Christmas Unicorn Onesie

Kim and my granddaughter are coming up today for a visit. I kept seeing all the cute Christmas unicorn cut files on Pinterest and thought I would like to try one for Scarlyt. I knew I had a onesie in her size and plenty of the heat transfer vinyl so I headed to Design Space and found exactly what I wanted!

All I had to do was resize it to fit the onesie!

I got the vinyl cut and got set up on the kitchen counter with a towel under the onesie and my little iron heating up.

I centered the design using the unicorn horn. Lining it up before ironing it to the onesie.

I started adding the rest of the pieces, centering and ironing it as I went.

I was doing great until I hit a Duh moment lol. I had cut black eyes for a black onesie so I had to run back down to the craft room and cut them again, but in white 🙄

Once the eyes were ironed on, my little onesie was all done and ready for gifting Saturday!

Sandie

Tips for a Stress-less Christmas

I started thinking this morning how stressed I was already making myself and thought that even though it isn’t even December 1st, I should heed my own advice from last year’s post AND to share it with anyone else who is also suffering from early onset Christmas stress!

Sandie

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Well, it’s officially the 1st of December, one of the most stressful months in the calendar for me, and I am sure a lot of other people.

My family will tell you that I am the last person who should be giving out this advice lol. One of our least favourite Christmas traditions is “Mom’s Christmas Breakdown(s)!” Not a Christmas goes by without at least one no matter how ahead of the game I think I am, especially since my accident.  This week I dealt with the first one 😕! I let myself get so overwhelmed by what I want and need to do for Christmas that my brain starts to spin our of control. I need to learn that just because I am a mom and future grandma that I am not omnipotent and cannot possibly do everything alone or even everything I decide I should make for everyone.

Christmas is supposed to be a “magical” family time and I have to stop trying to be the magic behind the curtain making everything happen perfectly!

Sandie

Happy Thanksgiving

Kim and I would like to wish all of our American Friends a very safe and healthy Thanksgiving. May you make many wonderful memories with your family and friends!

Sandie

“Rescue” Pet Themed Wine Glasses

A friend recently asked me if I could make wine glasses like a sign she had seen based on rescue pets. I didn’t see why not, so I gave it a try!

(Sort of funny story….. my mother-in-law was up on Monday for a wonderful online shopping/lunch/relaxing day and when she saw the wine glasses said she would love a sign with the same saying lol… Talk about going full circle. Guess who is getting a sign for Christmas???)

This is the picture of the sign she sent to me.

And this is the wine glasses sporting the same saying….

I tried to find a similar font… and thought I did but for the life of me I could not weed that font, at that size, to save my life. I had to change it to a “beefier” font in order for me to be able to weed it.

I don’t think it turned out too bad considering I had to change the font AND the fact some of the words are on a bit of a slant thanks to my vision issues. I will probably end up redoing them in the new year to see if I can’t get them straighter. At least for now I know I have the pattern saved in Design Space on my laptop and can cut the pattern out at any time!

Here are the wine glasses in all their crooked glory lol!

“Eat More” Squares via www.rockrecipes.com

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day with my mother-in-law, doing some online Christmas shopping, eating things we shouldn’t be eating lol, doing a quick tour of the local antique/consignment stores (those that were open) and just enjoying chatting. I didn’t get anything “crafty” done other than cutting a few words out using my Cricut for some wine glasses she wanted to gift friends of hers. That meant we had to go into my craft room which is a complete disaster area right now. I had hoped that was something we could avoid lol… but thankfully she is also a very talented crafter and understands the mess that accompanies the hobby lol!!!

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When I made these squares the other week, Chris apparently took the name of them to heart lol. He couldn’t seem to stop eating them lol! I am glad he enjoyed them. I knew he liked the chocolate bar with the same name so I thought for sure he would like squares fashioned after them… and he most definitely did!

Here is where I found the recipe I used to make them: https://www.rockrecipes.com/eat-more-bar-squares/

They were easy to make, as long as you followed the recipe to the “T” in order for them to set properly and he found them to be delicious!

Sandie

Grinch Cookies via Natasha Kitchen.com

I figured that since I spent the WHOLE weekend getting ALL of the Grinch Mugs ready to go to customers that I would share a recipe with everyone that I made a few years ago and were a big hit.

Grinch cookies just seemed appropriate considering lol!

I will admit that I did have a bit of an issue finding the cinnamon hearts at that time of year but when I eventually did they worked perfect for these Grinch Cookies.

I found the recipe at Natasha-Kitchen. The recipe is easy to make because it starts with a cake mix and look really cute on the cookie plates at Christmas!

Here is the link to the cookies! Grinch Cookies via Natasha-Kitchen!

Sandie

Hand Towel Redo – Machine Embroidery (New Cheater Technique Attempted)

Last week I decided that while I was waiting for my Cricut to cut something I was going to redo the hand towels in the bathroom because one, being one of the first projects I tried when I first got my machine they weren’t that great lol… and two, being white towels and having two men who work with their hands…well, they were getting pretty gross looking lol.

I did end up using white towels again…. what was I thinking????

I used pretty much the same sort of monogram effect on them but this time I used a technique that I remember seeing somewhere on Pinterest.

Last time I found that when I did the monogram on the towels, it sort of “sunk” in to the fabric of the towels. I read that if you hoop the towels as you normally would, but then added a layer of wax paper on top of the towel, between the towel and the presser foot , that the stitching would sit higher and not just sink into the fabric.

Here is a picture of my machine while it was sewing the monogram, with the wax paper in place.

Note: I had to change the wax paper for each colour because as it is stitching it is also cutting the wax paper around the design and it comes apart all the way around the stitch line. Not a big deal, but not something I remember reading.

I think you can see better in this picture around the letter “L” where it is cutting the wax paper.

This is what the hand towels looked like after the stitching and while there was the tiny issue with having to replace the wax paper after each colour, it definitely raises the stitching so that it isn’t sinking into whatever fabric you are using to put your monogram or whatever else on your project! (And yes, I could have chosen better colours. Definitely not thinking straight when I did them lol)

Sandie

Healthy Oatmeal, Carrot and Date Bars

Trying to find healthy options for lunch box snacks, something that I can also grab for a quick snack that isn’t full of sugar isn’t easy… especially with how “the boys” love their sugary treats. These bars are great and hit pretty much all the boxes. They have a slightly sweet taste thanks to the maple syrup, they are a quick snack thanks to the fact they are bars and being made from carrots, oatmeal and dates, they are actually good for you! Yay for oatmeal, carrot and date bars lol!

Sandie

Pencil Signs- Teacher Gifts

I saw this idea a while back and wished I had seen it while my two were still in school! We always tried to make whatever Christmas gift we gave the teachers each year, whether it was ornaments, baking or whatever. These would have been a great idea!

I started out with some 2 x 4’s. Chris cut them down and into “pencil: shapes and then a friend of his sanded them down all nice for me!

I taped them off separating where I wanted the coloured part of the pencil, the eraser and the metal band with painter’s tape.

And painted…. many coats… of the yellow for the coloured part and pink for the eraser.

When that was FINALLY done lol, I retaped them so I could paint the metal band section. Because my silver metallic paint was kind of see through I painted it first with light gray paint to eliminate probably hundreds of coats of the silver!

Here they are after painting on the metal bands.

I used the name of a friend’s wife who is a T.A. on my example, cutting her name using my Cricut and black vinyl.

I applied a few coats of varethane then screwed a few eye hooks to the top for the twine, tied a nice bow to the twine and applied the vinyl.

And that’s it! A really cute Pencil sign for a teacher!

Sandie

Christmas Gifts – A couple of Cricut Mugs

Are you sick of my Cricut projects yet lol? I know I’m not sick of “playing” with it yet lol!

These are just a couple of mugs I made this week for gifts.

The first one is a tribal wolf mug. Just a plain white mug with the tribal wolf done in black. The wolf is a free pattern I found on Pinterest, uploaded into Design space, resized and then cut and applied to my mug.

I thought the image was pretty cool and my father-in-law really likes wolves!

The second is me hopping on the Red Truck fad lol. While I do think is way overdone right now, I do like how the red truck looks with the bit of country flair to Christmas decor… so I had to make at least one “Red Truck” project.

I found the red truck design in Design Space and then just added text, again finding the font in Design Space.

I laid how I wanted it to look and adjusted the sizing in Design space and then cut the vinyl and layered it.

This is my Red Truck Christmas Mug!

Sandie