How fast is summer passing you by??

Good morning everyone!  I have been a little MIA here lately. Life has been hectic. Summer is almost over and while I have not posted anything the whole summer, I have definitely been busy! My younger two boys have summer birthdays and the oldest is out of school for the summer.  My days start out just about when the sun comes up and do not stop until about 11:30 pm. The boys are having so much playing together. That means lots of laughter and giggles... along with plenty of fighting and crying. I have a ton of pictures to get posted on here to show you all what we have worked on the past few months. In the mean time, you can check out my new Facebook page where I post pictures of my work.  If you have any questions on how I made something, please feel free to ask. 

Military Themed Birthday Card

If you follow me over on my other blog, you already know that I started selling Thirty-One Gifts in August of 2013. My National Executive Director (Libby) sent a special request out on our Facebook group asking if everyone could take a minute to send her brother a birthday card or a "thank you" card. It is a big year for her brother.... he was turning 50 and planning to retire from the Air Force. She had quite a large response from our group of girls on the Facebook group. Growing up with a mother in the Air Force, I know how difficult it is to find a military themed card. I decided a handmade one would be best. This is a pretty simple card and I love how it turned out!! Libby said that her brother received tons of cards and letter and he was so surprised! Out of all of the cards that he received, mine was one of the only personally handmade cards and by far the best! I take that as a HUGE compliment!! I am so glad that I was able to put a smile on his face, and brighten his day a little more!

Creativity is flowing....

I started this week struggling to come up with an idea for a Facebook group challenge and now my creativity has taken over!! I have created 6 cards, and 1 (technically 3) wood projects for the wood challenge. I still have so many more ideas to work with now! I am still working on refinishing my bathroom cabinet, and I definitely welcome the break from sanding the fine details of this thing. It has been extremely time consuming and I can see the end.. but not sure how soon I will get there. I have 1 drawer and 3 cabinet doors to finish sanding before I can work on staining it and replacing the counter top. That will be a post for a different time, though! Remodeling the bathroom (more or less) myself will definitely be post worthy! 
In the mean time, here are some of the things I have been working on this week:

  Above:  The cards that I have created this week. 5 out of the 6 are in some way related to wood, and the last one is not. I actually used nail polish to create the fun dots. All of the sayings are embossed on using my embossing powder and my craft heater. I forgot just how much I love this technique!! 

Below: A few of the steps in my wood project. I tried it with a black and white photo (not shown) and didn't like the way it looked. When I tried it the next two times, I used color photos, but I am not sure how much I like them either. I completely forgot to flip the images, so they are backwards and it kinda bothers me. The family picture turned out the nicest, but the other two didn't look all that bad. It is a learning process. I am not sure that anyone can get it completely right the first time. I tried all 3 on the same piece of wood. I think I finally have my technique down, and will pick out a piece of wood to do a single picture on. 

The process for my photo transfer to wood is a pretty simple one. You need only a few materials and a lot of time and patience! I printed the pictures out at different qualities and I really think that made a difference. The B&W photo (not shown) was printed at photo quality but on regular printer / copy paper and it turned out to be a lot darker and the color transferred to the wood much nicer than the two color pictures. They were printed on standard or fast print, as I was trying not to use too much color ink. I think if I would have printed them  the same way I printed the B&W one, I would like them a lot more. Anyway, you need:  A picture printed out on regular printer paper  A piece of wood  Mod Podge (I used Matte, but you can use any finish you want) Gel Medium (I used Liquitex Gloss Heavy Gel) A sponge brush (like the one seen in the photo above) A damp wash cloth (you don't want it to be soaking wet... but you don't want it to be too dry) About 24 hours of time
Start by taking the gel medium and applying a nice even coat over the picture. Make sure not to do too much. Place the picture - photo side down onto the wood. Use something with a straight edge (I used a Pampered Chef stone scraper) to smooth out the picture. I started in the center and worked my way toward the edges. Then, the long part comes. I waited 24 hours to give it plenty of time to make sure the color set. After the long wait time, you are going to start with the damp wash cloth. I started in the face area of the pictures and went in a circular motion. It will start to remove the back of the paper. It will start to clump up and sort of ball up. I ended up with a bunch of pieces on my lap and all over the table. You also want to check your wash cloth every so often. I kept moving to a clean area, and picked pieces of paper out of the rag. It wasn't difficult to remove the paper, but you do want to go slow. If you go to fast or push too hard, you might scratch or remove an area of the photo you wanted to stay. I think that is the hardest part of this entire process. That is why I started with the faces, and then worked my way out. I found I was much more careful at the beginning. I also took my fingers and went over the entire thing. It helped to be able to feel if there were any pieces of paper left. On the last one, I did run the (by this point) almost dry rag over it again. It was just enough to loosen up the last few pieces of paper that were still holding on (the largest picture of the collage shows what I am talking about). When you are finished with this step, let it dry completely. It doesn't take very long. Then, I put a nice thin coat of Mod Podge over it. Once that is dry, you are done! I have seen some people will continue to decorate theirs with a wooden letter or word that corresponds with their picture. 
Have you ever tried to make one of these before? How did it turn out?

Wood Challenge - March 1 - March 15, 2014

This week's challenge:

Does anyone have any fun ideas for this challenge?? This one is really going to make me think! I do not know what I will do for this challenge. Check back to see if I came up with any ideas! If you have any ideas of your own, please let me know! :) On a side note, Jennifer has decided to let the challenges run for two weeks instead of one. This will allow for more time for all of us to craft! 

Weekly Craft Challenges

I want to start sharing the weekly crafting challenges from my one Facebook group with all of you. Today is the last day of this week's challenge, but I will start tomorrow as soon as I find out what the challenge is. :) The challenges run from Sunday to Saturday. Jennifer over at Jennuine Challenges (Facebook Group) , Jennuine Crafts (blog) , and Just Dahling (YouTube) is the one that runs the Facebook Group. This is only the 3rd week that we have been doing this, but it has been a lot of fun! She will feature some of the favorites (depending on how many enter) on her Sunday Share video on YouTube.  The challenge for this past week has been a Scrap Challenge. We get to use some of our scraps (FINALLY!!) to make things. I save tons of scraps of paper that I feel are just too big to throw away. I never make it a priority to use them. So, I have a collection of miscellaneous size pieces of paper.   

Here is what I put together to enter into this challenge:

 This is an anniversary card for my sister and brother-in-law. Blog post can be found here. 

I will make sure to add any more projects, if any, that I get made today. :) I am looking forward to next week's challenge. If anyone has any that they would like to share, please feel free to let me know! 

Slime Lime Green Card - What??

Next week, my sister and her husband celebrate their 4th wedding anniversary. I was the Matron of Honor and also the photographer for their wedding. My amazing husband did most of the photography during the ceremony, but I got in a few good shots, too! It was definitely a day that I will not forget! In honor of their anniversary, I made them this cute card. I used colors from their wedding and Minnie and Mickey Mouse that I cut out with my Cricut. 

The base of the card could not have been more perfect for this card!! I often purchase the "scrap packs" that are sold at my local AC Moore. In the THREE packs, I found a handful or so of theses 5 x 7  papers in lime green. The are already scored to be a card. As soon as I saw them, I thought of my brother-in-law and the "slime lime"  from their wedding. We had such a hard time matching that shade of green.

I submitted this for a challenge over at Jennuine Challenges - a Facebook group ran by Jennifer from Just Dahling (YouTube) and Jennuine Crafts (blog). This week's challenge was a "scrap challenge"- where you use your scraps to make things. I used scraps to make just about every part of this adorable card.  In case my sister is reading this - I love you guys!! I hate that we live so far apart and that we never get to see each other anymore! I hope you have a FANTASTIC anniversary!!! <3

Minnie Mouse Birthday Card

** This post can also be found on my other blog: Baking Momma of Two. **

My Dad recently asked if I could make a special handmade birthday card for his girlfriend. He told me that her favorite Disney character is Minnie Mouse and her favorite color is blue. So, armed with those two things, I came up with this really neat birthday card! This design took me days to come up with, and then another couple of days to figure out how to execute, but I think it turned out fantastic! What do you guys think??

I love receiving cards from my family and friends. I love knowing that they took the time to go to the store and pick out a card just for me! Then, I ALWAYS feel guilty when I want to throw the card away. I mean, I can't possibly save every card that everyone gives me, right?? So, when I make a card (or gift) for someone, I always try to be that one thing that they WANT to keep and display or put in their scrapbook or memories box. For this card, I took it one step further.... I made a card that can be displayed as it is or it can be separated into a card and a magnet. That is right... the Minnie Mouse is a magnet, that can actually be removed from the card! I love this card so much! 

I have a punch (by EK Success) that I used for the "balloons". I punched them in different colors and layered them. Some have pop-dots (or some form of pop-dots) to give it some dimension. 

The "Happy Birthday" is from the Cricut cartridge Create A Critter. It is the phrase for the cat. I painted it with nail polish, and then went back over it with a glitter nail polish. It is also raised with two layers of my pop dots.

Minnie is from the Cricut cartridge Mickey and Friends. 

I would love to hear what you all think about this card. I am open to any and all feedback. If anyone would like a more detailed explanation or a walk through of  how I made this card, please feel free to let me know.