Easter Basket - Sand Pail

For my son's Easter basket this year I went with something I saw on Pinterest - buckets with the child's name in vinyl. I picked a sand pail with shovel instead because we go to the lake a ton in the summer and my son was very much in need of a new pail. I think next year I'll go with a regular bucket so I can reuse it every year. Or maybe I'll just keep doing new sand pails! The best part of this project was it was my very first one in our brand new home and my awesome new craft room.

I cut the vinyl on my Silhouette cameo and just used their stock settings and brand of vinyl. I don't have any issues with their vinyl but I always have a ton of issues with their transfer paper. If anyone has a recommendation for a better transfer paper please let me know. The font I used was Impact, I wanted a nice bold font that would stand out.

We are trying to go more simple in life so his basket has goodies that he'll actually use, didn't cost a ton, and isn't 100% candy.

He is getting:
Planes Play Pack $1
Bubbles $1
Pinwheel $1.50
Shovel and Pail $1
Lego Kit $10
Pez dispenser $3
Total - $17.50

Not bad considering he (and me) love Legos right now and that was more than half the cost!

Happy Spring!

I wish I could say Spring is here for real but sadly today is 54 degrees and in just 2 days were supposed to get more snow. I can't even remember the last time we had snow so late in March and I'm not really happy about it. I cannot wait for when our days are consistently warmer not just here here and there.

But yesterday we got some great news! Our mortgage commitment paperwork came through! So now we set our closing date and wait. In my previous post I mentioned closing on April 1st and it still looks like that is going to happen thankfully. I am beyond thrilled. And also scared as all hell, I mean a house is a huge step. I still don't feel "grown up" enough to own a house. We were also going to paint/do some work before we moved in but we just hate our current location/apartment so much we said screw that we're moving right in so now I'm even more excited.

As for crafting I'm trying to get some cards made before we move because I don't think I'll have much time to do any the first month or so. I also have a banner order to make. Tonight after Landon goes to bed my goals are to sketch out the banner and make 2 cards. I also made a few cards last weekend I need to file away in my card box, I want to do a post on my card box but it's from a kit literally 10 years ago and not available anymore so I feel I need to find something new or at least similar to it first. Ahhh my to do list seems a mile long all the time! Does anyone else feel that way?

Hope you all are enjoying warmer weather! :)

Growing Up

Most girls I know dreamed of their wedding, the perfect house, kids, etc. And I certainly dreamed of those things but of course life doesn't always go the way you want them to or things get out of order. For instance my husband and I knew we wanted to get married before we were pregnant but we started trying to conceive a baby and apparently the universe decided to have a baby before wedding. Every book told me conceiving takes 6-12 months which for us it only took 1. We didn't have the big wedding, yet, we plan to, just haven't gotten around to it. We decided to just go ahead and do the whole courthouse thing and by gosh it's sad to say but our 4 year marriage has outlasted some pretty lavish and expensive weddings. The venue doesn't equal a great marriage.

As far as children go I like to think my son is pretty perfect, just like every mother thinks of her own child. And yes we did want more children. That didn't seem to be in our plans either. I guess just because the first one is easy the second isn't. And that's ok too. We have a great marriage, and a pretty awesome kid. Life is good. But we didn't have a house.

But now we do. Or we will. Our tentative closing date on our "dream" house is April 1st. I haven't packed a single thing, I'm already freaking out about our mortgage payment, and I'm a pinterest addict trying to plan room colors. But man oh man, it will be OUR home. We can decorate and paint and do whatever we want with it. I'll have my very own craft room, a master bathroom off our bedroom. It's wonderful. The location is amazing. It has everything I wanted in a home. Of course it's not perfect, one of the bathroom will need renovations but again, it is OURS.

And I can't wait to share my renovation/decorating journey on this blog once we move in next month!

St Patrick's Day Birthday Banner

For this St Patrick's themed birthday banner I actually used the Echo Park St Patrick's Day mini kit! The dark green and lighter green papers are from michael's but the patterned paper I printed out from the digital version of the Echo Park kit and the shamrocks/clovers were from the Silhouette Cameo store. I had fun with this one!

Minnie Mouse Birthday Card

I am going to put up a tutorial soon on this but wanted to get it posted.

Disney Planes - Landon's 4th Birthday

My son's request this year was a Planes themed party. Since I went the route of a play place for his party I only had to make a few things: his invitations, birthday banner, and goody bag thank you tags. I originally planned to make a shirt as well but ran out of time. Darn procrastination.

I can say for the invitations I took a design I found on pinterest and copied it completely so I am not going to post mine. There are some very wonderful Planes birthday invitations out there on pinterest and etsy right now!

For the banner I did orange, blue, and white which seem to be Dusty Crophopper "theme" colors in the movie. I traced Dusty and used print and cut on the Silhouette cameo as well as editing the Planes logo to say Landon instead. I was very pleased with the results and it took me no more than an hour to put together the night before the party. I know, I told you, procrastination!

The only print and cut item I did was the thank you tags for the goody bags. I got a 10 pack of bags from Target for about $4-5 and then glued the tag on the front of it. I really liked how these came out and they were super easy to do!

Normally I make cupcake toppers but my son requested a Dusty cake which I knew I couldn't pull off so I had the grocery store make that. I also did snack foods: chips, dips, pretzels, cheese, crackers, and juice boxes. It was a quick, laid back party this year. Maybe next year I'll go bigger!

Valentine's Day Cards

My sister and I got together this week to do some card making. I made 4 cards total but 2 I ended up being not too fond of. I need to work on my embossing a bit more, I have to get in the habit of using a powder bag before stamping. These are the 2 I really liked:

Love stamp was from Simon Says Stamp clear stamps in "Love This" (I masked off the this part to make it just love). Paper and ticket was from the Simon Says Stamp January card kit, large heart I cut from my Silhouette Cameo, and the twine is Doodlebug!

XOXO was cut from my Silhouette Cameo, washi tape is Queen B red/white chevron, and stamps were from Simon Says Stamp clear stamps in Only Have Eyes For You. 

I also took an idea from my sister and started hanging up my current cards/photos above my craft desk! Put my Red Sox ribbon to good use finally! :)