Crafts Archives - Blue i Style

Backpacks For a Cause with Cricut

blueistyle — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 16:47:37 +0000

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are 100% mine.

With everything going on in the world lately, I am more grateful than ever for our home where my family feels comfortable, safe, and secure.

But imagine what it’s like for a child where home doesn’t provide that same sense of security. There are approximately 400,000 children in Foster Care nationwide, and for most children, their entry into the Foster Care system is an emergency situation resulting from abuse or neglect.

Children are often taken from their homes with no more than the clothes on their back, and if they are able to bring a few belongings with them, these kids are given trash bags to carry them in.

I’ve seen this first hand. When I was in sixth grade, my family became a foster family to a kindergarten-aged boy. On the day that my parents picked him up from the crisis center to bring him to our home, he was wearing ill-fitting clothes and had nothing more than a plastic grocery bag containing a toothbrush with someone else’s name on it, and a single pair of underwear, also labeled with someone else’s name.

I recall my parents picked me up from school that afternoon, and then we spent the remainder of the day shopping to get him all the basics he needed just to get through the coming days and weeks – pajamas, underwear, clothes, socks, a toothbrush and comb, and the list goes on.

As a preteen who had always lived in a loving and comfortable home with all of my needs met, it was very sobering and eye-opening to realize that not every kid has the same experience!

That’s why I’m so incredibly proud to be partnering with Cricut to create some very special, personalized backpacks to donate to The Blue Ribbon Project. These backpacks will give foster children a way to carry their precious belongings, and will hopefully also provide a bit of comfort to them during what is undoubtedly a scary and difficult transition!

I’m excited to show you the backpacks I designed, and to share how you, too, can support the efforts of the Blue Ribbon Project!

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Backpacks of Love

The Blue Ribbon Project, which currently operates in twelve counties in the state of Maryland, collects donations of backpacks filled with the basic essentials that children need when they enter Foster Care.

When a child is removed from their home, the Blue Ribbon Project is notified by Social Services or the police, and they ensure that a backpack containing all the essentials is delivered directly to the child to help them through the first few days of Foster Care. These backpacks, and all of their contents, are all donated by generous individuals who support the efforts of the organization.

When Cricut asked me if I’d be willing to partner with them to customize some very special backpacks for The Blue Ribbon Project, I was excited to get started right away! I was asked to create one backpack for a 3-4 year old girl, and another for a 13-14 year old boy.

I started by ordering two Everest backpacks, which come in more than 25 different colors. It’s probably no surprise that I chose two shades of my favorite color – a light aqua for the little girl, and a darker teal for the teen boy.

Customizing Backpacks with Cricut

Next, I started browsing in Cricut Design Space to find the perfect designs to add to the backpacks. I immediately found tons of great options for the girl’s backpack and it was hard to narrow it down to just one. Picking a design for the teen boy was more challenging for me because I kept second guessing what a teen boy would consider “cool.”

In the end, I decided to add a row of crayons to the pocket of the girl’s backpack, because every preschooler I know loves to draw, and drawing can be a wonderful way for kids to express the emotions that may be hard for them to articulate.

For the boy’s backpack, I chose a rhinoceros. Every boy in my life – from my husband to my six and eight year old sons – love rhinos, so I figured it would be a safe pick for a teen boy, as well. And the graphic, geometric design makes it extra modern and cool.

After cutting both of the designs from heat transfer vinyl using my Cricut Explore Air, I folded my EasyPress Mat in half to fit it into the pockets, and used my EasyPress Mini to apply the vinyl to the pocket of each backpack.

Filling the Backpacks

When the Blue Ribbon Project provides backpacks to kids entering Foster Care, the bags are filled with age and gender specific essential items, including toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, soap/body wash, shampoo, change of clothing, underwear, socks, pajamas, books, and toys.

I wanted to include a special shirt with each backpack for the future recipient. Using Cricut Infusible Ink and Cricut tshirt blanks, I added a cute paint splotch heart from the Cricut image library to a small shirt for the young girl’s backpack.

For the teen boy, I found a bar code-like guitar design that I applied to a gray t-shirt with black Infusible Ink.

Once I had the t-shirts made, I downloaded the list of recommended contents for each backpack so I could start collecting some of the other items.

For the 3-4 year old girl, the list suggests an age appropriate toy. In keeping with the crayon theme from the front of the backpack, I decided to add a box of crayons and cute coloring book.

For the 13-14 year old boy, in addition to the essentials, the list also recommends an age appropriate game or toy. I added a Kanoodle game that can be played solo with more than 300 logic puzzles.

Help By Donating a Backpack and Filling It With Love

If you’d like to get involved with the Blue Ribbon Project, you can purchase a backpack and fill it with some love. You’ll find the list of requested items for the backpacks here, broken down by age group.

Cricut makes it very easy to customize a backpack with heat transfer vinyl, but this is certainly not necessary or required.

In light of current world events, the Blue Ribbon Project has asked that no backpack donations be mailed to the organization until at least April 10th.

The post Backpacks For a Cause with Cricut appeared first on Blue i Style.

Personalized Holiday Projects Made With Cricut

blueistyle — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Thank you to my friends at Cricut for sponsoring this post.

I’m a strong believer that your home should be a reflection of your family, and that’s especially true during the holiday season. I love that with my Cricut, I can create customized decor, unique advent calendars, personalized gift tags and bags, and endless gifts that are perfect for everyone on my list. Today I’ve rounded up more than 25 creative Christmas projects that you can make with the Cricut Explore Air 2 or Cricut Maker.

To help you find exactly what you’re looking for, I’ve broken this project idea list in to categories, including:

Stylish Gift Wrap Ideas
Creative Advent Ideas
Personalized Holiday Decor
Christmas Eve Traditions
Great DIY Gifts

Personalized Holiday Projects Made With Cricut

GIFT WRAP IDEAS

Reusable Monogram Gift Tags

Color Your Own Gift Bags

Photo Credit: Happy Go Lucky

Gift Wrap with Debossed Foil

Photo Credit: The Proper Blog

"Gangsta Wrapper" Holiday Gift Bag

Photo Credit: The Cards We Drew

Engraved Acrylic Gift Tags

Photo Credit: Giggles Galore

Special Delivery Bag

Photo Credit: Clover Lane

Creative Advent Ideas

Christmas Book Advent Gift Tags

Advent Calendar Drawers

Photo Credit: Kaleidoscope Living

Holiday Countdown Banner

Photo Credit: Wit and Delight

Framed Wooden Advent Calendar

Photo Credit: Everyday Party

PERSONALIZED HOLIDAY DECOR

Letter To Santa Wood Sign

Photo Credit: Tried & True

Personalized Christmas Stockings & Tassels

Photo Credit: Happily Ever After Etc

Black & White Modern Christmas Coasters

Photo Credit: The Crafted Sparrow

CHRISTMAS EVE TRADITIONS

Treats for Santa Wood Chalkboard Sign

Photo Credit: Lemon Thistle

Christmas Eve Bag

Photo Credit: Suburban Wife City Life

Personalized Christmas Eve Box

Photo Credit: Artsy Fartsy Mama

Personalized Jammies

Photo Credit: Sew Sophie Lynn

EASY DIY GIFT IDEAS

Monogram Dish Towels

Photo Credit: Polished Habitat

Baking Gift Idea

Photo Credit: The Idea Room

Book Lovers Gift Basket

Photo Credit: Pretty Providence

Personalized Gifts for Outdoorsmen

Photo Credit: All For the Memories

Personalized Stationery

Photo Credit: Just My Little Mess

Personalized Chemistry Set for Kids

Photo Credit: Housewife Eclectic

Sleepover Tote Bags

Photo Credit: Rad and the Rest

Engraved Charm Bracelet

Photo Credit: Laura's Crafty Life

Baby, It’s Cold Outside Teapot Set

Photo Credit: Best of This Life

Monogrammed Scarf & Gloves Gift Set

Photo Credit: That's What Che Said

Monogram Makeup Bags

Photo Credit: Small Stuff Counts

The post Personalized Holiday Projects Made With Cricut appeared first on Blue i Style.

DIY Map Ornaments

blueistyle — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 12:29:00 +0000

I love to travel and I have a bit of an obsession with maps! Years ago I came across a set of gold landmark ornaments that I just couldn’t pass up, and I decided then and there that one day I would have a travel-themed Christmas tree. I began looking for a Christmas ornament to bring home as a souvenir from each country we visit. And I also thought it would be really fun idea make a set of DIY map ornaments to commemorate each of our travel destinations.

I considered a lot of different way to create my travel map ornaments, but my number one priority was making them simple enough that it will be easy to add more over the years as we check more cities and countries off of our travel bucket list.

SUPPLY LIST

*This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something I recommend, you pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

{1} Fiskars Round and Round Squeeze Punch – X-Large

{2} Standard hole punch

{3} Tres Port Postal Rubber Stamp

{4} EK Success Squeeze and Roll Glue Pen

{5} Red Sharpie

{6} Recollections Brush Markers

{7} Airplane Twill Ribbon, The Paper Studio {from Hobby Lobby}

{8} 2.25′ Metal Edged Paper Tags

In addition to these supplies, I obviously needed maps of each of our travel destinations. For this, I simply copied maps out of my National Geographic Family Reference Atlas, but if you don’t own an atlas, you could just as easily print maps from the Internet. I copied the maps onto white cardstock weight paper.

I planned to affix one map to each round kraft paper tag, and originally assumed that I’d have to cut each circle with scissors, being very precise to get the size just right. But as I was printing the maps, it dawned on me that I owned several Fiskars squeeze punches in different sizes of circles. I was thrilled to find that my 2 inch squeeze punch cut a circle exactly the right size to fit just inside the metal rim of the round kraft paper tags.

In addition to being a major time saver, my favorite part about the squeeze punch is that it allowed me to see exactly what I was going to cut before cutting it. I was able to position the map within the center of the punch, ensuring that the city names I wanted were visible.

In the photo above, I was cutting a circle from the very bottom of the map to document our recent trip to Cape Town, but when I needed to cut a circle from a location not along the edge of the paper, I simply used scissors to cut the paper down until the section I wanted could fit within the frame of the squeeze punch.

As I cut my map circles, I also kept in mind that I would be punching a hole in the top center of each to add the ribbon for hanging. With that in mind, I was careful not to position the names of important cities near the top center of the circles.

Once I finished cutting all of my maps, I began gluing them to the craft paper tags using an acid free glue pen {which won’t cause the paper to discolor over time}. Each tag has a metal rim around the edge, but the rim is wider on one side than the other {in the photo below, the side with the thinner rim is at the top, and the thicker rim below}. The maps fit perfectly inside the thicker rim, so I had to pay attention to glue them to the correct side of each tag.

After affixing the maps to the tags, I had to punch a hole through each in order to later add the ribbon for hanging. I used a standard hole punch and lined it up with the original, slightly smaller, hole on the blank side of each tag.

With the maps on one side of tags, I decided to use the reverse side to note the year that we traveled to each destination. But the year alone seemed a bit boring, so I picked up a rubber stamp at Hobby Lobby with three postmarks {which, because they are not quite legible, also remind me of passport stamps}.

I recently experimented with hand-coloring rubber stamps {when I made stamped place cards}, and my Recollections brush markers worked so well that I decided to use them again for this project. I colored each post mark in a different color – red, brown and green {and I opted not to color the signature across the bottom of the stamp}.

Three important tips to keep in mind when hand coloring a rubber stamp: (1) After coloring, but before stamping, you have to “huff” on the stamp {blow hot air on it with an open mouth} to re-moisten the ink in order to get nice, vibrant colors; (2) Re-color after each stamp; and (3) When you are done stamping, baby wipes work well to remove all of the excess ink and ensure that the stamp does not get stained.

I then used a red Sharpie to write in the travel year corresponding to each map next to the red postmark stamp.

Finally, I added a piece of ribbon to each ornament for easy hanging. I was thrilled to find some adorable airplane ribbon at Hobby Lobby for only $.99 per 2 yard roll. I stocked up on quite a few rolls, so I’ll be able to use the same ribbon when I make more of these ornaments in the future. I tied a simple knot by wrapping the ribbon around my finger and then pulling the ends through the loop. I pulled each knot tight and then trimmed off the excess leaving just a bit of ribbon poking out of the top. As of now, the ribbon doesn’t seem to be fraying, but if the ends of the ribbon do begin to fray, I’ll add a bit of FrayCheck to keep them looking nice.

These ornaments were so simple to make, but I really love the way they turned out! They are prefect for commemorating each of our travel destinations and documenting the year of each trip. I bought extra of the tags and ribbon, so I’ll be able to quickly and easily make a new ornament each time we travel.

As the years go by, it will be so fun to reminisce about our adventures as we hang each of these map ornaments on a travel themed tree!

These small ornaments will pair perfectly with my set of gold landmark ornaments!

Be sure to pin the image below so you can find you way back to this easy, DIY map ornament tutorial when you’re ready to make them for yourself, or to give a gift!

Now that you’ve seen my travel map ornaments, you might want to check out this post with 35 other handmade ideas for trimming your tree from some of your favorite bloggers!

The post DIY Map Ornaments appeared first on Blue i Style.

Glam White DIY Christmas Trees

blueistyle — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 19:05:00 +0000

A while back, my mom bought me a variety of unfinished paper mache and wood cutout Christmas trees from Hobby Lobby knowing that I would have fun figuring out a creative way to decorate them. I stalled and stalled and didn’t do anything with these Christmas tree crafts for a couple of years – not because I didn’t have any ideas, but because I had too many ideas and couldn’t make a decision. Does anyone else have this same problem? I call it craft indecisiveness!

Finally I realized that I could use my indecisiveness to my advantage by creating six distinctly different DIY Christmas Trees – three cones, and three flat wood Christmas trees. Today I want to share three simple tutorials for decorating paper mache cones from Hobby Lobby to create glam Christmas decorations on a major budget

I started my DIY Christmas Tree project the same way most craft projects start in my house – by pulling together paints, scrapbook papers, ribbons, and various other supplies from around my house and piling them all in the center of the kitchen table. After staring at the supplies for a while, I decided to start with the paper mache cone-shaped Christmas trees.

DIY Fur Christmas Tree. Let’s begin with the Christmas tree that I covered in white fur ribbon, which I purchased at Michael’s. Since the base of the tree would remain exposed, I started by giving the tree a coat of white acrylic paint. I unrolled all nine yards of the fur ribbon and cut strips the right length, then used my hot glue gun to begin attaching the fur strips to the tree.

I was concerned about maintaining the narrow, pointed shape of the top of the tree, so I knew I couldn’t have six strip of thick fur overlapping at the very top of the tree. Instead I started by affixing three strips of fur that were only about three quarters of the height of the tree. I spaced these strips evenly around the tree, leaving room between each to affix three more full length strips of fur ribbon.

With the final three strips of fur glued to the lower part of the tree, I used a scissors to cut the top of each strip into a point. I then finished gluing these three fur strips to the top of the tree. The tree initially looked odd because of the different layers of the overlapping strips of fur, but as soon as I fluffed up the fur with the fingers, the tree really took shape and looked perfect.

DIY Bead Garland Christmas Tree. Next I decided to wrap one of the Christmas trees in a silver bead garland that I purchased from Michael’s (also on the ribbon aisle). I started by painting the tree white, and, to achieve a glossy finish, I combined my white acrylic paint with some Liquitex Gloss Gel that I had in with my painting supplies.

Once the paint was dry, I began wrapping the tree with the silver bead garland, using hot glue to affix the end of the first string of beads. The spot where I glued the initial strand of beads became the “back” of the tree. As I added additional strands of beads, I ensured that each started and stopped at the back of the tree so that, when placed on my mantel, none of the hot glue will be visible. In total, I used about eight and a half yards of bead garland to wrap the tree from top to bottom.

DIY Paper Heart Christmas Tree. I wanted to cover the third Christmas tree in some music note scrapbook paper that I already owned, though I wasn’t sure the best way to go about this. I thought about attaching strips of paper around the tree and then fringing the paper, but I was concerned that the music notes wouldn’t read if the paper was fringed. Instead, I decided to get my Cricut Christmas craft on. I pulled out my Cricut machine (this was a few years ago when I was still using the original Cricut before updating to the Cricut Explor) and cut hundreds of elongated hearts.

After cutting all of the music note hearts, I decided that the tree would be more interesting if I mixed in some fancy papers that would add a little sparkle to the tree. I sifted through my scrapbook papers and cut more hearts from silver metallic paper, as well as from paper that had stripes of beige, white, black and silver glitter.

Since I knew that the paper mache base of the tree would most likely show through between the scrapbook paper hearts, I started by painting the tree with two coats of silver metallic acrylic paint. Then, before attaching the hearts to the tree, I curled each around a pencil. Rather than curing them one by one, I found that it worked well to stack up three to four hearts and curl them all at once. Then I would glue those hearts to the tree before curling three or four more.

I started at the bottom of tree, and used a dot of hot glue at the point of each heart and a dot of hot glue in the center of each heart. I worked my way around the tree, one row at a time. On each row, I overlapped the edges of the hearts, and each row also overlapped the row below.

It was a time consuming process to glue nearly 400 hearts to the tree – about five re-runs of Friends to be specific. Once I finally reached the very top of the tree, I used the pencil to curl the final three hearts in around themselves, rather than curling them so that the rounded ends flipped up. This made the final hearts easier to glue in place and maintained the shape of the point of the tree top.

I am so excited about how these tree DIY Christmas trees turned out! Each one is so unique, but I think they look especially great when grouped together.

It’s amazing what happens when you stop procrastinating, spread out all your craft supplies, and just get to work!

My painted, chipboard Chirstmas trees also turned out beautifully. It’s amazing how a few paper mache cones from Hobby Lobby and a few chipboard Christmas trees turned into a chic white Christmas mantel display with these DIY Christmas Tree crafts! I’m just over here singing, “I’m dreaming of an orange and white Christmas…”

Be sure to pin the image below so you can find your way back to these simple DIY tutorials for decorating paper mache cones from Hobby Lobby to create glam Christmas decorations on a major budget! And then click over to see how I painted my wood Christmas trees cutouts for more DIY white Christmas decorations!

The post Glam White DIY Christmas Trees appeared first on Blue i Style.

Clean Up After Painting: How to Clean Paint Brushes and Get Paint Off Hands

blueistyle — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:07:00 +0000

Any day is a good day to paint! Whether I’m creating art with the kids, painting furniture, or changing the color of your walls, I’m always having fun, but I used to dread the clean up. That is, until I learned a couple of simple tricks that save me lots of time. Whether you’re using acrylic paint for arts and crafts, latex or oil-based paint on your walls, or wood stain, I’ll let you in on my secret for how to clean paint brushes and how to get paint off your hands.

These pretty colored paint brushes were the result of a recent rainy day art project with the kids that all started because Beckett wanted to do the dishes. He grabbed a step stool, pulled it up to the kitchen sink and started “washing dishes,” which, in true six-year-old fashion, mostly consisted of splashing around in the water. My default mom reaction was to tell him to stop because he was making a mess.

But before I could stop him, he looked me in the eyes and said, “I know it’s going to be hard work, but I love hard work,” and my heart just melted. A kid’s desire to help is such a wonderful quality and I don’t ever want to squash his enthusiasm. I decided that rather than stopping him, I would teach him how to wash dishes the right way. This post is sponsored by Dawn, one of my favorite hard working brands, but all ideas and opinions are my own.

I grabbed out a bottle of Dawn Dish Soap and we got to work on the dishes. Beckett immediately noticed the cute ducklings on Dawn’s special 40th Anniversary label, which came as no surprise to me since he loves animals so much. His reading has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months, and his face lit up as he read the words, “Celebrating 40 Years Helping Save Wildlife.”

Beckett dreams of becoming a zoologist and protecting animals, so he wanted to know more about how dish soap helps wildlife. While he washed the dishes, I found some pictures online of animals that had become victims of oil spills and environmental disasters, and told him that just like Dawn removes the grease on our pots and pans, it’s also gentle enough to clean a bird’s feathers.

He wanted to know how many animals they had helped, so we read that Dawn has helped save more than 75,000 birds and marine animals, and that Dawn also supports organizations dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife when disaster strikes, including International Bird Rescue and The Marine Mammal Center.

Beckett was over the moon to hear that Dawn cares about animals as much as he does, and this conversation was the perfect opportunity for me to talk to him about the importance of supporting brands that are committed to doing good work in the world.

He was fascinated by the idea that Dawn Dish Soap could be used on animals, and he asked me if there is anything else we could use Dawn to clean. I started rattling off a long list of uses. I told him that I always use one specific type of Dawn to remove the set-in grease stains from Dad’s shirts.

Then I mentioned that I used to take painting classes and the teacher taught us to use Dawn to clean our paint brushes. One mention of art, and Beckett decided he was done with dishes and asked if we could get out his paints! That’s my kid, right there!

I told Beckett I could do him one better, we could do an art project using his paints AND Dawn dish soap. I had seen a YouTube video about how to create a resist painting with dish soap, and I knew the kids would have fun giving it a try.

SUPPLIES FOR DISH SOAP RESIST PAINTING:

Art canvas
Acrylic Paint (matte finish)
Paint Brushes
Dawn Dish Soap
Spray Paint (NOT spray lacquer)

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 1

In order for this resist painting technique to work, it’s important that you use acrylic paints. This process will not work with tempera, poster paint, or other washable paints you might buy for kids, because they’ll wash right off when you apply water in a later step.

My boys love rainbows, so it came as no surprise to me that both Beckett and Cooper chose to paint their canvases with rainbow stripes.

Then they proceeded to also paint their hands, because… well, why not, right?!

TIP: HOW TO GET PAINT OFF YOUR HANDS

Dawn Dish Soap is as gentle on fingers as it is on feathers, and it’s perfect removing paint and grease from your hands. Acrylic paint washes off pretty easily with just Dawn and warm water, but for stubborn spray paint and dried latex paint, you can use a soft toothbrush combined with the dish soap to gently scrub the paint off. Because Dawn is tough on oil and grease, it’s effective at removing oil-based paints and stains from hands as well.

Washing those little hands was priority one (before they could touch anything), and then I turned my attention to the paint brushes.

TIP: HOW TO CLEAN PAINT BRUSHES

It’s always best to clean paint off of your brushes while the paint is still wet. For wet paint, you’ll need nothing more than warm water and Dawn Dish Soap to get the brushes clean. This works for craft paint, latex, oil-based paint, and even stain. Not only is Dawn gentle on the bristles, it’s also gentle on your hands, unlike many harsh paint solvents.

Expert Tip to Prevent Paint From Drying on Brushes:
If you need to take a break between paint coats, or if you don’t have time to wash your brush as soon as you finish painting, place your paint brush fully inside a zip-top plastic bag, squeeze out as much extra air as you can, and zip the bag shut. This will keep the paint on your brush wet for days until you’re ready to finish painting or clean the brush.The same works for paint rollers. Leave the roller on the frame, and place the entire thing into a jumbo size (2.5 gallon) zip-top bag to keep the roller from drying out between coats of paint.

If the paint on your brushes has dried completely, a stronger solvent may be necessary. Methods like acetone and rubbing alcohol can be effective on dried paint, but they will also dry out the bristles, which isn’t good for your brushes. After cleaning with solvents, you can counteract the drying effect by giving the brushes a final rinse in warm water with Dawn Dish Soap to moisturize the bristles. Rub the dish soap into the bristles, rinse the soap out, and then reshape the bristles so that they dry in the right position before storing them.

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 2

Once the boys’ hands were washed, the paint brushes were cleaned, and the paint was dry on their canvases, we were ready to move on to the next step of the art project – drizzling Dawn Dish Soap over the painting. In the example of this project that I saw on YouTube, they used random lines and drops to create an abstract look, but we decided to draw rainbows.

Be careful to not get your lines of Dawn dish soap to thick. On our first attempt, the lines spread together, so I simply rinsed the canvas off in the kitchen sink, gently patted it dry, and then we tried again holding the bottle up a bit higher to create thinner lines.

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 3

Once you’ve drawn the design you want on the canvas with Dawn Dish Soap, carry the canvas outside (being careful to keep it flat so the soap doesn’t run) and paint the entire canvas with spray paint. Wherever there is dish soap, the spray paint won’t be able to reach the canvas – so these are the areas where the original colors you painted will ultimately show through.

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 4

Let the spray paint dry for about 30 minutes, or until the paint is dry to the touch. Then spray the canvas off outside with a hose or bring the canvases into the house and run warm water over it in the sink to remove the Dawn Dish Soap.Like magic, the colorful rainbows started to appear…

Or at least on the black canvas they did… It turns out I made a bit of a mistake on the white canvas that you should be sure to avoid!

We originally planned to paint both canvases black, but Beckett said he wanted his to be white instead. The only white spray paint I had in the house was white lacquer. Everything seemed fine as the spray lacquer went on and I could see the Dawn Dish Soap resisting the white paint. But when I went to wash the dish soap off, I realized the white lacquer had basically created a seal over the top of the dish soap making it hard to wash off. I had to pick it off in place, and it didn’t end up quite as clean and nice as the black canvas. But the boys were both still thrilled with their artwork!

This was such a fun afternoon art project with the kids! They learned about how Dawn helps wildlife, experimented with a little science in the process of creating resist paintings, and even picked up a new skill as mom’s dish washing (and paint brush cleaning) helpers.

ENTER THE GOLDEN DUCK CONTEST:

What could be more fun than creating this simple art project with your kids? How about a VIP Wildlife Experience?!Dawn wants to show you the amazing things their wildlife partners do! To celebrate their 40th anniversary of helping save wildlife, they are hosting the first ever Golden Duck Contest. From now until 11:59:59pm ET on October 6, 2018, follow these steps to enter:

Visit your local Target and purchase a 40th Anniversary Bottle of Dawn Dish Soap (here’s a coupon!)
Take a photo of the full receipt
Submit the receipt photo here, and complete the registration form for a chance to win an exciting wildlife experience.

The winning families will be flown to Dawn’s wildlife partner locations for a behind-the-scenes look at how they are helping wildlife and the animals they save.

The post Clean Up After Painting: How to Clean Paint Brushes and Get Paint Off Hands appeared first on Blue i Style.

The Best Craft Projects of 2017 from More Than 30 Bloggers

blueistyle — Thu, 28 Dec 2017 13:10:00 +0000

Yesterday I looked back at my Top 5 Decorating and DIY projects of 2017, and today I’m talking crafts! It should probably come as no surprise that my most popular crafty project of the year also involves organizing (you guys love organizing as much as I do). Or maybe it made the top of the list because it’s an IKEA hack… everyone loves those, too!

I turned a raw wood MOPPE mini-chest of drawers into a stylish cord and charger organizer for my kitchen counter with some paint, stain, and custom icons I cut using my Cricut. Grab the tutorial here! Along the same lines – Cricut and organization – my tips on how to organize all of your Cricut supplies was a close second for most popular craft-related post.

Other popular craft posts on the blog this year included the Framed Paint Brush Art from my garage, my DIY Dollhouse Makeover, my Bookshelf Makeover with Vinyl, and my Photo Transfer Tray (which makes a great Valentine’s Gift, if you’re already looking ahead).

But enough about me! I thought it would be even more fun to see the top craft posts from a bunch of other awesome bloggers, so here are more than 30 of the The Best of the Best of 2017 crafts, wahoo!!

Sugar Bee Crafts: Create Painted Canvas

A Girl and a Glue Gun: Transfer Photos to Wood

The Friendly Red Fox: Crochet Mermaid

The Craft Patch: Giant Paper Flowers

See Lindsay: Maui Costume

Keeping it Simple: Farmhouse Signs

Practical and Pretty: DIY Yoga Bolster

Happiness is Handmade: DIY Gemstone Soap

Artsy Fartsy Mama: Printable Coloring Weekly Planner

Printable Crush: Hand Lettered Wood Sign

Everyday Jenny: 3D Paper Flower Magnets

The Ruffled Daisy: Holiday Slime

5 Little Monsters: Crocheted Unicorn Hat

Creative Green Living: Unicorn Horn Headband

Dukes and Duchesses: Upcycled Embroidery Hoop

Cutesy Crafts: Bloom Hand Embroidery

Liz on Call: Custom T-shirt How-To

Twin Drangonfly Designs: Chewbacca Ornaments

Persia Lou: Paint Scrape Notecards

Sweet Red Poppy: Skinny Bows

Sengerson: Cold Frame Garden Box

Sunshine and Munchins: Rainbow String Art

Swoodson Says: Felt Pocket Kitty

Unoriginal Mom: Fabric Covered Pumpkins

Ginger Snaps: 2×4 Tic Tac Toe

Sew Alicia: Quick Rag Quilt Hack

A Little Craft in Your Day: Crate Ottoman

Housewife Eclectic: Harry Potter Party

Sisters What: Faux Leather Bow Tie

Doodlecraft: Lego Fidget Spinner

It Happens in a Blink: Rope Coasters

Simply Designing: Industrial Printer Cart

Leap of Faith Crafting: Painted Yeti Mug

The post The Best Craft Projects of 2017 from More Than 30 Bloggers appeared first on Blue i Style.

DIY Dollhouse Makeover

blueistyle — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000

There are those presents that the kids lose interest in right away (womp womp), and others that are still favorites years later (parenting WIN!). A few years ago, I did a last minute DIY dollhouse makeover for my boys, transforming an off-the-shelf dollhouse into a mini-me version of our own home, and years later, the boys (now 4.5 and almost 6) still play with it all the time and show it to everyone who comes over!

When we were little, my mom created several dollhouses for my sister and me. She bought them unfinished, and then meticulously decorated and furnished them, using real carpet, tile, and linoleum remnants on the floors, and using fabric to create wallpaper for the walls. Those dollhouses were our prized possessions and I always envisioned creating a similar dollhouse for my own daughter someday.

When I had two sons, I kind of assumed that there wouldn’t be any dollhouses in my future, but boy was I wrong! When Beckett was 2 and a half, he spotted a dollhouse at a toy store, begged to play with it, and had to literally be dragged out of the store 30 minutes later. He talked about that dollhouse a couple of days, and then he seemed to forget all about it. In all of our visits to Santa that Christmas, a dollhouse never came up, but then just weeks before Christmas he informed me that a dollhouse was the only thing he really wanted! Uh oh!

I thought about just running out and buying him the house he had seen at the toy store months before, but it was designed for use with little mice, squirrels, and bunnies in fancy flowery little dresses that he showed no interest in. It was the furniture and the house itself that seemed to enthrall him.

Around the same time, Beckett had started to show a lot more interested in my blog photos. He began climbing on to my lap and requesting to see his room. Then he would ask to see the rest our house room by room, excitedly pointing out the details he recognized in each space.

And that’s when I realized that this was my opportunity to create a truly special dollhouse like the ones my mom had given me. Except at that point it was just two weeks before Christmas and time was quickly ticking away. Good thing I’m always up for a challenge!

Since I didn’t have time to start completely from scratch, I was looking for a something that I could customize, with the goal of creating a dollhouse that resembled our own modern home.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. If you buy something that I recommend, you pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

I started my search online, and I was surprised to find lot of simple, contemporary styled wooden dollhouses. I liked this one from Melissa & Doug, this one from Plan Toys, and this giant one from KidKraft*.

But in the end I chose the Hape All Season House because I liked the size, the layout, and the potential for customization! The basic shape of the Hape dollhouse reminded me very much of our home – with its straight, geometric lines, and rooms spread out over many floors.

And here’s the view of the back of the house, in its original form…

Its true that our house is very bold and colorful, so I didn’t mind the primary color scheme of this dollhouse! In fact, if I were buying a dollhouse for two boys and didn’t want to spend the time customizing it, this would be a perfect choice because it’s really very fun and gender neutral!

However, since I did want to customize the dollhouse, this one perfectly fit my plans. The clearly delineated rooms and square shapes made it very easy to update. Here’s a sneak peek and the supply list, and then I’ll show you how I did it, step by step!

SUPPLY LIST

Dollhouse
Stain
Acrylic Paint (black and various colors)
Left over latex wall paint (optional)
Paint Brushes
Paint Sealer
Adhesive Vinyl
Inkjet Printable Adhesive Vinyl
Woodgrain Contact Paper
Furniture (specifics listed below)
Felt (various colors)
Colored Sharpies

STAIN THE WOOD

My original intent was simply updated the walls and floors in each room, and to paint the green front door and green roof. But once I unpacked the dollhouse from the box, I was suddenly inspired to also change the light wood color of the frame to better match the dark wood throughout our home. I grabbed out a can of left over stain {Dark Walnut}, and went to town!

Fortunately staining the frame of the dollhouse didn’t take long at all. While the stain dried, I turned my attention to the roof.

PAINT THE ROOF

One of the really fun elements of this dollhouse is that the roof serves as a handle to easily move the house around, is removable to create easier play access in the top level of the house, and is even reversible. In its original state, one side of the roof was bright green with vines growing around solar panels, and the other side of the roof was covered in snow drifts.

Since I was going to be covering up all the other bright green on the house, I decided to paint the green side of the roof black {to match our own roof}, but since we live in Colorado were snowy rooftops are a common sight throughout the winter, I definitely didn’t want to cover up the snow drift side. I used painters tape around the boarder of the snowy side of the roof to allow me to paint the edge of the roof without accidentally getting any black paint onto the white snow.

I used some left over black acrylic paint and a wide paint brush to make the roof’s paint job quick and easy.

PAINT FRONT DOOR & WALLS

Next up for makeover was the front door and all those primary colored walls. Our front doors are dark wood with frosted glass panels, so I painted the door with chocolate brown acrylic paint, and then used a light teal color in the window cut outs to mimic the color of the frosted glass.

I wanted to paint some of the walls, and to create “wallpaper” for others. To make things easy, I decided to paint all the walls that had window cut-outs, and to only wallpaper the solid square walls.

For the inside of the house, I wanted the walls to match the dominate wall colors in our home, so I grabbed out several jars of leftover latex paint from our storage room. I painted the room on the bottom floor the same light gray that is in our basement; for the next room up, I painted the walls the same teal as our kitchen/living room, and for the room on the top floor, I painted the wall a dark gray to match the accent wall in our real third floor master bedroom. {Sorry for the lack of photos here! I was working fast and furious to get this done for Christmas and didn’t stop to take all the photos I normally would… but you’ll see these walls later on.}

For the back of the dollhouse, I decided to make it look like the exterior of our home, which is a mix of white stucco, light gray stucco, and stacked stone. I painted each section with a window in a light gray paint to mimic our stucco color.

Once all the walls were painted {but before adding any wallpaper}, I decided to give everything a coat of sealer to make it more durable and less likely to get scratched while the kids play. I laid all the painted and stained parts out on cardboard in the garage and sprayed them with a satin spray sealer.

CREATE DIY DOLLHOUSE WALLPAPER

Now about that “wallpaper” I’ve been mentioning. I wanted to ensure that both boys could easily identify their own bedrooms in the dollhouse {this was before the boys were sharing a room}. Beckett’s room {which is now the playroom} has a fun argyle feature wall that I hand painted…

But there was no way that I was going to try to hand paint a miniature version of the argyle in the dollhouse {both in the interest of time and my sanity}. Instead, I pulled up the Photoshop rendering of the argyle that I had created back when I was trying to figure out the right color layout for the argyle wall. I measured the wall of one of the dollhouse rooms with no windows {7.5″ high by 8.125″ wide}, and then cropped and adjusted the size of the Photoshop rendering to be the same dimensions. Of course, if you’re not crazy like me, you could just search for an image online of the wallpaper pattern you want!

Next, I needed to recreated the look of the teal ombre striped walls in Cooper’s room.

I again used the dollhouse room dimensions and create a striped image that replicated the look of the ombre walls.

I printed the “wallpaper” onto sheets of inkjet printable adhesive vinyl, trimmed them down to size, and then positioned them on the two walls with no windows.

CREATE FAUX STONE FOR DOLLHOUSE EXTERIOR

To complete the look of the exterior of the house, I downloaded an image of the stacked stone on our home from the manufacturers website, and I printed the image onto more sheets of inkjet printable adhesive vinyl. In addition to covering the two non-window sections of the back of the house in stone, I also covered the bright green bushes next to the front door with stone as well.

ADD FAUX WOOD DOLLHOUSE FLOORS

The final step before before assembling the dollhouse was to refinish some of the floors. I wanted the lower two levels of the house to have the look of the hardwood floors in our home, so I picked up a roll of walnut colored wood grain shelf paper.

I covered the sections of floor that looked like tile and brick, leaving three sections of natural wood colored floor uncovered for the dollhouse bedrooms {the rooms that in our home have beige carpet}.

ASSEMBLE THE DOLLHOUSE

Finally, I was ready to assemble the dollhouse…

ADD HOUSE NUMBERS

After seeing the dollhouse put together, my husband suggested that I add the house number, and label the mail slot in the door similar to our mailbox. I used a scrap of teal vinyl and cut the numbers and letters on my Cricut electronic cutting machine.

Then I decided to take it one step further by painting the “toy box” that came with one of the furniture sets black and labeling it like the milk box on our front porch.

And here’s the mini dollhouse version!

I was so thrilled with how the dollhouse makeover turned out, and the side by side before and after is pretty drastic – especially considering that it only took me a few hours to make all the changes! The original was very fun and colorful, but the after… well, now it looks like home!

And here’s the back of the house…

The stacked stone combined with the two story windows above the front door really makes the dollhouse look remarkably like our home…

MODIFY DOLLHOUSE FURNITURE

Once the house was complete, I was ready to focus on the furniture. From watching my boys play with the dollhouse at the toy store, I knew that moving the furniture around would be one of their favorite parts, so I wanted to give them plenty of furniture options. After doing my research, I learned that the furniture and dolls from Hape, Plan Toys and Melissa & Doug are all very close in size, making them interchangeable. I picked my favorites from among all three furniture lines and ordered the following:

(1) Media Room Furniture Set

(2) Living Room

(3) Kitchen Furniture Set

(4) Dining Room Furniture Set

(5) Family Bathroom Furniture Set

(6) Bedroom Furniture

(7) Dollhouse Nursery

(8) Children’s Room Furniture Set

(9) Road Trip Car with Posable Family

(10) Doll Extended Family

Since the dollhouse was updated to look like our home, I wanted to make a few changes to make the furniture look a bit more like our own as well. I pulled out my bin of acrylic paint of went to town, starting with the dining chairs, which I painted black to match the chairs in our kitchen.

A grey couch, a silver table, a black headboard, a stainless oven, a brown bookshelf… I tweaked each piece of furniture to match something in our home, and then gave all the painted areas a coat of clear satin varnish to protect the paint from scratching.

To complete the furniture makeovers, I enlisted the help of my mom’s help for a simple sewing project. She recovered the couch and chair cushions using fabric swatches to match the furniture in our living room and family room. She also used a scrap of fabric from our master bedroom duvet to cover the bedspread for one of the dollhouse beds.

DIY DOLLHOUSE RUGS

The final step to making the dollhouse look just like home was to create some simple rugs for the floor. I picked up a few pieces of felt, cut the rugs to a size of 5″ x 7″, and then used my colored Sharpies to draw on patterns similar to the rugs in each room of our house. In just about 30 minutes I had seven new rugs!

FINISHED DIY DOLLHOUSE MAKEOVER

And here’s how it all came together!

In addition to the furniture, I picked a cute blue car that fits perfectly in the “garage” at the back of the house – just like our house with a garage entrance from the alley. The car came with a family of four, but I knew the boys would ask where the grandparents were, so I also bought an additional set of wooden dolls.

Ready for a closer look inside?! Come on in!

Just like our home, the lowest level of the dollhouse is the “basement,” the kitchen is to the right of the front door, the kids rooms are on the next level up, and the master bedroom and bathroom are on the third floor.

Since I wanted the kids to have lots of options, I made two sets of furniture for each of the lower level rooms. The basement can be set up as our family room, or as the kids play area, the kitchen can be swapped out to become our living room. Of course, the kids don’t really set the rooms up like this on their own – you’re more likely to find the toilet next to the kitchen table, and the couch on top of the bed!

TURNING A DOLLHOUSE INTO OUR HOME’S MINI-ME

The kids immediately recognized that the walls, rugs, furniture look like things in our home, and they love talking about it! Let me show you some comparisons…

Our basement family room has a grey couch, orange pillows, white chair, grey number rug, and fireplace…so does the dollhouse family room.

At the other end of our basement is the kids play area with a fun letter rug and a white play table with orange chairs. Here’s the real thing, and the dollhouse version…

On the other side of the dollhouse, the room with the teal wall doubles as our kitchen and our living room. Like our kitchen, the dollhouse has stainless appliances, black chairs, and an ombre rug in shades of teal and blue.

The dollhouse kitchen can also be set up as a mini version of our living room, with teal walls, a teal rug, and black and white tweed couch, black chairs, and a silver table.

Now let’s head upstairs…

In addition to the ombre walls, Cooper’s nursery has a crib, a zebra rug, a changing table, and a red rocking horse in place of a red elephant.

Beckett’s room is easy to identify by the argyle wall, but I also gave it a simplified version of a houndstooth rug, a play table, a bookshelf, and I even painted a little lamp to look like his DIY chalkboard globe.

Since I first created the dollhouse, the boys now share the bedroom with the ombre striped walls with bunkbeds, a navy blue rug, and orange accents. I think I might repaint the dollhouse bunkbed white and make a new rug for that room to reflect the real life makeover, and I might come up with a fun way to recreate the hanging play tent that’s in the argyle wall room, that’s now a playroom.On the third floor, the master bedroom has a black bed with a blue duvet, and a gray rug. It even has a big deck, just like our room, but the dollhouse deck comes with the added bonus that it can be moved to any room of the house.

Finally, at the top of the house is the bathroom, complete with a toilet with a lid that lifts – one of the boys’ very favorite parts! Since the time I created the dollhouse, our real life bathroom received a stylish makeover with graphic black and white cement tile. I’m thinking I might make a little update to the dollhouse bathroom to add some graphic glam style.

I had so much fun putting this dollhouse together for the boys, and I’m thrilled that three years later they are still enjoying it just as much as they did the very first day!

Here are some photos I snapped of them playing with the house a couple of years ago! It was snowing outside that day, so of course they flipped the roof around to the snowy side!

Since not all of the furniture can fit in the house at one, I put all the extra pieces in a plastic lidded bin that we keep in the toy cabinet. The boys love having options and spend a lot of time sorting through the furniture to find just the right pieces.

Ok, if you are thinking that you might want to customize a dollhouse for your kids…let me sum this all up for you so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming! I realize this post is long, but this dollhouse makeover was really quite easy.

Since I was trying to make it a surprise, I worked on this DIY dollhouse makeover during naps and after bedtime for about three days, but in total it only took about five hours. None of it required any special skills…just a little patience. Here’s the overview of what I did:

Stained dollhouse frame using left over stain
Painted the green side of the roof black using acrylic paint
Painted the windowed walls {interior and exterior} using paint left over from our walls
Painted the front door and deck
Sprayed a sealer over all the painted and stained areas to protect them
Printed “wallpaper” and stone onto printable adhesive vinyl
Cut the printed wallpaper and stone to fit the non-windowed walls and stuck them in place
Covered some of the floors in wood-grain contact paper
Assembled the dollhouse
Added house numbers and labeled the mail slot and milk box using adhesive vinyl
Painted and sealed select portions of the furniture to coordinate with furniture in our house
Recovered the cushions, pillows, and bedspread using fabric swatches and scraps
Created rugs using felt and Sharpie markers

Everyone loves a good before and after, right?! Here’s one more look at the completed transformation! And don’t forget to pin this post for any dollhouse renovations that might be in your future!

Have you created a dollhouse for your kids? Or do you a picture of the one you played with when you were little? Everyone can use more inspiration with the holidays upon us, so share your photos on Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to tag me!

The post DIY Dollhouse Makeover appeared first on Blue i Style.

Christmas Book Countdown & Reusable Gift Tags Made with Cricut

blueistyle — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 15:00:00 +0000

Last week, I shared a post with some of our favorite family Christmas traditions, and at the top of the list is our Christmas Book Countdown. Each year, we create a calendar on the chalkboard wall in our kitchen, and the boys cross out a number each night to see how many days are left until Christmas.

Then they rush to the big pile of wrapped books in the living room to find the one with the matching number. This year the tradition got a major style upgrade, which will also be a huge time saver for mom, with the reusable number gift tags I made using my Cricut, who I’m excited to have sponsoring this post.

I think our Christmas book advent tradition is so dear to me because it makes me so happy to see my boys developing a love of books and reading that I know they will carry through life. I recently wrote a post with tips for encouraging a love of reading in young kids, including ways to incorporate books into holiday celebrations.

When I first read the idea of the “24 books of Christmas,” it seemed a little overwhelming to me. That’s a lot of books. But here’s the thing – we use the same books year after year, so it’s an investment that pays off each Christmas season. I usually buy a few new books each year, and retire a few that the kids have outgrown. This year, I pulled out some of the original board books and replaced them with some longer story books. These are a few of our current favorites:

Among other holiday traditions, we also do the Elf on the Shelf with out boys, but we like to keep things really simple. Our elf – Luke – just moves to a new place each night for the kids to search for him {no elaborate shenanigans}. But Luke does make a grand entrance each December when he delivers all of the books for our Christmas countdown!

Lucky for me, he’s also a pretty good gift-wrap helper!

Wrapping all the books is definitely the most time consuming part of this tradition, and in the past, I’ve spent a bunch of extra time creating the number labels to add to the packages. Originally, it seemed like a fun idea to come up with a creative new way to label the books every year… but the novelty wore off by year two.

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This year, I came up with a plan that’s going to save me a lot of time each year when I wrap the books {and who can’t use more time during the holidays?!}. I used my Cricut electronic cutting machine to create reusable number gift tags!

Not only do I love the look of these new faux leather and foil number tags, I’m especially thrilled that they will be durable enough to be reused year after year, unlike any of the paper tags I’ve made in the past. At the end of this post, I’ve got the full tutorial to show you how you can create your own reusable gift tags with Cricut! And there’s also a chance below for you to win the newest Cricut machine!

The color-block style of the number tags – with the metallic foil overlapping the faux leather – looks especially perfect when paired with the red and white color-block alphabet ornaments on the thin Christmas tree in our living room!

These new number tags look great with my current red and teal Christmas decor, but because I stuck to black, silver, and gold, the tags will be very versatile with any color scheme or wrapping paper that strikes my fance in the future.

These cute, reusable number tags would be great for any sort of Christmas countdown or advent you might do with your family. They could easily be sized down to be attached to smaller gifts, or hung on a cute advent display!

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A CRICUT MAKER

What would you make this holiday season with Cricut? Gift tags, decorations, ornaments, DIY gifts for your friends and family, cute jewelry for all the festive parties? The options are endless – especially if you are the lucky winner of a new Cricut Maker! Enter to win, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

HOW TO MAKE REUSABLE NUMBER GIFT TAGS
WITH THE CRICUT

SUPPLY LIST

Let’s start with the supply list, and then I’ll show you how to make these reusable number gift tags. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience (read more about that here).

I have the Cricut Explore Air but I’m wishing for Santa to bring me the fancy new Cricut Maker, which you have a chance to win! If you missed the giveaway above, scroll back up enter really quickly!

I’ll walk you step by step through the design process, including teaching you how to use the weld and slice tools. But if you love these tags exactly the way I made them, then I’ll save you some time – you can access my finished design file right here: Cricut Number Gift Tag Design File.

To start, open a new file in design space, and click “Text” on the left side. Then click “Font” on the top bar to browse the font options. I love that Cricut Design Space will allow you to use any font on your computer, but I always seem to find exactly what I’m looking for in the Cricut fonts. The fonts are very easy to browse thanks to the preview screen that shows you what every character looks like.

I wanted a thick font for my number tags, and ended up selecting a Cricut font called “Annoucement,” and I used the bold option. I typed in my first number, and the set the size. Since these tags would be used on big children’s books, I wanted them to be pretty large. I decided on a height of 4.25 inches, and input that number as the size on the top design bar.

Rather than creating a new text box for each number, I just typed 1 through 9 into the text box, and then used the ungroup tool.

Clicking the ungroup tool automatically turned each number into its own layer.

For the double digit numbers, I started by using the duplicate tool to duplicate the number 1, then added the second number to make each of the teens. The automatic “letter spacing” between characters is set to 1.2, but in order to cut these as gift tags, I needed the one and zero to be touching.

Setting the letter space to 0 made them touch – but barely. To make the tags more durable, I wanted a bigger connection point between the numbers, so I adjusted the letter space down to -.5. For the numbers in the 20’s, I set the spacing between some numbers as low as -2.5, but I just tested each one until it looked right.

Here comes the most important step in the whole tutorial! In order to make these double digit numbers cut as one gift tag, the numbers must be welded together. Even though these numbers are overlapping, Design Space still sees them as two separate numbers. If I cut this file without welding the numbers, this is what would happen…

You can see on the cut preview that the one and zero would be cut separately. To fix this and cut the double digit numbers as one piece, use the weld tool at the bottom of the right panel. Select the text layer, and then click “Weld.”

You can see that your weld was successful by looking at the layer list in the right panel. Repeat this action to weld each of the double digit numbers.

In order to use these numbers as gift tags, you’ll want a hole or two in the top of each to string ribbon through. To create these holes, start by click on the shape tool on the left menu, and draw a circle. I made the circle for my hole .25″ in diameter.

Drag the circle to position it in a good spot over the number one, then duplicate the circle and drag it on onto the number two. For the double digit numbers, I decided to do two holes, one at the top of each number.

To turn these circles into holes that will be cut out of the numbers, use the slice tool. Select both the number and circle layers, and then click “slice.” Now delete the circle layers and you’ll be left with this…

Repeat this step to create the holes in each number.

The number gift tags are now ready to be cut. Begin by cutting a full set of numbers from the faux leather, which sticks best to a StrongGrip cutting mat {the instructions on the leather recommend regular grip, but I found the leather to move around too much}. I also used a deep cut blade based on recommendations I had read, but it cut into my mat a bit. I didn’t try it with a regular blade, so I can’t say for sure if it would have cut through cleanly, but I’ll test it next time to avoid cutting my mat.

My letters cut very nicely, but they were pretty curled, I think just because the leather was rolled up to start with. I was worried about how these would look on the wrapped books, but after putting the stack between some heavy books overnight, the flatted out really nicely.

To finish off the number tags, I decided to add some silver and gold foil to create a color-block look. Rather than editing the file to cut just the sections that I wanted to cover in foil, I just cut a second full set of numbers – half from silver adhesive foil, and the other half from gold.

I then used scissors to cut a rectangle around each number, then cut off the portion of each number that I wanted to apply on to of the black leather. I worked one number at a time, varying the positioning of each – covering a portion of the top or bottom, left or right of each number, or an angle across some.

I couldn’t be happier with the way these number tags turned out. Not only were they easy to make, I’ll be able to use them again year after year!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Christmas Book Countdown & Reusable Gift Tags Made with Cricut appeared first on Blue i Style.

Christmas Photo Booth Props Made with Cricut

blueistyle — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 20:31:00 +0000

Playing dress up is one of my boys favorite ways to spend an afternoon – whether it’s a super hero costume, a fireman coat and hat, or an animal mask and tail, it makes them giggle and they beg me to take photos. So for the holidays season, I thought it would be really fun to create some Christmas photo booth props for them and their friends to enjoy!

These adorable Christmas photo props were super quick and easy to make using my Cricut Expore Air, and they are definitely going to keep all the kids entertained at all of our Christmas parties and holiday gatherings this year! Thanks to Cricut for sponsoring this post and bringing some extra laughter to our house this season!

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SUPPLY LIST

Let’s start with the supply list, and then I’ll show you how to make them. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience (read more about that here).

I have the Cricut Explore Air but I’m wishing for Santa to bring me the fancy new Cricut Maker, which you have a chance to win at the end of this post!

TIP: You could make these photo booth props with any kind of card stock weight paper, but I picked the corrugated cardboard because it makes the look extra fun.

CRICUT DESIGN SPACE IMAGES

Once I’d gathered my supplies, I was ready to cut some cute designs for my photo props. I wanted to make this as quick and easy as possible, so I searched the images available in Cricut Design Space.

Success! There were lots of great options for everything I searched! You’ll find tons of options, but if you want to make the same photo props that I did, here are the numbers for the Cricut Design Space images that I used:

Santa Hat: #M188702D
Santa Beard: #M1AABE3C
Elf Hat: #MF1C57
Rudolph Nose & Antlers: #M1AABDDD
Mistletoe: #M45AC3
Kiss: #M46686
Naughty: #MF670B
Nice: #MF66FF
Ho Ho Ho: #MF6713

Once I picked my images, all I needed to do was resize them. Since these photo props are just meant to me cute, really any size will do, but I went with a general rule of six inches wide for Santa’s beard, and between 8 and 10 inches wide for hats, depending on their shape.

CUTTING THE PHOTO BOOTH PROPS

Then I was ready to get cutting. I love that the Cricut brand materials come with specific cutting instructions right on the packaging. For the corrugated cardboard, it told me to set the dial to “Custom”…

… and then select “Corrugate Cardboard” from the drop down list of materials in Design Space.

These settings worked perfectly with my standard blade.

This was my first time cutting corrugated cardboard, and I was excited at how clean and nice the cuts turned out!

I used the corrugated cardboard for most of my photo props, but for a few things – like the speech bubbles – I decided that non-corrugated would be better. Fortunately, the Corrugated Cardboard Sets also came with a couple of sheets of flat cardboard in each of the same colors. I left the dial set to “Custom” but chose “Flat Cardboard” from the drop down list instead.

The corrugated and flat cardboard has a good weightiness to it, but I noticed that some of the larger photo props were still feeling a bit floppy {espeically the elf hat and tall reindeer antlers}. To stabilize them, I cut the same shape from a sheet of White Kraft Board {choose “Kraft Board” from the material drop down list before cutting} and glued that heftier layer to the back.

My favorite glue for projects with fine details is this Mono Aqua Liquid Glue that has a fine point tip on one side, and a wider tip on the other end for larger areas.

Once I had all of my images cut and glued together, I just needed to attach them to some sticks to make them easy to hold up. I already had some bamboo skewers in the kitchen drawer, so I used those {I like them because they are pretty long}, but wood craft sticks would work just as well.

Then I grabbed a roll of washi tape to quickly attach the sticks to the back of the photo props. If you use skewers like I did, just be sure to place the pointy end against the paper, and cover the tip with the washi tape so that no one gets poked. This leaves the blunt end of the skewers for your hand to hold.

And that’s it… quick and easy, but adorable photo props that look like they were professionally made. I know that my kids and their friends are going to get a ton of use out of these!

I’m going to let the kids test these out the day after Thanksgiving while we put up our Christmas tree, so head over to my Instagram stories on Friday to see some real time photo booth action through the day! I’ll come back add some of the cute photos here later.

Best of all, I don’t have to worry about it if these start to show a little wear and tear from one Christmas season to the next. I can simply cut a replacement piece in just a couple of minutes using my Cricut. Pin the image below so you can find your way back to this tutorial with the list of Cricut Design Space images I used.

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A CRICUT MAKER

What would you make this holiday season with Cricut? Christmas decorations, ornaments, DIY gifts for your friends and family, cute jewelry for all the festive parties? These are just a few of the things on my list, but the options are endless – especially if you are the luck winner of a new Cricut Maker! Enter to win, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Christmas Photo Booth Props Made with Cricut appeared first on Blue i Style.

Color-Dipped Letter Ornaments + More DIY Christmas Ornaments

blueistyle — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 11:04:00 +0000

Am I the only one who feels like unpacking the Christmas decorations is almost as good as opening presents on Christmas morning? It makes me so excited for all of the joy and magic of the season ahead! Maybe it’s a sign that I have to many decorations, but each year I unpack a few decorations that I’ve completely forgotten about from the year before, and this time around one of those pleasant surprises was the set of color-dipped letter ornaments that I DIY’d for the skinny tree in our living room last season.

Aren’t these red and white DIY Christmas ornaments fun?! I shared a few photos of these on our tree last year, but I never showed you just how easy they were to make, so today I wanted to give you the quick and easy tutorial that saved me a bunch of money!

Today I’ve also joined with some of my blogging friends to bring you a dozen other simple and beautiful DIY Christmas ornament ideas! You’ll find links to the tutorials to all of these ornaments and more at the end of this post.

But before you hop around to check out some of the other gorgeous ornaments, let me show you how I made my oversized and graphic, color-dipped letter ornaments.

My alphabet ornaments were inspired by the fun, colorful alphabet ornaments from the Land of Nod. I loved the look, but for our living room I really wanted all red and white letters, rather than the variety of blue, green, yellow, red, and purple available at the Land of Nod. Plus, even at the current sale price of $5.25 each (down from $7), it would have cost me more than $130 for a the full alphabet, and that was more than I could justify for new ornaments.

Instead, I went the DIY route which saved me a ton of money in exchange for a couple hours of my time. I purchased 3 inch wood letters from the craft section at Target for only $.79 each. I also picked up larger wood letters for each of our first initials {A B C and S}.

I started by painting both sides of the wood letters white.

I then used skinny masking tape to tape off the portions that I wanted to paint red on each letter.

Before adding the red paint, I brushed on a thin coat of my favorite craft sealer along the tape line, which created a seal to prevent any paint from bleeding under the tape.

Then I painted a section of each letter red {it took two coats for good coverage because red paint is always thinner}.

After the red paint dried, I removed the tape and revealed super crisp paint lines.

Last year I just propped letters up on the branches of our tree, but they weren’t very stable, so this year I’m quickly adding loops of red and white baker’s twine using hot glue.

I’ll be setting up the tree with these color-block letter ornaments in the next couple of days, but in the menatime, here’s how they looked last year paired with black and white striped ribbon and some simple white lights on our skinny living room tree.

And now, here are some more gorgeous DIY Christmas ornament ideas from my talented blogging friends! Head over to see what they have in store for you!

The Happy Housie / The Wicker House / A Pretty Life / Place of My Taste

The Turquoise Home / Satori Design for Living / Hymns and Verses / Fynes Designs

Green With Decor / Southern State of Mind / This is Our Bliss / Blue i Style

The post Color-Dipped Letter Ornaments + More DIY Christmas Ornaments appeared first on Blue i Style.