Gift Ideas Archives - 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

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Reusable Monogram Gift Tags Made with Cricut

blueistyle — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 09:38:00 +0000

I am so grateful to my friends at Cricut for sponsoring this holiday DIY project.

A couple of years ago, I used my Cricut to make numbered gift tags for the 24 books that we wrap every holiday season for the boys to open each night leading up to Christmas. I loved how they turned out and, ever since, I’ve been wanting to make some reusable gift tags for all of our family Christmas presents.

I once again used my Cricut and created some simple DIY monogram gift tags. I made a set of reusable gift tags for each member of the family with their first initial, and I used a combination of faux pebbled leather and a variety of patterned and glitter iron on vinyls to give these reusable monogram gift tags a modern style that will look great on all the presents under our tree year after year.

Below are the step by step instructions for making these simple and stylish resuable gift tags. I’ve linked to the specific faux leather and iron on vinyl that I used, but of course, you can customize these gift tags with any colors and patterns you love to create a look that’s perfect for your holiday decor.

And these gift tags aren’t just for Christmas, they could be used for Hanukkah, birthday gifts, or for any other gift giving holiday you celebrate.

HOW TO MAKE REUSABLE MONOGRAM GIFT TAGS WITH THE CRICUT

REUSABLE GIFT TAG SUPPLY LIST

Let’s start with the supply list, and then I’ll show you how to make these reusable monogram gift tags. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

Cricut electronic cutting machine (I use the Explore Air)
Cricut Access Fonts
StrongGrip Adhesive Cutting Mat
Black Pebbled Faux Leather
Patterned Iron On Vinyl (I used this set and this set)
Glitter Iron On Vinyl
Scissors
Easy Press Mini
Pressing Mat
Cropadile and 3/16″ Eyelets (optional)

I’ve saved my finished design file right here, but unless your family happens to have the same first initials as mine, I’ll walk you step by step through the design process of creating these monogram gift tags with the initials of your loved ones.

Start by opening 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 these tags to be pretty thick and modern, so I chose a Cricut font called “Eagle Bold” and set the size to a height of 3 inches. I may make another set of smaller tags later, but I think these big tags will be perfect to make a statement on most of our gifts.

Rather than creating a new text box for each number, I just typed our four initials into the text box, and then used the ungroup tool. Clicking the ungroup tool automatically turned each number into its own layer.

In order to use these letters as gift tags, I needed a hole in the top of each to string twine or ribbon through. To create these holes, start by click on the shape tool on the left menu, and draw a circle. I wanted the holes to be 3/16 of an inch, so I input .1875 as the circle size, which design space rounded to .188″ in diameter.

I dragged the circle to position it in a good spot over the letter A, then duplicated the circle and dragged it on onto the B. I repeated this step until each letter had a 3/16 circle positioned near the top center.

To turn these circles into holes that will be cut out of the letters, 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…

Then I duplicated each letter so that I could cut 3 of each letter at a time.

The monogram gift tags are now ready to be cut. I used faux leather, which I’ve found sticks best to a StrongGrip cutting mat. I used a fine point blade, and turned the material dial on my Cricut machine to “Custom.” After clicking “Make” in Design Space, I was prompted to choose my custom material, and selected “Faux Leather.”

To add extra style to the monogram tags, I decided to add some patterned iron on vinyl to create a color-block look. Rather than editing the file to cut just the sections that I wanted to cover with the patterned iron on, I just cut another set of numbers from each of four different iron on vinyls.

To cut iron on vinyl, place the vinyl with the patterned, shiny side down on the mat, and choose the “mirror” option before cutting.

For the patterned Iron On Vinyl, set the dial to “Iron On” so that the blade cuts through the vinyl, but does not cut through the clear transfer sheet. I also made a set of letters with white glitter iron on, which requires a deeper cut. For the glitter iron on, adjust the dial to custom, and choose Glitter Iron On as the custom cut setting in Design Space.

After the cut is complete, peel up the iron-on material starting from a corner, and pull slowly to remove all of the excess from around the cut letters.

Then weed the centers of the letters and the small holes. This will leave only the final letters attached to the clear transfer sheet.

Since I only wanted the patterned vinyl to cover a portion of each leather letter, created a color-blocked look, I used scissors to cut a rectangle around each letter, then cut off the portion of each letter that I wanted to apply to of the black leather. I worked one letter at a time, varying the positioning of each to cover a portion of the top or bottom, left or right of each number, or an angle across some.

Before ironing the patterened vinyl onto the faux leather gift tags, I consulted this Interactive Heat Guide for time, temperature, and peel temperature recommendations. Per the recommendation for patterned iron on vinyl and faux leather, I heated my Easy Press Mini to the lowest heat setting, and pressed on the top of the transfer sheet for 30 seconds, keeping it moving the entire time.

I then flipped the monogram gift tag over, and pressed again on the back of the faux leather for another 30 seconds before peeling off the transfer sheet.

Finally, to make these gift tags extra durable for use year after year, I used my Cropadile to set a 3/16 inch eyelet into the hole in each gift tag.

I repeated this process to create lots of monogram letter gift tags with three different patterned vinyls, as well as white glitter vinyl.

Be sure to save the image below so that you can easily find your way back to these instructions when you’re ready to make your own reusable monogram gift tags.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.

The post Reusable Monogram Gift Tags Made with Cricut appeared first on Blue i Style.

Cricut Gift Guide for Those Who Love Home Decor & Organization

blueistyle — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 14:37:00 +0000

I am so grateful to my friends at Cricut for sponsoring this gift guide. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

People often ask me about my favorite DIY supplies and tools, and hands down, my go to for all of my decorating and organizing projects is my Cricut electronic cutting machine. Whether you’re shopping for a friend or relative, or thinking of treating yourself this holiday season, giving the gift of Cricut is always a good idea!

I use my Cricut to customize my decor, to label my organized spaces, and to create holiday decor and crafts. Basically, it can do ANYTHING! Ok, maybe not anything… but darn close!

I get asked a lot, by friends and readers alike, what they need to get started with a Cricut. There are so many cool tools and accessories now, but the reality is that for most decor and organizing projects – certainly for all those ones you’ll find on my blog – you can get started with just a few basics. A Cricut machine (I use the Explore Air 2, not the highest end Maker model), a basic set of tools, and simple materials are all you need to get started – making it both affordable and not to intimidating.

The following list includes my 8 MUST HAVE Cricut items, as well as to NICE TO HAVE items that make great gifts for someone who already has the Cricut basics. Then, at the bottom of this post, you’ll find links to some of my favorite decorating and organizing projects made with my Cricut, as well as detailed tutorials to help you get started!

CRICUT GIFT GUIDE FOR DECORATOR & ORGANIZERS

(1) Cricut Explore Air 2 – Start with the machine! The Cricut Explore Air 2 gives you all the capabilities you need for you home decor and organizing projects. If you also want to use your machine for some serious crafting or sewing projects, consider upgrading to the Cricut Maker, which provides even more sophisticated options, like a rotary wheel for cutting fabric and an engraving tip.
(2) Basic Tool Set – These tool set gives you everything you need to get started with your Cricut decorating and organizing projects. For my decorating and organizing projects, the
(3) Cricut Mats – For decorating and organizing projects, you’ll want these long cutting mats. This 3-pack gives you each of the mats you need to cut a wide variety of materials, for delicate to heavier, specialty materials.
(4) Deep Cut Blade – The standard blade that comes with your machine will be great for lots of products, but you’ll also want to have a deep cut blade on hand for cutting materials like thick cardstock, magnets, and chipboard.
(5) Set of 30 Cricut Pens – I love cutting labels for my organizing projects, but once I got this pen set, the world or organizing possibilities got so much bigger. Use these pens to write and draw the prettiest labels in every color.
(6) Rolls of Adhesive Vinyl – There are so many materials you can cut with a Cricut, but for my decor and organizing projects, I find myself using adhesive vinyl 9 times out of 10. You can choose from a huge variety of colors and patterns, and can select removable vinyl (best for most decor and labeling projects), or permanent vinyl. I would recommend starting with a sample pack that gives you a variety of colors to use as you get started.
(7) Cricut Transfer Tape – When using adhesive vinyl for decorating and organizing project, you’ll also need at least a few rolls of transfer tape to get you started. This
(8) Cricut Access – Within Cricut Design Space, you’ll have access to the fonts already on your computer, and you’ll be able to upload your own designs, but if you want to do even more – or if you aren’t as comfortably with design software – Cricut Access gives you instant and unlimited access to over 100,000 images, 4,000 projects, and 400 fonts. There are three subscription packages to chose from, so you can pick the one that best fits your needs, but the annual subscription is the best deal.
Of course, if you love to organize, then you’ll probably also want the best products to store and organize your Cricut machine and supplies. Unlike the items above, these are not MUST HAVE items, but they are very nice to have. If you’re looking for a nice gift for someone who already has a Cricut machine and the basic tools, these tote bags would make a wonderful surprise for any Cricut user!
(9) Cricut Machine Tote – When you machine is tucked away in this carry tote, there’s no chance of it getting damaged! It’s padded on all sides, and there’s a handy cut out in the bottom padding perfect for tucking away all of your cords and cables.
(10) Rolling Craft Tote for Cricut Supplies & Accessories – This rolling craft tote is an organizer’s dream, with room for all of your Cricut tools, rolls of vinyl, and so much more. The only thing listed above that won’t fit in this tote are the long, 24″ mats. I store my mats separately in my craft closet, but if you plan to take your Cricut with you for crafting project on the go, you’ll probably want to also have a set of 12×12 mats that will fit in this craft tote.

CRICUT HOME DECOR PROJECT INSPIRATION

CRICUT HOME ORGANIZATION PROJECT INSPIRATION

CRICUT TUTORIALS FOR BEGINNERS

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.

The post Cricut Gift Guide for Those Who Love Home Decor & Organization appeared first on Blue i Style.

Gift Guide: Rehearsal Survival Kit for Musicians

blueistyle — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 23:46:00 +0000

We usually wait until Thanksgiving to start decorating for Christmas, but Christmas music season starts in our house way before Halloween. That’s what happens when you’re married to a professional Christmas caroler and his rehearsals start in early October. Did you even know there was such a thing?!

If you’ve been reading the blog awhile then you may have heard me mention that one of Scott’s two careers is as a musical theater performer, but during the holiday season he also sings with a Christmas caroling company that gets hired out for private parties as well as public gigs at events throughout the city.

I love having a singer in the family to serenade us with Christmas tunes and help put us all in the holiday spirit! When Cost Plus World Market asked me to partner with them to share some gift ideas for music lovers, I was excited to get Scott involved as well!

GIFT IDEAS FOR MUSICIANS: REHEARSAL SURVIVAL KIT

If you have a musician in your life, then you know that coming up with just the right gifts for him or her can be challenging. This year, I asked Scott to help me compile a list of practical gift ideas to help musicians and actors get through those long rehearsals! The good news, you can find everything you need to create the perfect Rehearsal Survival Kit at Cost Plus World Market!

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

REHEARSAL SURVIVAL KIT:

Stay Hydrated – First and foremost, singers and actors need to stay hydrated! Scott suggests a
stainless steel water bottle and a water infuser that’s designed to fit inside a standard water bottle. Scott also recommends these ginger hard candies that make great throat lozenges.
Learning Lines & Staging – During rehearsal, musicians and actors always needs to highlight their lines and take notes. Include a small notebook, some fun wood drumstick pencils, and a set of multi-colored mini-highlighters.
Snacks for Energy – Long rehearsals often require a little snack, and World Market has tons of great options! Scott loves the Peanut Butter Crunch Snack Mix. Of course, good breath is a must on stage, so the kit should also include some Simply Gum Peppermint Mints for after the snack.
Pass the Time Back Stage – Include a one or two things to help your musician or actor pass the time between scenes or sets. My husband is a big football fan, but he often misses watching his favorite teams play when he’s at rehearsal or performing, so we added a Classic Electronic Football Handheld Game. This mini-doodle kit is another fun option!
Music for the Drive – Finally, musicians spend a lot of time in the car driving to and from rehearsals, so be sure to include Jessie J.’s new Christmas CD
Make it Easy to Carry – Rather than wrapping all these gifts, consider putting them all in a bag that can easily be carried to rehearsal and back. Right now, World Market is selling Save the Music Tote Bags that help support music and arts in the schools, helping to create the next generation of musicians!

CLICK THESE LINKS TO SHOP THIS REHEARSAL SURVIVAL KIT:

Be sure to pin the image below so you can find your way back to these gift ideas in the future:

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Gift Guide: Educational & Creative Gifts for Kids Who Love Cars

blueistyle — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:29:00 +0000

My five year old son is a typical little boy who loves cars, trucks, and pretty much all things transportation. But you can only buy so many hot wheels and toy cars before the law of diminishing returns kicks in. I prefer to buy gifts for my kids that have some kind of educational value, or that stretch their imagination and creativity, and I’ve managed to find lots of unique gift ideas for boys who love cars.

I’ve compile a list of 40 of the best educational and creative toys, games, and art projects that make great gifts for kids that love cars. The majority of these gift ideas for kids who love cars have already been tested and approved by my own little car enthusiast, and the other items are on his wish list!

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

GAMES & PUZZLES FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

1 / 3 Truck Games In One – Durable cards for color recognition, memory matching, and a floor puzzle

2 / Truck & Bus Memory Matching Game – A classic memory matching game that builds attention to detail

3 / SmartCar Game – A logic game is both a puzzle and a toy, with 5 colored blocks that can be fit into the car with 48 challenges for kids 4+, and 48 challenges for kids 7+

4 / Trucky3 – This award-winning toy teaches logic and spatial reasoning. Toddlers will love playing with the toy trucks, and as they get a bit older they can begin working through the Starter, Junior, Expert and Master level challenges to fit the 10 colorful blocks into the back of the trucks

5 / Highlights Puzzle Book – hidden picture, matching games, drawing prompts, and more

6 / Vehicle Pile Up Game – Kids improve fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they try to balance each vehicle perfectly to let any cars or trucks fall down
7 / Rush Hour Jr. – The junior version of this popular logic game where players shift cars and trucks to clear a path to the exit

8 / Rush Hour – This is one of the most popular STEM toys for kids ages 8 and up; the game comes with 40 beginner to expert challenges that become increasingly difficult as you play through them
9 / Osmo Hot Wheels MindRacer Kit – This game connects to an iPad with the included base, and comes with the MindRacers launchpad, 6 Hot Wheels cars, and game tokens for 2-player virtual racing
10 / 3D Car Puzzle – This 66 piece 3D puzzle is recommended for ages 8 and up

BOOKS FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

11 / First Big Book of Things That Go – National Geographic Kids reference book with color photos and explanations that kids can understand

12 / Cars Galore – This is my son’s favorite book about cars; he loves the rhymes and fun illustrations
13 / A Shine a Light Book: At the Garage – Hold a flashlight behind the special pages to see the inner workings of the cars and the garage
14 / How Cars Work – This is an interactive guide to the 10 basic mechanisms that make a car move
15 / If I Built a Car – Follow a little boy’s imagination as he gives a tour of his imaginary car of the future, complete with infectious rhymes and 50’s cartoon style illustrations
16 / The Ultimate Book of Vehicles – Nearly 100 vehicles of all shapes & sizes, with pop-ups, flaps open, pull tabs, and rotating wheels

MAGNETIC TOYS FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

17 / Magnetic Cars, Planes & Trains – More than 50 magnets in a magnetic carry case with multiple scenes makes this the perfect toy to occupy car-lovers on the go

18 / Mix & Match Magnetic Vehicles – This set includes 22 magnetic pieces that can be mixed and matched to create different combinations; Creative and builds fine motor-skills for ages 3-6
19 / Green Mix & Match Magnetic Vehicles – Create cars, planes, and boats, or create your own unique vehicles in 1,000 different combinations
20 / SmartMax Express – This magnetic vehicle building set can be purchased as a stand alone, or as an add on to a Smart Max basic set

BUILDING & STEM GIFTS FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

21 / STEM Beginner Build a Vehicle Set – Little kids can build these color vehicles using the included screws and tools

22 / Light Up Race Car Building Set – Build 8 different light up race cars with this set of construction blocks

23 / Build It Lego Idea Book – Learn how to build lots of different vehicles using bricks from the Lego basics sets

24 / Build a Car Kit – Build a toy car that drives like the real thing with patented steering and suspension

25 / Wooden Solar Remote Control Car – Gain physics circuit knowledge while building this wood car

ARTISTIC & CREATIVE GIFTS FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

26 / Decorate Your Own Car & Train – Wooden race car and train to assemble and paint

27 / Drawing Book of Trucks & Trains – Simple drawing book for young artists
28 / Draw 50 Cars, Trucks & Motorcycles – More advanced, step-by-step drawing
29 / Transportation Sand Art – This is a throwback to one of my favorite childhood art projects; self-adhesive paper eliminates the need for glue
30 / Origami City – 40 colorful origami papers and instructions geared toward younger kids

31 / Vehicle Stamps – Wooden stamp set that comes with red and blue ink pads, but can also be used with markers made for coloring rubber stamps

32 / Reusable Sticker Pad – 165 repositionable and reusable cling stickers to place on five background scenes, including a construction site, roadway, and airport
33 / Sticker Jigsaw Activity Book – Match stickers to the correct shapes to create amazing vehicle pictures; recommended for ages 7 and up
34 / Transportation Stencils – Set of 10 heavy-duty stencil cards, each measuring approximately 4″x6″
35 / Race Car Maker Dough Set – Race car chassis and dough molds made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic milk jugs

MORE GIFT IDEAS FOR KIDS WHO LOVE CARS

36 / Cotton Play Mat – Large play mat for the floor with roads for playtime adventures; can be easily rolled up for storage

37 / Wooden Road Signs – Set of 14 wood street signs sized for Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars

38 / M agic Tracks – Easy to snap together tracks that glow, bend, and curve in any direction; includes race cars with LED lights to make the tracks glow

39 / Rubber Band Car – Build you own rubber band car with easy to follow instructions

40 / Color Your Own Cardboard Car Playhouse – Kids love playing with cardboard boxes, and this one has the added bonus of being a car with doors, a trunk, and a moon roof, that the kids can color and decorate

The post Gift Guide: Educational & Creative Gifts for Kids Who Love Cars 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.

150+ DIY Gift Ideas for Everyone On Your List

blueistyle — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 19:45:00 +0000

Phew! Halloween is over and I’m breathing a big mom sigh of relief that the last minute DIY costume details all turned out well. I don’t know why I always put off the costume making to the last minute and create extra stress for myself. Will I never learn?

This year my goal is to NOT do the same procrastinating when it comes to making DIY gifts for friends and family. Now is definitely the time to get started before the craziness of Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties takes over the calendar.

With that in mind, I’ve joined with the ladies of All Things Creative to bring you an amazing collection of more than 150 DIY gift ideas, with something for every style and every person on your list this holiday season!

Whether you like making Christmas-related gifts, like ornaments or seasonal sweets, or prefer creating gifts that can be used and enjoyed all through the year, you are sure to find some inspiration on this list! I realize that more than 150 ideas can be a bit overwhelming, so grab your cup of coffee and browse the links below to see what catches your eye, then be sure to pin this image so that you can find your way back here later.

Clicking on the links below will take you to the full tutorials for each project, where you’ll find the supply lists and all the DIY details, tips, and tricks. Happy holiday gift making!

MORE THAN 150 DIY GIFT IDEAS

FOR EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST

An InLinkz Link-up

The post 150+ DIY Gift Ideas for Everyone On Your List appeared first on Blue i Style.

Happy Mail! The Best Things to Get Delivered

blueistyle — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 16:30:00 +0000

I thought I’d start a little something new on the blog. From time to time, I want to pop in to just chat about a few of my favorite things! In a digital world, where my phone never stops dinging with one message or another, I find there is something so wonderful about getting mail. Real mail. The kind that you get to rip open.

So today I’m chatting about some of my favorite kinds of happy mail… and a few more things I like to get in the mail!

My Favorite Things to Get in the Mail

Real Mail, of course!
Getting real mail is always the best! Cards, letters, postcards. A handwritten note from a friend or family member always makes my day. I’ll admit though, that I’m not good at this myself! I want to make a genuine effort to be on the sending end more often. Fortunately I already have all of my stationary and cards organized on the back of the guest room door – so I have no excuse not to be better at sending some happy mail to others.

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

Dinner!

I didn’t get what all the fuss was about with meal prep kits… until we tried Blue Apron. For the first time, I actually enjoyed cooking. Turns out it’s the meal planning that I don’t like. Having two new recipes and all the ingredients delivered to our doorstep each week made cooking fun again. After about two years of getting Blue Apron every week, we decided to mix it up and try out another meal kit service, so we tried out Hello Fresh. After comparing the two, each has its pros and cons.

All around, Blue Apron remains my favorite because it offers a much wider variety of recipes with lots of new and interesting ingredients. Scott and I both really enjoy trying new things, and love ethnic foods, so this is a great fit for us. We alternate between cooking Blue Apron for the family when we think it’s a meal the kids will enjoy (they have pretty wide palettes), and cooking after the kids go to bed when we want a bit of an at-home-date-night.

On the downside, Blue Apron recipes are a bit more time consuming. We kept thinking we eventually get more proficient at chopping and prep and be able to prepare the meals in the time estimated on the recipe cards, but even years later, they meals consistently take us longer than expected. We know this, so we can plan accordingly, but Blue Apron is more of a treat for us – a restaurant quality meal without going out – rather than a quick and easy dinner.

Hello Fresh, on the other hand, offers much more basic recipes that are typically quicker and easier. In generally, the Hello Fresh recipes are probably a better fit for family dinners, especially if your kids (or you) are on the pickier side. For us, Hello Fresh just don’t quite offer the excitement that we get from Blue Apron. The recipes and ingredients are much more straight forward, and often don’t feel that different than what we’d make on our own. Of course, it still has the benefit of being delivered right to your door ready to be cooked without the planning and shopping… but it doesn’t make us excited to cook the way Blue Apron does. But a lot of people I know prefer Hello Fresh for all the reasons that I don’t. It’s all about what fits your lifestyle best!

If you want to give either meal kit service a try, you can get a great deal on your first order! Use this Blue Apron link for 3 free meals, or this Hello Fresh link for $30 off!

Fun Surprises!

If you’ve never tried a subscription box, I highly recommend it as a special treat for yourself, even if it’s just once in a while! There are few things that brighten my day like receiving a box full of surprises in the mail – and the POPSUGAR Must Have Box is always my favorite to open!Each month, Lisa Sugar curates her and her team of editors favorite items, and this month’s POPSUGAR box is extra special because it’s celebrating the 5th birthday of POPSUGAR Must Have. This special birthday box was packed with super fun surprises, including a few items that are perfect for the “Back to School Year Eve” tradition that we are starting this year with our big kindergartner! How fun is the “Cheers” lacquered tray and Meri Meri gold colored candles?! I think we’ll let the kids enjoy the Goodie Girl Chocolate Cookies as an appetizer, and then put the candles in some cupcakes for dessert!

This months box also included lots of specials treats just for mom – including a beauty mask, a rose-colored journal, a pretty bracelet, and a Shotiques gift card!

If you’ve ever thought about treating yourself to a fun subscription box, this month is a great time to try out POPSUGAR Must Haves! Use discount code PARTY to get $10 off your first box (expires 8/31). There are also lots of weekly giveaways going on that all Must Have subscribers (current subscribers and those who sign up before the end of August) are eligible to win!

Wine!

Some family members signed us up for a year subscription to Wine.com as a wedding gift, and we enjoyed it so much that we have since gifted it to lots of other friends for their weddings! We enjoy wine, but tend to not open a bottle when it’s just the two of us. But we do like having a nice bottle to open when we have company over for dinner, and getting two bottles in the mail every month allowed us to have a great wine collection and introduced us to some favorites that we now buy time and again!

My Happy Mail Wish List

New Clothes!

I love watching videos of people opening their Stitch Fix packages each month. I mean, what could be better than having your own personal shopper picking out clothes just for you?! For Valentine’s Day, Scott signed me up for a Stitch Fix subscription, but I haven’t actually tried it yet.

Why not? Well, it’s not something I would normally talk about on the blog, but I’ve really been wanting to lose some weight so that I can feel more comfortable and confident in my clothes. In May, I committed to a new food plan, and I’ve since lost over 35 pounds. Once I reach my goal weigh (hopefully before the holidays), I can’t wait to start building my new wardrobe with the help of Stitch Fix!

Of course, losing weight also means that I have a lot of clothes (pretty much all of them) that no longer fit. I have a lot of items that are still in great shape and in style, so I think I’m going to try out dthe ThredUp Clean Out Kit option. All I’ll have to do is fill up the provided boxes with on-trend clothes and ship them back to ThredUp. I’ll make a little extra cash for the items they accept to resell, and anything else will be donated to a variety of community organizations. Win/win!

Pictures of My Favorite People!

My husband and kids have taken to calling me the Mom-arazzi because I pretty much never put my camera down. But my boys are so darn cute, how can I help myself?! But I’m am so not good at getting photos printed! I have the best of intentions, but there just aren’t enough hours in my day. That’s why I’m putting Chatbooks on my happy mail wish list! I’d like to use their custom book option to quickly and easily print photo books for the past few years that I need to catch up on, and then I’m planning to sign up for a the plan that will automatically print and mail me a new book every time I have 60 new photos ready to go!If Chatbooks is also on your happy mail wish, get your first book in a Series FREE with code CBHEAT!

Mystery Craft Supplies!

You guys already know how obsessed I am with my Cricut – it’s one of my very favorite tools, not just for crafting, but also for decorating and organizing! Cricut now offers a super fun mystery box each month full of surprise Cricut supplies. I haven’t yet had a chance to check out one of these mystery boxes, but it’s for sure on my happy mail wish list!

Now I want to know … what is your favorite happy mail?!

The post Happy Mail! The Best Things to Get Delivered appeared first on Blue i Style.

DIY Photo Transfer Tray

blueistyle — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 11:11:00 +0000

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I wanted to show you how easy it is to transfer one of your favorite photos to an acrylic serving tray! It makes a meaningful gift for your significant other, or even your best friend, and the possibilities are endless!

For my tray, I chose a photo from our honeymoon in Santorini, Greece, and overlaid the quote, “It’s not where you travel…It’s who you travel with!”

Thank you to Adobe for providing the supplies for this project! This post contains some affiliate links.

I get asked on almost a weekly basis, from friends and readers alike, what program I use to edit my photos and create graphics. When I answer Photoshop, people often look disappointed because it can be an intimidating program to learn, with a fairly steep learning curve. So when my friends over Adobe invited me to try out Photoshop Elements 15 for this project, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to try it out to see if Elements might be a good alternative for my readers and friends who don’t want to learn the full Photoshop program just yet.

I’m happy to report that Photoshop Elements 15 offers all of the photo editing capabilities you’ve been wanting in a super user friendly manner. I especially love the Guided Edits feature that makes it easy to edit your photos like a pro right from the start!

At the end of this post, I’ll show you the easy step by step process I used to edit and resize the photo for my acrylic tray using Photoshop Elements 15. But first, I’ve got a quick video to show you how to transfer your finished photo to the bottom of an acrylic tray!

SUPPLY LIST

Photoshop Elements 15

HOW TO TRANSFER THE IMAGE ONTO THE TRAY

1. PREPARE YOUR PHOTO. Edit you photo and resize it to fit the tray {detailed instructions below}. Print the photo on a laser printer.

2. CUT. Use scissors to cut out the your photo or image.

3. BRUSH ON MATTE MEDIUM. Use a paintbrush to apply a thin, even coat of matte medium all over the entire front side of the image. Also apply a thing coat of matte medium all over the bottom of the tray. Allow both to completely dray about 30 minutes.

4. APPLY THE PHOTO. After 30 minutes, apply a second generous but even coat of matte medium all over the bottom of the tray. Immediately place the printed photo, with the image side down, onto the tray {so that the photo can be viewed through the top of the tray}. Use the squeegee to smooth out any bubbles. Allow the tray to dry completely {at least 2 hours}.

5. REMOVE THE PAPER. Once the paper is completely dry, wet a sponge rub it all over the back of the printed page. Use a circular motion to remove the paper, rewetting the sponge as necessary.

6. FINISH WITH MATTE VARNISH. After the paper is completely removed, allow the tray to dry. Then paint all over the image on the bottom of the tray with a coat of gloss varnish. This will prevent the image getting scratched. Once the gloss varnish is dry, the tray is ready to be used!

Be sure to pin this tutorial so you can find it when you’re ready to make a gift! How about a favorite family photo on a tray for Mother’s Day or Father’s Day? Or use this method to create a tray to add to your seasonal decor for spring, fall, or even Christmas!

HOW TO EASILY EDIT & PREPARE YOU PHOTO
USING PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 15

Ok, now that you know how to transfer a photo to a tray to create an easy and stylish gift, let’s talk about how to edit photos in Photoshop Elements 15. I’ll show you how I enhanced and cropped the honeymoon photo that I used to create this tray, but you can use these same basic steps for any photo that you want to edit.

1. OPEN YOUR PHOTO in Photoshop Elements 15.

It looks pretty good, right? I was pretty proud of this photo that we took on our honeymoon in Santorini… but let me show you how I made it look even better with a few quick and easy edits.

2. CORRECT THE WHITE BALANCE. Guided Edit > Color > Remove Color Cast

After clicking “Remove Color Cast” you’ll be taken back to the screen with your photo and prompted to click on the portion of you photo that should be pure black, gray, or white. In my photo of Santorini, the white buildings in the bottom right corner should be pure white, but were reading a bit yellow-ish. I clicked on one of the white buildings and the color of the photo was automatically adjusted to remove the slight yellow cast.

3. ENHANCE THE COLORS. Guided Edit > Color > Enhance Color

After clicking on the “Enhance Color” button, I first used the “Auto Fix” option, and the adjusted the “Saturation” slider a bit to the right of center, making the blues bluer in order to better reflect the colors as we saw them in person.

Here’s the side by side comparison of the color enhancement.

4. ADJUST THE BRIGHTNESS AND CONTRAST. Guided Edit > Basics > Brightness Contrast

When I clicked on the “Auto Fix” button on the Brightness and Contrast adjustment screen, the photo didn’t change at all. Obviously Photoshop Elements thought the brightness and contrast was already about right. I decided however, to try brightening up the photo just a bit more by dragging the “Brightness” slider to the right.

I ended up deciding that I did, in fact, like the photo better when it was just a little brighter, because it made it feel like the sunny day that we were enjoying when we took the photo. In the side by side comparison you’ll see that the difference is slight… you notice it mostly in the sky and on the cliff-side.

5. ENTER QUICK EDIT MODE & RESIZE THE PHOTO.

Selecting “Quick” from the center menu near the top of the screen brings up a tool bar along the left side of the screen. Choose the crop tool {second from the bottom}.

The size of the tray I used was 14″ x 6.25″ – much longer and thinner than the original proportions of my photo. To crop the photo to the exact right ratio, while maintaining the freedom to choose the portion of the photo that I wanted to use, I selected “Use Photo Ratio” from the Crop drop down menu in the bottom left corner of the screen, and set the ratio to 14″ x 6.25″.

Using the Photo Ratio tool allowed me to simply drag the corners of the crop area to see how the photo would look with various crop options, while always maintaining the exact right size ratio.

I wanted to maintain some of the sky as well as all of the blue domes, so I chose the widest possible crop option. Once I was happy with the crop, I clicked the green check mark.

6. TOUCH UP ANY BLEMISHES IN THE PHOTO. Specs of dirt, paint, or other small items can be removed from the photo using the Spot Healing Brush tool. I wanted to remove the edge of a wall and the antennae from the bottom right corner of the photo. I simply selected the Spot Healing Brush, adjusted the size of the brush, and then repeatedly clicked on the items I wanted to remove until all trace of them was gone.

Having used the full version of Photoshop in the past to remove similar blemishes from photos, I was amazed how easy and effective the Spot Healing Brush worked in Photoshop Elements to achieve the same goal with less effort!

7. ADD TEXT ON TOP OF THE PHOTO. Select the Horizontal Type tool from the tool bar. Click and drag across the width of the image to create a text box. Using the options at the bottom of the screen, select the font and font size, then type in the words you want.

I used two separate text boxes – one for my top line of text, and a second for my lower line of text. This made it quick and easy for me to set different fonts and sizes. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have put my words so close to the left edge as the first letters get a bit lost due to the depth edge around the tray.

8. SAVING & PRINTING. FILE > SAVE AS > PDF

In order to prepare my image for printing and transferring to the bottom of my acrylic tray, I chose to save my file as a PDF. I named the file and hit save.

After saving my final image, I took the file on a flash drive to my local print shop because it needed to be printed on a large format laser printer. I requested that they print the image at 100% (14″ x 6.25″) on to an 11″x17″ piece of paper.

And you know the rest… Once my photo was printed, I used the method above to transfer the photo to my acrylic tray.

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