Silhouette Fun!

So, as mentioned before, I got a Silhouette cutter this summer. And I've been enjoying finding new things to make with it. This is a card that I made for my cousin's wedding. I went a little crazy with the shapes, but it was fun to put together. I used this card as inspiration ... by the way, the Silhouette America Pinterest board is a great place to find ideas!



To make the mini hearts, I lined up strips of scrapbook paper left over from our anniversary party. (Oh yeah, we had an anniversary party this summer. It totally rocked.)



I purchased outlines for the banners, though the shape would have been easy enough to make.



The strings were faux-taped on the back of the card. Hard to see from the pic, but the "tape" strips have torn edges on the short sides.

I also used the strips to "tape" a name tag to the front of the envelope.



Final product with coordinating envelope insert!

Snow Day = Valentine Day

Two snow days at home this week! Sounds like a good opportunity to make some Valentines!



As usual, Dora likes to do her own thing. She wanted to make Valentine outfits for a boy and a girl with her fashion portfolio. The only problem? There are no boy models in her book. So, she challenged herself with trying to make one of the girl shapes more masculine. And while she did a good job with what she had to work with, her boy looks fairly ... let's say, groomed.



After working on her sketches, the outlines were transferred onto tracing paper and scanned. I showed her how to use the magic wand, eyedropper and fill tools in Photoshop to color her pictures.



We printed them out, three to a page. They turned out pretty well! She's very proud.

SuperValentines

Theo had a very clear vision for his valentine cards: "a Superman symbol inside a heart." I did the artwork, but he was the creative director. We printed them on cardstock, two on a page with super sayings on the back. They'll fit into an A2 envelope when cut out.



Would you like to use them, too? Here you go! (For personal use only, please!)
Download SuperValentines here.

Football Valentines

"Clark, what kind of valentines do you want this year?" Football, no question. This is the kid who told his teacher last week that they "should have Football Day at school," so, guess what they're celebrating today? He's very charming. And persuasive.



These are his football valentines. I printed them in black and white so he can add his own embellishment (watercolor, his preferred medium) with a valentine message on the back and space to sign his name. Blue is his favorite color, but he decided to throw some red ones in at the end for variety.



Would you like some for your football fan? Here you go! (Personal use only, please!)

Download Football Valentines here.

Christmas Cards

No Baking Monday this week, as I'll be doing giant baking for my family cookie swap on Thursday. We've been busy over here - the kids made Christmas cards for their teachers this week. I've found that it works well to have a couple ideas in mind, then they can choose to do those or their own thing. Family Fun to the rescue again! We used these cute cards for ideas.





Theo selected the tree and candle designs.



Clark also liked the candles, and the thumbprint reindeer.



Really, throwing googly eyes on anything makes it adorable.



And Dora, of course, did her own thing.





And this was my card for Jeff ... he's getting a hockey jersey for Christmas, but unfortunately it won't arrive until after the new year.



We'll be tackling ornaments today!

Earth Day Project

So, Dora and I were talking about Earth Day a couple weeks ago and she wanted to make cloth napkins for the kids in her class. I originally agreed, because I thought it would be a good way to use up some of my scrap fabric. As the date got closer, I realized that actually sewing 17 napkins was so not going to happen, since I currently have a stack of Etsy work that's been sitting on my sewing table for about two months. We purchased napkins at The Christmas Tree Shop instead, which I realize is probably not eco-friendly, but it sure was time-friendly.



Dora traced and cut out each child's initial out of scrap fabric and ironed them on to the napkins with Heat & Bond. (What in the world did sewers do before Heat & Bond? And Heat & Bond Lite? It is fantastic!) She did all the work herself ... I already keep a collection of letter templates with my sewing supplies, so she used those for tracing. She lost some enthusiasm about halfway through the ironing, but I was proud of her for finishing up.



She made tags and we tied them up with more scrap fabric. She's planning on handing them out before snack time today. I love the idea, we're big fans of cloth napkins over here, and really hope the kids put them to good use.

Speaking of cloth napkins, Maria at ChangeDiapers , a great site for cloth diapering info, gave my cloth napkins a wonderful review this week and we're doing a giveaway! Visit this page to enter.

And in other news this week, I just printed some new notecards to include with Spotgirl and Etsy orders, and spent some time putting packages together.



The notesheets are made from old paper samples and I put some of my gajillion outdated business cards to good use by using them as decoration.



Yay, color!!

Guitar Notecards

For a certain curly-haired, music-loving two-year-old. Rock on!

Repurposed Art Cards

If you've got kids, you've got lots of little art projects around, and I'm always looking for ideas to turn them into something usable. Here is an idea for repurposing art projects into handy greeting cards.

• Print template on any color paper or card stock. (I used craft paper because that's what I had nearby... any solid color will work well.)

• Cut on trim lines and fold in half.

• Cut out the shape with an Xacto knife, slightly outside the guide line. (Note: on the birthday card, cut only the flame and the candle, not the wick.)



• Use the window to decide what section of the art to display. Use the cutout shape to trim the artwork into a rectangle. Trim with decorative scissors for extra cuteness.



• Flip the card over and run a gluestick around the outside of the cutout window and around the right side edges of the art piece. Paste the art behind the cutout window and smooth.





• Ta-da! Fun handmade cards for (most) occasions that reuse and showcase your child's artwork.



And here are the templates to download. They'll print on 8.5 x 11 paper and trim to an A6 card (4.5 x 6.25). Enjoy!



Thank You Card Template



Congratulations Card Template



Birthday Card Template
Have you used these templates? Please leave a comment or send a picture, I'd love to see how it turned out!

New Work This Week

First Communion cards for my niece and nephew:



And a little cupcake love for my brother & sister-in-law: