You Make Me Smile

That's right!  You do!

I picked up this little mini pad of paper recently and decided to put it to good use.

You may have noticed that all of the cards I make are the same size.  That's because I have a couple of boxes of these blank cards I got for free and use them as my base.

And here's what I came up with!

My Silhouette did all the work for me, including the cute 3D butterflies.

Here's the card from Pinterest that inspired me, original is from JenniferMcGuireInk:

Do you give cards just for the heck of it or do you save them just for special occasions?  Leave a comment below~

Boys Summer PJ's

Yahoo!  I'm on a roll, I managed to get another project done this weekend.

I picked up this fun cotton in the bargain bin not too long ago to make my nephew some summertime pj's.

I made him some pants and appliques a square of the fabric onto a lightweight t-shirt.  I would've liked to have made a more interesting shape but I was running out of time and this was the quickest thing I could come up with.

He seemed pretty happy with them.

He's pretty tall for his age so I purposely made them short.  If he were standing normally they would hit mid calf which is exactly where I wanted them.

This was part of this birthday present along with the Message board I showed you on Friday and something else store bought.  Surprisingly, the message board was the biggest hit!

Pinspired Message Board

I'm still here!  If you hang out here regularly you may have noticed that things were a little quiet around Etcetorize this week. Sorry about that.  Life at my real job has been insanely busy so when I get home, just about the only thing I have enough energy for is to lie on the hammock and enjoy the sunshine.

However, bit by bit I did succeed in making one thing this week:

 

I saw something similar on pinterest and knew right away I had to make some for my niece and nephew.

Here's what you need to make your own:

My mind was on auto-pilot when I took this photo so I'm
missing a few things, check out the list below.

Supplies
-pretty paper for background and solid paper or cut outs for lettering (or a printer if you're really smart and can figure out how to send scrapbooking paper through a printer)
-frame
-craft knife and straight edge
-paint and sponge brush
-glue runner or other adhesive
-sticky back velcro dots
-markers (I used dry erase but I think regular markers would work too)

Steps:
1) Take your thrift store frame apart and give it a good coat of paint (or in my case 3!)

2) While that's drying, use the frame backing to as a template to cut out your background paper.

3) Cut out your permanent letting that will sit behind the glass of the frame.  I used my Silhouette but you could also use pre-cut alphabet shapes to save time.

I desperately need new mats for my Silhouette!

This would've been the perfect project for my adhesive backed paper from Silhouette but I forgot I had it until I already had all my letters cut out~

4) If you took the long route and cut out your letters like me, use a glue runner to adhere them to the background paper.  You don't have to get every nook and cranny because the glass of the frame will hold everything in place for you.

5) Put your frame back together with your page under the glass.

6) Add a velcro dot to the side of your marker and another to the side or bottom of your frame for it to connect to when not in use.

TAH DAH!

Loved it so much I made two!

I'm putting 3M strips on the back of each one so the kids can hang this on their bedroom doors.  Then mom or dad, or whoever, can write them a new message everyday!  Wouldn't you love to wake up in the morning and find out why someone loves you so much?

Here's the original project from Lulbelleblog.com

She's selling these in her Etsy shop.
I wouldn't normally rip off someone's Etsy product
however her shop appears closed with no merchandise
so I don't feel so bad~

If you made one these for someone special what would you write on it?  Leave a comment below.

Never too early to become a Trekkie

Last week I gave you a sneak peek at a gift I was making for my co-workers new baby girl.  But there's more!

After I made her cute little love tree onesie, I remembered that I had some Star Trek iron-on transfers!  And my co-worker is a super huge Trekkie.  I like Jean-Luc Picard as much as the next lady, but my co-worker is a straight up Trekkie, so I thought it would be cute to make his new baby a Star Trek onesie.

Unfortunately, my iron on's are so old they won't actually iron on.  But I couldn't get the image out of my head so I made something even cuter!

A floral communicator!

I love it so much I think I'm going to have to make one for myself! A floral communicator that is, not a onesie~

I think my coworker will love it.  He'll hate that it's not gold but hopefully he'll have a sense of humour about it, you never know with those Trekkie die hards though~

And just so I'm not totally breaking from this week's birthday card theme, here's the pretty little card I made to go along with the gift.

 

Ahhh, back to shabby chic prettiness~

I'm trying to get myself to use more layers and play with pattern and texture more.

Inside I used some teeny tiny scraps to make some photo corners.

There's only one thing I enjoy more than making things for babies....

Destination: weekend!  ENGAGE!

This project was featured here:

Tag Card

Today's card really takes me way outside of my comfort zone.  I like to make pretty cards, with lots of sparkle and inked edges.  This one is solid colour and strong pattern.

I'm surprisingly happy with it though.  Once again, I played with negative space and cut the letters out of the upper layer of the tags and let the chevron below peek through.

This one is for my dad.  I like that it's just straight forward and to the point.  Although he's quite a bit older than my niece and nephew, he's got one thing in common with them, he really just wants to see what's inside  the wrapping paper it accompanies~

Balloon Card

Next up on my parade of birthday cards is the one I made for my nephew.  I always have a hard time making cards for males but I like this design because it can be adjusted to suit anyone.

I wanted to play with negative space, so instead of cutting out each balloon, I cut the shape out of the ivory covering paper and then placed different papers behind it.

Was this easier than having my Silhouette cut out the balloon shapes?  Probably not.  But it was a fun experiment.

I couldn't resist adding just a bit of sparkle and then I did my usual thing with the greeting.

Like yesterday's card, the fact is that he's turning 7, and really won't care about this card, but it's good practice for me~