Tutorial Tuesday: Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a most wonderful Christmas! I'm still trying to fight off this cold that I got the day after Christmas. At least it waited until after Christmas to show it's ugly face! Anyway, I'm super excited about next weeks tutorial. Think home decor!

So until next week, here's a printable calendar for you! Here's the preview below.
You can download the PDF by clicking here. Just print it on cardstock without scaling or fitting to page. If you trim the page in half you'll have two calendars. One to keep and one to give to a friend. You could also print it onto fabric like this and border it in a coordinating fabric and have a nice hanging calendar for the year. I did a girly color scheme and a little more manly color scheme. (I got my fabric for my printer at Hobby Lobby. Most any craft store should have some!) If there are some other color schemes you'd like, let me know and I can recolor a few!

Happy New Year!!!

Updating the Blog

If it looks a little odd, please let me know! I'm trying to update things a little and will slowly work on updating the template and tutorial pages with images so you don't have to click on each link to see the project! Have a great Friday night!

Glittered Brads and Great Gift Boxes

I started with this:
2 silver brads, glitter, and a glue pad

Just tap the glue pad on the tops of the brads and sprinkle with glitter! Now I have glitter brads!

I made them to put onto this gift box...but I decided to just go with a red velvet ribbon instead.... You can download the template here. It's my little pizza box template from last year! If you print it slightly larger than 100% it will fit a gift card! Also great for jewelry or one cookie for a teacher or coworker gift!

Happy Crafting!

Tutorial Tuesday: Patchwork Pillow

Yep, lucky you! More tutorials today! (I still have a few more also!) I made this for my dad for Christmas. He loves family history, and he's furnishing his home in Germany right now so I thought he might like this:

My maiden name is Williamson so I found a Williamson family crest online, made it a little larger in Photoshop then printed it out onto printable fabric. You can buy these fabric sheets at most any craft store. They are 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of white or cream fabric with a paper backing on it. You just run them through your printer at home and heat set with an iron. The color turned out great!

If you want to make one here's the pieces you'll need for the front:

You'll also need one fat quarter for the back. I used 1/4" seams for this project. After you cut and piece the front together just cut a piece of backing fabric the same size as the front. Place the front and back right sides together and sew around the edge leaving a hole with enough room to turn out and to stuff. Just clip the corners, turn it out, stuff, and sew up the bottom! The finished size is about 15" square.

Happy Crafting!

Tutorial Tuesday: Fat Quarter Accent Pillows

Oh the weather outside is frightful..... It's been a icy, cold day here in Texas. It was too icy to go into work so I used today to finish up all the Christmas gifts I've been working on. I even took a quick break from making gifts and whipped up some quick new pillows for my sofa:
I LOVE this fabric and it has the colors of my home decor in it!

Want to make some? It took me about an hour to make both! Here's how:

You'll need 4 fat quarters total. 2 of the front fabric and 2 of the back fabric
Polyfill stuffing for the inside

I just took my fat quarters and made 18" squares with them. Pin a back and a front piece together with right sides facing. Stitch around the outside of your square and leave about 4" open for stuffing it. (I left my hole in the bottom middle. That way if your hand stitching isn't great the pillow will be sitting on top of it.) Clip the corners and turn it right sides out. Stuff the pillow and hand sew up the bottom and you're finished! This went SO fast and I was so excited to get these done that I forgot to take pictures of the process. If you have any questions just comment and I'll be happy to answer them!

Happy Christmas Crafting!

Merry Soaps Updated

Just a quick note to let you know that the Merry Soaps post has been updated with the word art I used for the inside of the bottles.

Merry Soaps

I know it was just yesterday that we made yummy Krispy treats but here's another great, simple, quick gift.
I asked my husband to help me name this tutorial and he suggested
Merry Soaps: so here it is!

I started with the $1 bottle of soap from Wal-mart. (For your project, any clear soap will do, as long as the label is easy to remove, and there's no printing on the actual plastic bottle. This had a sticker on the front and the back but they were easily removed.)

Print out a few words onto a transparency with a laser printer. (Don't use your inkjet printer because the ink is NOT waterproof. Print out what you'd like and take it to your local copy center and have them make a copy onto a transparency.) I made my images about 3" high by 2 1/2" wide. After I cut them out, I trimmed them down by holding them up to the bottle to get the approximate size. I also rounded the corners which made it look a little nicer. To insert it into the bottle just roll it up and stick it into the top. It will unroll by itself once it's inside the bottle. If you need to adjust it at all just use the pump. When it's in the right spot, just screw the top back on with the pump behind the transparency. Tie a ribbon and you're done!

And, I left work so quickly today to catch my train that I forgot to email the word art to myself so I could post it to share with you. As soon as I get it tomorrow I'll edit the post with the link, then you can download the words I used above and use those if you want. :)

Edited: Here's the link for the downloadable PDF. When you download it, just print at normal scale and it will print to the correct size. A preview of the file is below. You can make 8 different soap bottles with the file. Download it here.

Have fun!

Tutorial Tuesday: Krispy Treat Gifts

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I had a LONG week last week so I was glad to get some relaxing and crafting done. I had a mini crisis when I realized Christmas is almost here! (Or at least, the time to send out all packages so that they get to family in time!) At work we use Photoshop a lot but I've been trying to use Illustrator a little more so today's tutorial I created for you in Adobe Illustrator! I hope you like it! This is a simple gift that would be great for neighbors or a stocking stuffer. It's also great for those that work. I've been taking it to work and it can be made in the microwave!

It's a perfect single sized serving of deliciousness!


For each package you'll need:
1 1/2 cups rice krispies
1 1/2-2 cups mini marshmallows
1 sandwich bag
1 snack size bag

Just add the rice krispies to the sandwich bag and the marshmallows to the snack size bag and layer together like the photo above. Then fold the ends on the top in slightly and staple. Print out the package with instructions here. (I used a piece of white cardstock. It's in a PDF format. Be sure that when you print it you DON'T tell it to scale it or print to fit page. It's just the right size so if you print it at 100% it will work perfectly!) After you print it, just cut down the middle and fold each piece. You'll have two pieces that are 8 1/2" x 5 1/2". Staple to the top and you're done! Super easy!

This is what the back looks like.
This is a preview of what the download looks like. Be sure to print it out from here though. If you click on the image and try saving and printing it may not print out the correct size!

The only thing the person that receives this needs is one tablespoon of butter and they will have a yummy treat!

Happy Crafting!

P.S. Look for more posts this week as I realize that I've got more Christmas related posts than there are Tuesdays before Christmas! So we'll be having more tutorials than just today. I've got a few more gifts, and some home decor. All easy of course!

See you soon!