DIY Party Hat, Birthday Card and 3D Number Keepsake | Olivia's 1st Bday Party | SVGCuts

My Niece Olivia is turning 1 next week! So I thought I would have some fun making her some paper goodies for her party! My Sister in law (also very crafty) is decorating the event with pink and green and turns out I just had the perfect paper stack to coordinate with for her party! I love this paper, it comes from the DCWV Cherry Limeade Stack.

 I used the files from SVG Cuts HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU SVG KIT, and their 3D NUMBERS PARTY SVG KIT. I love how it all turned out! Everything was cut using my Cameo.

Pictured above is the card I made for Olivia... I combined a few files from the HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU SVG KIT to create this card. I'm not much of a card maker but just love how it tuned out!!! I think I will just have to enter it in the SVG Cuts Facebook Challenge for the Summer, wish me luck! The competition is amazing :)

And here is O's party hat! Isn't it adorable?! 

Finally the number 1... a great keepsake from the party! I know she won't remember her party, but when she looks back at photos when she's older I'm sure she'll love it!

I hope this has inspired some of you to pretty up your next party!

"All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go..." | 3D Paper Suitcase Treat Box Silhouette Studio File | Free Download

Every time I pack a suitcase, I think of this song... not that I'm packing, well not yet anyway. We will be leaving soon enough to visit our family in Portugal! So excited can't wait, my son is already there with my In-laws and I miss him terribly, and even though his sister hates to admit it she misses him too!

Ok, ok, now back to the fun stuff!!! My cousin Marisa, asked me if I could make her a suitcase out of paper for her son Marko's 1st Birthday Party. Her theme for his party is travel by plane, train, or car... so a suitcase is what she chose to fill as a goody bag/treat for every child! That meant I would have to make 15 of them! Wow, anything for you Marisa, good thing I love soooo much!!!

It probably would have been a lot easier if I had bought a suitcase file, but if know me I always like to do things the hard way! I made this file with the Silhouette Designer Studio Edition Software. I'm so used to using SCAL, so this was a bit more challenging for me... but I think it turned out pretty well!

 Cute right?!

The suitcases measure
4.5x3x1.5 inches. Big enough to hold some treats for the kiddos! Or as you can see here big enough for Barbie's clothes, lol!

Hope she likes them! I love how they turned out! Too bad I'm sure they won't last more than a few minutes in kiddy hands... :(

So I'll finish with the end of the song, cause it still continues to play in my head! Bah!!!, don't you just hate when you can't rid of a song in your head, lol!

 "And I'm leaving on a jet plane,

I don't know when I'll be back again,

Oh, babe, I hate to go!"

I'm happy to share with you this suitcase file but,

Before you download...

My free files RULES!!!

1. If you choose to download all I ask is you become a follower.
2. Note my files are for personal use only! (Personal use means... only for you to use (no trading, or sharing of my files... let me do that!) 
3. If you want to share, send your friends over to my blog for the download. 
4. I'm OK with people sharing my files on their own sites as long as there is a direct link back to this blog...Give credit where credit is due! (a message to me would also be appreciated)

Suitcase box - .studio (Silhouette) file

DIY Credit Card Wallet | Holder for All Loyalty/Credit Cards

This one is for all the shoppers out there!!! I think your just going to love this idea! 

If you are anything like me you have a ton of cards taking up precious space in your already crowded wallet! NOT anymore!!!!

About 2 years ago now I had an idea to make a credit card wallet after working on some pockets that I had created for a mini album. I actually sold them on Etsy, but since I closed the shop down I thought I would share the idea with everybody!

Here is my original card wallet... was getting pretty worn out! Even though it was made out of paper, I'm surprised it lasted this long! You would not believe how many compliments and inquiries I've had on it!!! 

While I was shopping at Home Depot on the weekend with my DH, I saw decorative duct tape... I had seen it many times before but it wasn't until then that I had my light bulb moment!  Why not line my card stock with duct tape! Brilliant... It would now last forever! Or until I get sick of the pattern, lol!

So here is how to make your own... 

Supplies:

• double-sided tape
• duct tape (I guess if your a guy you might like the regular kind, hehe)
• envelopes (I bought mine at the dollar store, but you could probably use recycled ones) 
• a piece of scrap card stock

1. First I cut my envelope ends to 4.5 x 9.2 cm or for my US friends, 1 3/4 x 3 5/8 inches ( I used 25 pockets for this wallet)
2. I then applied my double-sided tape around the outer edges of the pocket (make sure to go as close to the top and bottom edge as possible, but not the sides... come in about 3mm or 1/8 of an inch from the outer edge)
3. Line it up with the next pocket and adhere them together, ensure it is all lined up and that the opening of the pockets is in the same direction!

Repeat until all pockets are glued together.

Next, take the scrap card stock, and cut it to 20 x 9.5 cm or 8 x 3 3/4 inches, then place the edge of the paper or the sticky side of the duct tape.

Next cut a little slit on the duct tape where the paper ends and fold the duct over on to itself. 

Then take that same piece of duct tape and adhere it to the paper. Bend over the edge of the duct tape that remains and this will create a nice clean outer edge...  (Confused yet??? I would be! lol! Hopefully, the pics are self-explanatory!) 

Repeat the last step for the other side.

Continue by cover the remaining paper down the middle (ensure you cut a piece long enough to cover the other side as well)

Next glue the pockets to the inside bottom of the duct tape layer, making sure to align the top edges.

Then wrap the duct layer all the way around the pockets until it overlaps on the front of the wallet leave enough room for the wallet to expand and for the credit cards to stick out at the top. Then adhere the back of the pockets to the inside of the duct tape layer.

To secure it closed I used a Velcro dot. The easiest way to ensure that the dots line up is to take both top and bottom pieces of Velcro and center it on the inner lid of the wallet, then fold it closed.

Once you open it the dot will be left on the other side of the wallet! EASY right?!

Finally, fill with all your plastic! (I use this for the cards I don't use every day, the important ones are kept in my main wallet!)

There you go... just pull it out when you need to!

Fits perfectly in a side pocket of my purse ;)

I hope you like this tutorial and if you make one I would love to see it!

Happy crafting!

UPDATE

February 10, 2017

Check out VERSION 3 of the DIY Credit/Loyalty Card Duct Tape Wallet

or watch me make it on YouTube!

Facebook page is live!

Hi all! I hope everybody is having a wonderful weekend! 

I'm so excited to share with you, my new Facebook page! Just another way to connect with all my craft blogging buddies and followers! 

Just click on the side button that says Facebook (kinda hard to miss!) and "LIKE" my page! Easy right?

Before I shared it with the world, I wanted to add a bunch of projects to the page. So, I loaded it up with pictures of previous work I had done prior to having a blog and more recent post ones. Hope you "LIKE" my page, and visit me often...  here on my blog, or there with me on Facebook! Leave me a comment or just say HI!... Sometimes I just need to know I'm not just talking to myself, lol!

Have a great Sunday!

DIY Personalized Glass Etched Mugs

In my previous post, I had shown you the gifts I made for the teachers. So I thought I would share with you some pictures of how that was done. Also please refer to my posts on other etched glass projects I have done, here and here.

First I cut out the image I wanted from contact paper, with the Silhouette Cameo. No need to use up expensive vinyl especially if it's going to get thrown out!

Then I applied etching cream very liberally to the exposed areas with a paintbrush. Then just followed the directions on the Armour Etch bottle. Removed the contact paper and rinsed off the cream. 

There you have it sooooo simple and pretty quick to make! The perfect gift for a teacher or for yourself, just add your name or whatever else you like!

 Happy crafting, have a great weekend!

3D Paper School House Treat Boxes for Teachers | SVGCuts

Yeaaaaah! School is almost done!!! My kids are so excited for the summer holidays to begin... they have started the countdown a while ago, LOL! 

My son is even more excited he gets to miss the last week of school... even though they are the fun school days, he really doesn't care! He leaves tonight with my In-laws for Portugal! He is so excited, I'm sure going to miss my little man :'( Well join them there in August!

So because today was his last day of school I wanted him to give his teacher a little gift to thank her for all her help this year... (I think teachers have the hardest job! They deserve so much more!!!) Of course I made the same gift for my daughter's teacher, but she won't receive it until next week! Hopefully, Mrs. Stiksma doesn't show Mrs. Esser, LOL!

 Aren't the School Houses adorable!!! The cutest part is that they are totally functional, flip open the roof and they are gift boxes! Fill them up with goodies and they could also be used as bookends :)  What teacher would love them? 

The files I used come from SVG Cuts SCHOOL DAYS SVG KIT. LOVE their files!!! (I did have to enlarge the files to accommodate the size of my gifts) The cardstock comes from DCWV, the Grade School Stack, all cut with the Cameo.

Used the apple file to make a tag!

And here is what goes inside the gift box! Love personalized gifts... just makes it that more special! Thank you, Mrs. Esser! Maia is sure going to miss you!!!

Thank you Mrs. Stiksma! Tomas adores you and will miss you very much!

Etched the bottom of the glass with the kids' names :)

A perfect fit inside the School House gift box! Add tissue paper and perhaps a coffee gift card and DONE!

I'll post some pics of how I etched the glass mugs in my next post!

Thanks for stopping by, 

Our Family Tree | DIY Mixed Media Canvas Art Piece

For a while now, well I guess ever since I started the blog I've been wanting to share one of the first crafts I made using my Cricut! It hangs as a piece of art in our hallway, it is such a unique piece. I always love to stop and stare at it!

For those that don't know I am of Portuguese descent. My parents immigrated to Canada from Portugal when I was 2 in 1978. My husband's family is also Portuguese, so for my children, I thought it would be interesting to create this so that they could see their roots.

I guess this project was many years in the making,  every time we had gone back to visit our grandparents I would gather more data for the family tree.  So here is how it turned out!  (I did not include any siblings, because as you can imagine there would not be enough room on the canvas!) 

WARNING... this is a LONG WINDED POST! LOL!!!

Since I made this piece a while ago and had no blog at the time, I didn't take pictures of the steps it took to make this. I will try my best to explain what I did though. 

The first thing I did was paint my canvas, this one measures 32X24. I really wanted a washed out antique look, so I sprayed water all over the canvas and applied my acrylic paints to it. Light blue for the sky and a light brown for the ground. Once I had both the colors on the canvas I blended the two colors where they met in the middle to create the horizon.

Next came the fun stuff! I found the image of this tree on Google (sorry don't remember exactly where). I then traced the image with the SCAL program. Then I enlarged it to the size I wanted. Since the canvas was way larger than the cutting mat, the tree was made by cutting 4 pieces and overlapping them in some areas. I adhered all the pieces of the tree to the canvas using hot glue. Once my tree was all assembled and glued down I cut out the leaves. The leaves I created from the basic shapes library. When I glued down my leaves I strategically placed them to cover up the paper joints of the tree. 

The next part was the hardest... Since both sides of our families have the name "Oliveira", I wanted to make the tree look like an olive tree since Oliveira means olive in English. So I thought it would look cute if the frame of the picture looked like an olive, well kinda, sort of maybe not really!! ;) 

To do this I cut out two ovals, one larger than the other. In SCAL I  created a template for the top part of the frame which turned out to be 5 olives/line and 4 rows of them for a total of 20 frames per sheet. Then in using Microsoft Word, I did my best to place the names at the bottom of the frames. (Took a few tries to line it all up... I would place the template on top of the sheet I printed to make sure it all lined up.) Once everything was in line I cut out the paper I had just printed on... 

***This would of all just been so much easier if the Silhouette Cameo had been invented...  I guess I was just ahead of my time, LOL! ;)***

Once all the frames were cut out, I glued the top of the olive to the bottom brown oval. I only applied glue to the bottom part of the olive frame. 

This left the top part accessible to change pictures... especially of the kids as they get older, I can stay this age for a while, cause I never age! Muhahaaa!!!

For those family members that I had no picture for I just used a silhouette. The gentleman with thick sideburns would be my Great, Great, Grand Father, and my Great, Great, Grand Mother just below him. So cool that I had found a picture of them! 

Hope the instructions weren't too confusing for you...

I hope I've inspired you to create your own Family Tree Canvas Art Piece! I would love to see it if you did make one!

Have a great weekend and Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's in your lives!

Sharing this project with Scrap it Girls - November "Tree" Challenge