Monday, November 22, 2010

Let the Countdown Begin...

So the other night I couldn’t sleep so I parked myself in front of the computer and started perusing my favorite crafting blogs…from which I clicked through to a bunch of other blogs…

BIG MISTAKE

Now I MUST have chalkboard paint – I saw so many cute things that were done using chalkboard paint…from masking a plastic charger so you can have a cute colorful chalkboard for your kitchen…to painting small wooden boards to be used as door hangers. I got this GREAT idea from seeing all the chalkboard items…but I must wait to actually do it :(

Anyway – I have been crafting up a storm…I am finally finished with the holiday craft fairs – I participated in 3 of them this year – I did OK – I hit the goal I set for myself – I was hoping to surpass it but I will take my goal…

I have a few orders of some items to finish up – hoping to complete that this holiday weekend – as for the first time in 5 years we are not traveling – I could stay in my PJ’s the ENTIRE weekend if I wanted to…

I did want to show you a special project I have been working on. I found the best little site on-line for vinyl designs – My Vinyl Designer that I mentioned the other week. They are currently having a great sale on all there designs – 25% off (use the code: holidays) and best yet – immediate download. They also provide a weekly freebie as well.

The site has been running a contest each week – with getting ready for the craft fairs I wasn’t able to set aside the time to participate – but when this past weeks came up I had an idea that went "Ba-Blam" in my brain…

So this past week was to take one of their Advent calendar designs and create something with it…
I took CA007, a metal baking sheet, red, green, yellow and white vinyl, a few fonts, fancy holiday ribbon, a wooden star and a magnet and came up with this….



I managed to snag the baking sheet at a local craft store for under $2 and had TC drill a hole in the top.

When I imported the Advent calendar into my Silhouette Studio software it was a breeze to use…I simply did the layout to get to the size and shape I wanted it to be based on my baking tray – I decided to use the back of the tray so it would sort of sit out a bit from my wall when hung. I was able to split the images so I could cut the numbered balls and wording in red and the top and bottom of the tree in green.

I went a quick step further and cut out the top of the tree in a scrap of light yellow and trimmed it so I had the star shape that I layered over the green.

I used a snowflake dingbat font to cut some snowflakes in white to scatter and made a fancy bow to cover the top lip of the baking tray and used the excess ribbon to form a loop for hanging.

Now the number holder – I found a small already painted yellow star at one of the big box craft stores – slapped a round magnet on the back (didn’t even need to pull out my glue gun – Craft glue dots are the best things ever) and VIOLA…it becomes my day tracker. Before and after X-mas it nicely resides at the top of the tree.


I think it turned out quite nifty if I do say so myself – and my girls LOVE it…I was thinking of bringing it to my workplace but I don’t think my girls will let me do that – they want to hang it in their room.

Now to complete my orders so I can craft for myself some more…

2 comments:

Jana said...

So cute!! Come link up!

http://gigglesglitzandglam.blogspot.com/2010/11/glam-party-3.html

Anonymous said...

I couldn't find any other way to reach you....

Dear Ms.Mouer,



I am a senior at American High School in Fremont, California and I am attending my second year of Forensics Science at a special two hour off campus class for the last two periods of the school day. I am currently working on a project with the two other second years, and I was hoping to retrieve some information from you. We are working on processing latent prints from thermal paper, such as a reciept from a gas station. We will be attending a conference in May and presenting the information to visitors from crime labs and other forensic scientists. It will be a great oppurtunity, but we need a bit more info. Is it possible you could give us some information about thermal paper and what might be, in your opinion, the best way to lift the prints? We have used the Ninhydrin Spray, which works with no problem each time. Our second best thing is to use the Heptane Ninhydrin Solution that I made a few months ago from scratch. Results differ each time though, so we would like something more consistent.



Any information will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.



Maggie Liss

MVROP Forensics Science

Fremont, Ca

mags1993@comcast.net