didn't trust my free hand skills so I found a large platter that fit onto the board and then used the chalk marker to draw around it. 

 

After the main outside circle was drawn I erased a small part at the top and added a few embellishments and then a larger section at the bottom... added some shamrocks and more swirlies. I had intended to put more words in the circle. I started with the word blessed and had it hugging tightly to the shamrocks so that it would fit all the words, "We are not Lucky, We Are Blessed." Well after many attempts at the whole saying inside my circle I realized it wouldn't fit the way I wanted it to. I reduced the saying just to "We Are Blessed" and that meant that my spacing was a bit off. I almost started completely over, but the kids were gonna be home fro school soon and I had other things to get done... so it stayed.

 

Here's the link on how I made my chalkboard....Click here. 

Valentine Boxes

Our School Valentine boxes this year... Jared picked making a purple minion and Samantha decided to make her own Olaf box. The openings for the valentines & treats to enter the box is the mouth on both boxes.

Making the boxes...

It was pretty simple to make the boxes. We just used an empty 12 can soda box. We put packing tape over the openings (the one to carry the box & also the corner one where the soda comes out) so the box would be flat and easier to cover with paper. It took about 4 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 inch papers to cover the box & they overlapped on the sides. We just used hot glue to hold the paper onto the box because it would dry quickly and hold strong. Once the boxes were covered, we were ready to embellish them.

Embellishing the boxes...

For the Purple Minion, we started by covering the bottom with some black to make the overalls. Two one-inch strips were put in the front and around to the back for the straps of the overalls. Next we moved to the top of the Minion. I cut strips of paper 3/4 to 1 inch wide, from 3 different shades of purple. Then we crimped the strips quickly and randomly by hand and covered the top of the box with the folded strips to make the Minions crazy hair.

Next it was time to add the eye. A stripe of black paper around the top that was about 2 1/2 inches big. I used a silver mason jar rim as the goggle. Then we put a circle piece of clear window sheets (from Stampin' Up). Punched a white circle that would fit the eye goggle and that was the back of the eye, followed by a black pupil and a purple half circle for the eyelid.

Last it was time to make the mouth. Using a craft knife, we cut the half circle for the mouth and then used white paper and cut out crooked teeth and glued those on.

Done! Ready to fill with many treats!

Olaf: Samantha basically made this on her own. After I covered the box, she used white cardstock to cut out pieces of Olaf's body. Black paper for the buttons and mouth. Brown paper for the stick arms, eyebrows, and crazy hair on top. She used a sharpie to draw on the face and a piece of orange paper for the carrot nose. After the face was drawn on, her Daddy cut out the mouth spot so that her Valentines would make it safely into the box. She put a square piece of paper into the mouth and glued it to the inside of the box, only on the top edge. This was to make sure the mouth was dark. She did an amazing job on it.

Thanksgiving Chalkboard

Here's my Thanksgiving Chalkboard Art for the month. It's a simple one... but sometimes the best ones are!

I started by writing the "Thanks!" then I drew on the pumpkin. Next I added the word "Give". Finally, I added some little swirly lines. I was thinking of adding some leaves instead, but there wasn't much room so I went with swirly's instead. 

I've been having fun changing up the art in this little frame. It's nice to have something that's easy to change up for the holidays or just on a whim!

Click here to see how I made it and what I'm using.

Click here to buy the chalk marker. 

Flying Monkeys- New Free Halloween Printable

Made another printable. Wanted to share. Halloween is getting close. We're counting down the days here til the candy festival begins.

I've had a bit of theme lately... they all seem to revolve around the Wicked Witch. I think she's adorable. These should be able to print out at 16x20... that's what I created them for or any related size down such as an 8x10 or 4x6.

Halloween Chalkboard

Here's the framed chalkboard that I have in my kitchen. I think chalkboards are so cute. I love all the styles and designs and sayings that I keep seeing. Here's a bunch of ideas for chalkboards.

I've been changing the quote and pictures to inspire the kids and for the holidays.

Here's what I did to make it...

I took a large, white frame that I bought at IKEA.
It is the Virserum Frame that measures 11 ¾x15 ¾".

Next I bought the Chalkboard Contact Paper. It is available on Amazon. 

I took this and covered the wood backing board that came inside the frame. I measure the size that I needed and the pulled off the white grid paper and applied the contact paper. It's kinda like putting vinyl on things... especially when using a large piece. Start in one area and move out slowly to prevent bubbles.

You could also cover the glass if you wanted to, or something else so that you have something to fit inside the frame. The board was right there in the frame, so I used just that and it will make it easy to still use this as a frame if I decide I want to use the mat board and glass at some future point.

Then I reassembled the frame and it was ready to decorate.

I used this chalkboard paint pen from Stampin' Up. These work so well. They go on more smoothly than actual chalk and it is bolder look. Plus if you make a mistake... you just wipe it off with some water and start again.You can buy this pen by clicking here...

Ta Dah! It was done.

Here's another design I did previously.

 

It's been fun playing around with this framed chalkboard!

Free Halloween Download- A Witch, Her Little Monsters, One Handsome Devil

Okay.... I've decided.  I'm coming back. I've been gone away for waaaay too long from my craft blog having babies and doing lots of other stuff... but there has been some thing missing from my life. I miss making things and sharing them up here on my blog. I guess I have still been making things, but I just haven't been able to find the time to document it up here on the blog. It's such a great way to remember all the fun things we do together as a family.

A new thing that I've been dabbling in, has been digital scrapbooking & art. I've made a few Halloween printables and thought it would be fun to share them up here. (free printable no longer available) They should be able to print out at 16x20, but I've only printed them at 8x10. You can also print them at 4x6 if you wanted... (Maybe make them into a card??? I might have to try that one.) Anyways....They're all the same ratio, so it should work.

I made three variations....

All orange.

One that is Gray & Purple.

One that has Orange and Purple.

Happy Halloween!

Edible Image on Cake

For my Grandpa's 80th Birthday we decided to celebrate with a birthday party. It's not every day that you turn 80. I was making a cake for the party and wanted to do something different. I had a picture of my Grandpa when he was younger and serving in the air force. He also worked his career and retired from Disney Studios. I took the picture, scanned it into Photoshop, added some balloons, a Mickey Mouse & some words. I took the picture to our local grocery store, Harmons and in their bakery section they printed the picture out on their edible printer (someday I want to get me one of these). On the left side you see the picture and the frosting edible image on the right. It is an 8x10 image.

You can tell the edible image is not as vivid as the printed picture and it ended up a bit smaller than the 8.5x11 inch image that was printed. 

However it is a great duplication... and went onto the cake nicely. (Check local grocery stores or bakeries for the option to have your image printed cause it makes for a super easy & personalized cake!)

Here is the cake right after I finished decorating. I made a simple chocolate layered cake, covered in a basic white buttercream (had to be a light color so the image would show up). Before I added the blue star border I peeled the image off the backer paper and applied it onto the white background. So easy! Peel & Stick! The edges were super noticeable at first but with time the image blended into the frosting more and more. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it turned out. When they printed the image, there was an ink blur at the bottom and it transferred as well... I should have cut that off. I could have trimmed around the image as well since the cake was bigger than the image and I didn't put the border next to the edge of the image.

I used a large wide open star in blue tinted buttercream for the border.

Grandpa (and Grandma) loved the cake! And that's all that matters. I had bought some camouflage material to use as a tablecloth for our party. The cake cut up nicely when it was time to eat it. I made sure I got a piece with the edible image and it tasted like sugar.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Colored Glue Art Project

Here's a quick project that I put together after I saw a similar project here at CraftKnife. She used acrylic paint to tint her school glue, however I just chose to use the food coloring in my kitchen to tint the glue into paint.
I used red, blue, yellow and green and dropped about 10 drops of each food coloring into the bottle.

Then using a bamboo skewer stick, I helped stir the color in. The bottle of glue was entirely full and I think it would have helped if the bottle was not as full.

After stirring it, I had the kids shake the bottles. The glue was colored but it didn't fully look like it at first. We opened the bottle and started drawing. At first it came out white and then it changed colors and stayed that way.

After playing with the bottles for a while, the bottles mixed in completely.
Mission accomplished. 4 bottles of school glue at 25 cents each (gotta love back to school shopping). A couple of drops of food coloring... and happy kids.... PRICELESS!


Here are some of their pictures. They did a great job and had lots of fun doing it.