Wine Glass Tags

When everyone comes over for Christmas, there is inevitably a point in the evening where someone says "Hey, you're drinking my drink!" or "Hey, who stole my drink?!?".  So this year everyone's getting wine glass tags when they come to the bar.

I made mine with my Silhouette machine but with a little patience you can easily do this without a cutting machine.  Here's what you need:

Materials:
-Special Occasion paper and plain paper
-Glue runner, scissors
-markers or sketch pens
-if you're not using a cutting machine you can use a template or some other small round object to trace

Steps:
1) Create a circle shape about 2 3/4" round.

2) Create another smaller circle just inside and off centre.

3) Make a copy of this shape, group it, and set it aside.

4) Now create an overlapping rectangle across one side of the large circle, overlapping edges.

5) In the modify toolbox, click on the Crop button.  The will leave you with only the piece that was overlapping.

Now these next few steps are going to seem a little repetitive but this is how I usually operate when using my sketch pens and cutting.

6) Copy enough of your weird little shape from step 5 for the number of tags you want.  Using your text tool write the names of your guests inside each one.

I'm using the font :Gentle Touch

7) Now go back and delete all of the outline shapes.

8) Load up your favourite Sketch pen and send to Silhouette for printing.

VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT MOVE YOUR MAT AFTER MACHINE IS DONE SKETCHING.  Leave your mat in place and do not take it off the machine.

9) Hit undo until your screen looks like it did in step 6.  Now delete all of the names.  Replace your sketch pen with your cutting blade, and send to Silhouette for cutting.

10) Don't forget to cut out all of your base circles from some pretty Christmassy paper.  Then just glue the pieces together.

11) I know what you're thinking...how the heck do I get this on a wine glass?  Easy, just make a little snip in between the two circles.

Now you can really go to town and ink the edges or add glitter if you want, or you can just add them to your wine glasses as is.  If you have a few beer drinkers at the party, steal some of this colourful little loom elastics from the playroom and attach a tag to a bottle that way~

You can make some extra blank ones for those surprise guests and just write names on with a marker.  Or you can really make it fun and instead of names write some Christmas trivia on the front with the answers on the back.  Get creative and have fun with your tags~

Check out my other fun (and very popular) wine glass project HERE.

What will you put on your tags? Leave a comment below.

Practical Christmas Cards

This year for Christmas cards I thought I'd try something a little different...a little more practical:

This is Silhouette design #67747 by Lori Whitlock

I love that this card contains something that's actually of use, cute little tea lights!

For the top 2, I used some papers from my stash.  For the bottom 2, I cut up some Christmas cards from Christmases past. See, this is my problem with cards....how long do you keep them?  What do you do with them afterward?  At least these 2 got put to use again~

You can see here that the top part opens up. I haven't put my sentiments in there yet but hopefully I will before Christmas rolls around.

I found that I had to enlarge the design about 1/4"  to fit the tea lights.  Maybe tea lights are different sizes in different countires?  Who knew?  The design also comes with several Christmassy embellishments that I didn't use.

You could add some acetate to the front window but I didn't want it looking like it was purchased so I left it open.  The glitter tea lights are from the dollar store.

Do you still give Christmas cards every year?  What do you do with yours at the end of the season?  Leave a comment below~

Perfect Little Pill Box

No, I'm talking talking hats, I'm talking about an actual little box to put your pill bottles into~

I was standing at my kitchen counter the other night and suddenly realized that I have quite a mess of medications sitting on top of my microwave.  I know this is probably not a good spot for them, but that's where they sit. (I have a weird phobia about medicine cabinets, they just gross me out.)

perscriptions, pain killers, supplements, vitamins, allergy stuff...
what a mess!

Then I found this cute little box pattern on Silhouette last weekend.

You're supposed to use it to store your washi tape collection in.  Luckily for me, and my craft closet, that's the one and only craft trend that I've managed to pass up.  I just knew that if I started buying it I wouldn't stop, so I avoided it altogether.

But I still made the box...

And look at this.  The washi tape holder is the perfect size!  It fits a small pill bottle perfectly.

I ended up making two, got rid of a couple of expired perscriptions, and now don't have quite such a mess.


Do you have any crafting trends that you've intentionally skipped over for the sake of your pocket book?  Leave a comment, and make sure to jump over to YouTube to watch THIS hilarious video while you're at it:

Linda from Lindababyus

Lunch Box Notes

I saw this project on the Silhouette blog and knew instantly that I wanted to make a version of it for my sister, just in time for when her kids went back to school this week!

A couple of paper boxes...what's the big deal, right?  Well, like any box, it's what's inside that counts!

Loads and loads of decorated cards that she can use to write notes of encouragement and love to her kids, and hide them in their lunch box every day.

One box is for her son and the other for her daughter.  I wrapped some little pencils with washi tape so she'd have something handy to write with.

The fun part was decorating all the cards.  I got to put all my stamps, stickers, and little scraps of paper to use finally.

For the boxes I used the 3D 4 X 6 Photo Storage box from Jamie Lane Designs (#48732).  I had to shrink it down a little to fit onto 8.5" X 11" paper, but for this project that was no problem.  Then I just measured the inside and made the cards to fit with the rectangle tool.  Easy peasy!

When I was in junior high I had to start taking my lunch and my friend and I always had the strangest stuff in ours.  We'd take things like dill pickles, iced lemonade, and cheese and crackers.  Every one else with their standard ham and cheese sandwiches thought we were kind of funny, but I looked forward to lunch every day.

Do you have little ones heading back to school this week?  What do you do to brighten up their lunches?  Leave a comment below~

Check out the inspiration for this project HERE.  It's quite different from my version.

Easy Summer Wreath

I've had a lot going on lately (translation: the weather has been amazing so I've been sitting outside in my hammock relaxing A LOT), so I haven't had much time to craft.   But I saw a crafting catalogue recently that inspired me to at least do a quickie craft~

This was the inspiration (from the latest Close to My Heart Catalogue):

I just liked the pretty colours and the flower shapes and decided to make my own version (quickly)

Here's what you need to make your own Super Easy Summer Wreath:

Materials:

-pretty papers

-wire hanger (This is a good way to get rid of those hangers from the dry cleaners)

-hot glue gun or your favourite adhesive

-Optional: craft/spray paint (not shown)

Steps:
1) Give you hanger a nice coat of paint.  I ran out of spray paint halfway through so had to switch to sponging on some regular old craft paint, which did the job just as good.

2) Once your paint is dry (or you could do this step first), bend your hanger into a roundish shape.

3) Cut out some pretty flower shapes from some lovely scrapbooking paper (great way to get rid of scraps!)
I used my Silhouette but you could free hand it or use punches or stencils~

4) Just heat up your hot glue gun and start sticking flowers onto your hanger.  I decided on the hot glue because I knew I wouldn't have to worry about pieces moving around.  It was an instant stick that dried super fast.

5) Lastly, hang it up on your door...and then get back outside.  With your craft fix craving satisfied you can go back to enjoying the sunshine~

I know my door looks crazy.  My house is over 100 years old and I can't bear to do away with all of the character on this door.  I don't think it looks quite so bad in person, or maybe I've just built up a blindness to it~

Anyway, hope you're enjoying the same incredible weather we've finally gotten here.  What do you do when you need a super fast crafting fix?  Leave a comment below~

Last Minute Gift Bag

When I say "Last Minute", I really mean last minute.  As in, I was about to leave the house on Mother's Day to pick up my gift and go for a visit when I realized the only gift bags I had were from Christmas and this one from shopping.

So, as fast as I could I found a 3-D flower pattern on my Silhouette and cut a bunch out.

Then I just glued them onto my bag.  Voila!  All done.  If I had more time I think I would've covered the whole entire bag~

This is why I never throw anything out.  I know there will come a time when eventually it will become useful.

How about you?  Do you hang onto shopping bags or do they go straight into the recycle bin?  Leave a comment below~

Flashback Friday - T-Shirt Tote Bag

With 3 craft fails behind me this week I think it's time to put my scissors down and gracefully offer you a Flashback Friday.  Hopefully I'll get my mojo back next week :)

T-Shirt Tote Bag

812

Here are the supplies you'll need:

Steps:
1) I'm using one of my lovely '80s looking T-knit turtleneck tops that I picked up for two whole buckaroos.  Lay out your T-Shirt and make marks similar to what I have below:



It's actually a very nice teal colour.
The exposure on my camera was a little off for this shot~

3) Cut along your lines.  You should end up with something that looks like this:

4) Turn your top inside out, pin along the bottom and stitch closed.

5)  Turn back to right sides out.  Now, you could just leave it at that and have a cute little tote bag, but as most of you know, raw edges drive me crazy.  So I have to finish mine off.  Plus, by adding some bias tape to your edges you'll reinforce everything and the straps won't stretch out to Timbuktu.

So, lay your bias tape down, right sides together, along the edge and pin.  I started with the "armhole" edges first and did the big one last.  (This took up almost an entire package of bias tape.  If you're making a bigger bag make sure to get enough tape to do all of your edges.)

Note:  Normally you want your bias tape to match your fabric and blend in.  My fabric store didn't have dark teal blue tape though so I got a contrasting colour that will match something fun I'm going to add after.

6) Stitch right in the little ditch of the bias tape, making sure to overlap your ends.

7) Repeat this step on all of your raw edges.

8) This is what your edge will look like with the bias tape on it.

Now just fold it to the inside.  It should just naturally roll nicely.  Give it a good pressing.  Pin it down if you have to, and then stitch about a 3/8" hem to secure the tape down.

So, now again, you could call it a day and be done, but I think it's a little boring so far.

8) So, I got adventurous with my silhouette machine and made this cute little iron on transfer.

And now...TAH DAH, now you are done~ (Although you could still add buttons or fringe or something else to totally personalize it.)

I love how it turned out!  I think it'll be great for picking up groceries or taking to the beach.  If you have some cool T-shirts with great designs already on them you could make some awesome looking bags.  What do you think?  How would you personalize it?

Hopefully next week I'll have a fun new project, that actually works out, to show you.  Stay tuned and have a crafty week~