a little something in the meantime . . .: Silhouette Cameo

Showing posts with label Silhouette Cameo. Show all posts

Friday, January 4, 2013

2013 - aka Where’s Claire?

Hello and Happy 2013!

It’s been a while.

(Ha! That’s an understatement)

If you’re still reading my blog . . . thank you, thank you, thank you!

I came so close to writing 100 posts and then something happened.

Something good.

Way back in October we went to the cottage to close it up for the winter. While we are at the cottage my only contact with home is a bottom-of-the-line cell phone with limited reception and internet access. I refuse to have a cell phone contract.

On a whim, I checked my email and found that a Kindergarten teacher had been trying to get hold of me for two days. Via text messages, I landed myself a supply teaching job indefinitely. The following Tuesday I started teaching a Full-Day Kindergarten class with a fabulous Early Childhood Educator.

28 little bodies in one room.

But, in the meantime, my cousin’s wife, Laura, who teaches at the same school went on an early maternity leave. They had not interviewed anyone for her position at this point because she expected to teach until the end of October. However, the twins she was carrying had other plans!

I interviewed for her position (Grade 3/4) and heard nothing for a few days. Then, the day before Halloween the Principal approached me to tell me I had been recommended for the position and would switch over on November 1st. Eeek!

So, after surviving Halloween in Kindergarten, I made my way down the hall to drop off my things in the classroom where I will be teaching until the end of the school year.

Two months later, I am still trying to strike a balance between teaching and “in the meantime.”

Grade 3 and 4 are completely out of my comfort zone. I have been teaching for almost 7 years but all of my previous long-term positions have been in Kindergarten and Grade 1. I am not used to a curriculum that I have to teach myself before I can teach the class! And the split. I have huge respect for teachers of split grade classes. Oh, and I have to teach French since I have 6 Grade 4’s in my class. I haven’t taken French since University.

November felt more like September as everyone got settled into new routines and December was a blur with holiday activities taking up more time than I could afford.

I have to remind myself to take everything one day at a time.

As overwhelmed as I feel at times, it is such a honour that my administrators saw my potential and chose me for the job.

I hope January can be a fresh start for everyone.

No matter what, this new teaching adventure would not be possible if it were not for these little ladies:

Zoe and Lyla, born on December 28th, 2012

Of course, I had to use my Silhouette to make a special card welcoming them to the world!

Handmade cards are one thing I can always make time for . . . unless you count Christmas cards. Sorry, they didn’t happen this year!

For the first few days it was Lyla and “Baby B” so I had to wait until a second name was picked before I could send it on its way.

As an added bonus, I got to take photos of my card with my new DSLR camera! No editing, just cropping. Love it!

Proud parents Laura and Adam now have 4 little girls – Claudia, Annabelle, Lyla and Zoe. I cannot even imagine! Oh, and they’re all under 4 years old!

So, that’s where I’ve been. How about you? I hope things are well in your neck of the woods!

Please know that even if I’m not commenting on your posts, I’m still reading your blog in my downtime. I don’t think I could give that up!

Have a great day/week/month! (let’s be realistic – it’s report card writing time)

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

How to Make a New “Old” Sign

If you’ve been a reader for a while you know how much I enjoy making something new look old.

My favourite victim? Painted signs.

I have an entire Pinterest board of sign inspiration which includes this lovely pair from a site called 1stdibs:

Living with a mechanic, these would fit right in at our house.

Here’s my version of the second sign (which I promise I have no intention of selling since it is very, very similar).

How to make a new “old” sign:

Paint board with blue acrylic paint.

Apply Contact paper stencil cut with Silhouette (Font = Bebas Neue) *everything blue was covered with Contact paper.

Paint over board and stencil with another coat of blue paint so that any colour that bleeds under the stencil is the base colour (totally worked!).

Spray paint top coat in Heirloom White. Heirloom White, you never fail me!

Peel off Contact paper stencil while still wet to reveal this:

Look at those crisp letters! This was my best stencilling job EVER!

But, I wanted the sign to look old not new so I did the same thing as what I did with my vintage-inspired grocery sign – sand, sand and then sand some more!

To make it look a little dirtier I inked some spots with Tim Holtz’ distress ink and then smudged it in/wiped it off.

Old-ish Canadian Tire tool box courtesy of Mr. Mechanic.

(I wanted to turn it into a fall planter filled with mums but that was vetoed)

Oil funnel courtesy of the shed at the cottage.

It belonged to Mr. Mechanic’s Grandpa.

Before I made this I had already chosen the perfect spot to hang it: the wall across the bottom of the basement stairs. By hanging it low on the wall, you can see it through the window in the back door and while standing on the landing inside.

The basement beyond the sign may be a work in progress, but the stairs have never looked better!

What do you think of my latest new “old” sign?

P.S. Is anyone getting a higher than normal number of spam Blogger comments recently? I don’t want to have to add Captcha to commenting but they’re driving me crazy!

P.P.S. Oh my goodness, 99 posts! Whew!

I link up at: Serenity Now, I {Heart} Naptime, Under The Table And Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things, Simply Klassic Home, Home Stories A to Z, Craftomaniac, Skip To My Lou, Not JUST A Housewife, A Bowl Full Of Lemons, Alderberry Hill, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, A Diamond In The Stuff, Creatively Living, The Winthrop Chronicles, Clean & Scentsible, Oopsey Daisy, Lil’ Luna, Someday Crafts, Live.Laugh.Rowe, The 36th Avenue, aka design, House of Hepworths, 52 Mantels, Thrifty Decorating, Crafty Scrappy Happy, How To Nest For Less, Tatertots & Jello, The Grant Life, It’s Overflowing, Lolly Jane, Too Much Time, Six Sisters’ Stuff, Positively Splendid, My {Re}purposed Life, Unrefined By Design, Just Us Four, Liz Marie Blog and The Crafted Sparrow

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

My Fall Mantel: Pumpkin Edition

Mr. Mechanic and I have a cat named Pumpkin so it’s safe to say that we enjoy all things fall.

She’s gray not orange and her name was first a term of endearment when we decided to rename her after her adoption. She started out life as ‘Peppy’ but is definitely a Pumpkin.

I’m telling you this because Pumpkin was my inspiration for this year’s fall mantel.

I brought my tub of fall decorations upstairs, took out a frame wrapped in butcher paper and walked away for a minute. When I came back upstairs she was sitting right on top of it!

As I unpacked my decor, a pumpkin patch started to grow!

Since it’s Thanksgiving in two weeks, I decorate for fall first and then add touches of Halloween later.

I was already working on a fall sign, so I decided to run with the pumpkin theme this year.

Here it is!

From Left to Right:

I used my Silhouette to create a stencil for my own sign after seeing this T.J. Maxx inspiration on the blog A Bowl Full of Lemons.

I even made a cameo appearance in my attempt to get a photo that was front and center. Peekaboo!

This mantel is a great mix of old, new and a handful of D.I.Y. projects. Just the way I like it!

The two small bottles were cottage finds (the little one is actually an old Buckley’s bottle) and the tall bottle came from Goodwill last year. The braided jute ring is a 50 cent napkin ring from Michaels that I thought looked rustic.

My frame (which Pumpkin was sitting on) is a plastic Dollarama frame that I painted and glazed last fall to bring out the corner details. It is sitting on a book, also from Dollarama, which I wrapped with Kraft paper to cover the title. The edges of the pages have a fantastic texture to them!

The printable was created by Kristin at Simply Klassic Home. You can download your own copy of this beauty here.

The glass acorn was a clearance Michaels find last year in the Thanksgiving decor. Are you noticing a pattern here?

All of the pumpkins and the sprig of bittersweet (thanks, Bronwyn!) are from Dollarama, Walmart or Michaels. I painted some of them and left others their original colour. The little orange and yellow pumpkin on the right definitely needs to be a different colour. Any suggestions?

I made the burlap fall banner last year after seeing them everywhere. Super easy. Just burlap, acrylic paint, letter stencils (pre-Silhouette!) and twine.

My owls are from HomeSense (big: 2011, little: 2012) and the metal basket was my only splurge (HomeSense again) because I knew it would be a great way to display my birch logs. I scooped a big branch from my neighbours’ yard before the wood chipper got to it when the hydro company did their line maintenance last winter. Remember my poor tree?

The pumpkin on top is a faux pumpkin from Michaels that I spray painted Heirloom White.

Finally, the white lantern on the floor was a summer 2011 purchase from HomeSense. I filled the base with strips of burlap, pinecones and mini pumpkins to give it a less summery look.

(In case you’re wondering, that arrowhead plant in the pot lives on the mantel year-round because of how much it hangs so I just work around it. We re-potted it this summer and it loves its new digs!)

Thank you so much for checking out my mantel!

P.S. Want to know a ridiculously easy way to hang a banner? Check out my trick here!

P.P.S. Did you see my fall planter? The mums and asters are really starting to fill out now!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Saying Goodbye/Beverage Tub Makeover

Today, blogs and blogging provided me with a much needed diversion on a hard day for my family.

We had to say goodbye to this little lady.

Maggie turned 13 in August but had a rapid decline in her health starting around March of this year.

Prior to this Maggie was a cat who stayed kitten-sized and acted like one as well.

She always had a daredevil streak to her which may have stemmed from the fact that when we adopted her as a kitten from the Humane Society she had already fallen from a 14th floor balcony into a snow bank. She loved to be up high and would spend her time watching you from the top of the kitchen cupboards or her scratching post tower.

Even though I no longer live at home, I still think of Maggie and Buddy (my parents’ other cat) as my pets because I was there with them from the beginning. I will always remember Maggie being so small that her entire body would vibrate when she purred.

I have never met another cat like her and I’m sure I never will.

When I had my final visit with Maggie on Sunday night, I knew my parents had made the right decision and that her time had come. I’m relieved that she is no longer suffering, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

To quote my Mom, “Maggie had a happy life and a peaceful end, and we will love her forever.”

We miss you, Maggie!

Now for what I had originally planned to share before life threw me a curveball . . .

Throughout the summer I kept tabs on the price of this metal beverage tub from Lowe’s knowing that I could use it for . . . something. The outside looks like white enamel and the inside is galvanized metal.

When it finally reached a clearance price of around $7, I pounced after striking a deal with Mr. Mechanic that I would clean up the Laundry Room if we bought it.

The Laundry Room is still a disaster (shh!) but my tub looks adorable thanks to a quick and easy vinyl makeover.

I learned from this post that there is a free font {SL Wash} made up completely of laundry symbols.

You can download SL Wash here or by clicking on the image below.

I typed the letters that corresponded with wash, dry and iron in Silhouette Studio and resized them until they were all the same height. Then I cut them out of black vinyl with my Silhouette.

Finally, I used a combination of transfer and painter’s tape to place the symbols on my tub.

I’m not going to lie, it was a pain in the butt to try to align them on a curved surface, but it was worth the aggravation in the end!

Wouldn’t you agree?

While the rest of the Laundry Room is still nothing worth sharing thanks to an on-going basement renovation, my kitchen towels and rags have a cute place to hang out until I accumulate enough to justify a load of laundry.

Thanks for sticking with me today!

P.S. Don’t even ask about that chair. It’s a DIY Chalk Paint experiment that went terribly wrong. I’m starting to realize that painting furniture is not my thing.

P.P.S. If you like fonts you should check out my board on Pinterest for some great suggestions!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Golden Wedding Anniversary Sign

Last month my parents received an invitation for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

The invitation specified: no gifts, just well wishes. Being crafty, I suggested that I make a family name sign to commemorate the occasion knowing that the materials would cost about the same as a card.

Here is what I came up with:

The lettering is done in gold (my Mom’s great idea – apple doesn’t fall far from the tree) and provides the perfect contrast against the black paint.

I started with a pine board from Home Depot that I cut to size.

I painted the board (the second time . . . keep reading) with two layers of white (in case I decided to distress it later on) and then two layers of black Martha Stewart acrylic paint (my favourite brand for coverage and quality).

I designed the sign and then cut a contact paper stencil using my Silhouette.

I added a box around my text so that the cut stencil matched the dimensions of my pine board to make the spacing and alignment easier.

I used my new Scotch Blue Delicate Surfaces tape to transfer the stencil to my board. So easy and inexpensive compared to transfer tape!

Using a Martha Stewart stencil brush I pounced on gold acrylic paint and learned that it is important to read the drying instructions when you are using metallic paint! It said to wait 1 hour between coats.

I first tried this with a different brand and stencilled too much too soon. It peeled off in pieces (like gold leaf, I assume) when I removed the contact paper. I had to start all over again.

Lesson learned!

I touched up the gold paint that bled under the stencil with a fine-tipped brush. I used the positive space of the stencil to cover the necessary letters and numbers and then painted around the edges.

After showing a photo of the painted and stencilled board to my parents via email, my Dad suggested that I add something to the corners. I searched the Silhouette store and couldn’t find anything I liked so I went with the next best thing, stripes!

I used this trick from KariAnne of Thistlewood Farm (see step #4) to create easy no-measure stripes using pin striping painter’s tape (since we already established that I don’t like to measure stripes here) and then stencilled them with one coat of gold paint.

I left the top and bottom edges of the board black but painted the sides with gold to make the gold of the stripes wrap around the board.

Isn’t this a great personalized gift for a milestone anniversary? Silver, gold, platinum . . .

P.S. You can see the rest of my front porch here. I’m looking forward to switching it up for fall!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Organize Receipts {Or Anything Else} With Custom Dividers

I spotted this box at HomeSense last year and it was love at first sight.

The pictures don’t do it justice.

It is a lovely, glossy yellow and white box with hinges. The yellow is the perfect shade that goes wonderfully with all of the other yellow accents in my office.

If we actually had some sunshine that lasted until the afternoon I would be able to show you my beautiful office because now, after a big organizing blitz, it truly is beautiful.

I’m so proud of it.

Everything has a home.

Correction. Everything has a pretty home.

Including my receipts.

I have struggled to maintain a system for storing my necessary receipts for years. I start off well, and then I develop piles. I’ve tried binder clips, accordion files, baskets, file folders etc. but nothing has ever stuck.

I even used this box at one point. . . I just didn’t use it the right way.

A little while ago, I had a receipt organizing epiphany. I do pretty well with maintaining a filing system for everything else, so why not create something that allows me to file my receipts in the same way?

Instead of clipping them together into piles, I needed to be able to flip through my receipts quickly to find what I need.

Also, I wanted a system where I could sort my receipts by the store where I bought something, not by a category.

My first thought was to use a photo storage box from Michaels. They come with dividers, but I wanted the receipts to span the length of the box so I made my own dividers using my Silhouette.

I labelled everything and filled it up with all my receipts.

Definitely an improvement, but to access it I have to pull it out from underneath my desk (I’ll show you that another time). Not very efficient. I saw more piles accumulating in my future.

So, I moved onto Plan B – the yellow box that had sat on my desk for a year without a real purpose.

First, it got a vinyl label to clearly identify its job.

The collage below shows how I planned the placement of my vinyl using painter’s tape and a combination square from Mr. Mechanic’s well-stocked workshop. The combination square is a great way to make sure that your spacing is consistent when transferring an image.

After I peeled off the transfer tape, it looked like this!

Now that the outside of the box was finished, it was time to make some custom dividers!

I originally made dividers using a shape that I bought and modified, but I was not happy with the final layout of the tabs. This week’s free shape could not have come at a better time! It made the process so much easier.

Basically, I copied the tab overlay from this week’s free shape and pasted it into a new file. Then, I drew a rectangle and sized it to the dimensions of my receipt box (9.5” by 4”). I selected both shapes and aligned them on the left so that when I welded them together the first tab would start at the very edge.

Before welding the tab and rectangle shapes together I duplicated the tab five times to the right and then used the ‘space horizontally’ function to have them overlap slightly across the width of my 9 inch rectangle. The last step was to duplicate the rectangle 5 times. One-by-one I would align the rectangle with the edge of the last tab on the right. Working from left to right, I moved the next tab down slightly to overlap the shapes and then welded the two shapes together.

I did this five times but then I realized that you only have to do it three times! If you look at the image below, I have labelled and colour-coded the dividers to show that when you cut the same shape twice on double-sided paper, you can just flip over divider 1 to create what would be divider 5 and divider 2 becomes divider 4. Make sense?

I chose coordinating scrapbook paper with a postcard/travel theme for my dividers.

In a perfect world, I would have had lots of different yellow patterned paper on hand, but since I didn’t, I opted for a theme instead.

{Does anyone else find it hard to cut up a brand new piece of scrapbook paper?}

I cut three sets of 5 dividers and now I just need to label them and transfer my receipts from the photo box that I gussied up before I realized that this box would be better suited for the job.

I suppose you could also use your sketch pens to label the tabs if you were more patient than me!

If you don’t have a cutting machine, no problem! You could trace or cut down store-bought dividers to make your own filing system to fit any container size.

Is it weird how pleased I am to have a pretty container for filing my receipts? (If your answer is yes . . . don’t answer that!)

P.S. Since I’m linking up to the Silhouette Organizing Link Party why not also check out my great tip for storing extra die cuts?

I link up at: Serenity Now, I {Heart} Naptime, Under The Table And Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things, Simply Klassic Home, Home Stories A to Z, Craftomaniac, Skip To My Lou, Not JUST A Housewife, A Bowl Full Of Lemons, Alderberry Hill, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, A Diamond In The Stuff, Creatively Living, The Winthrop Chronicles, Clean & Scentsible, Oopsey Daisy, Lil’ Luna, Someday Crafts, Live.Laugh.Rowe, The 36th Avenue, aka design, House of Hepworths, 52 Mantels, Thrifty Decorating, Crafty Scrappy Happy, How To Nest For Less, Tatertots & Jello, The Grant Life, It’s Overflowing, Lolly Jane, Too Much Time, Six Sisters’ Stuff, Positively Splendid, My {Re}purposed Life, Unrefined By Design, Dragonfly Designs, Just Us Four, Liz Marie Blog and The Crafted Sparrow