Adventures in Crafting: Baby Shower Card

It is better to give.

There is nothing more thoughtful than making a greeting card by hand. It is also super fun!
I have made quite a few greeting cards myself. All have been things I've recreated from Pinterest. So when I made one (well embellished) all on my own, I asked myself: has original creativity finally rubbed off on me?

I am quite proud of myself for making this card without consulting the internet for creativity! I made this card in a bit of a rush so I started with a blank Hallmark note card I bought like 10 years ago ( I am a greeting card hoarder). Before I started making cards I would spent hours at hallmark when I needed to get a card because I wanted to be perfect. Neurotic? I know! Eventually I started buying blank cards.

Now since I acquired a massive amount of cardstock from my scrapbooking years, I put it to good use for card making.

So I gathered up my materials and this is what I started with:

I have a collection of paint chips for a certain home improvement store that I use to make die cuts. 

After I glued the ribbon, cut out my hand drawn onesie and dress, glued those to the die cut and glued the die cut, the card came together.

Adventures in Crafting: Minecraft Skeleton/Bow/Pig

Sooooooo LAST MINUTE I decided that I needed to dress up with the kids for Halloween. Tomorrow is the Cub Scout Pack Halloween party. What minecraft character could I be with them? I thought about being a TNT block or a Grass block but then I chose the skeleton. Lucky for me I had a diaper box already painted silver!

The outfit is totally easy. Find a black pair of pants and a black long sleeve shirt and duct tape it! Like this one here! Of course I am no where skinny as her. I felt a little apprehensive about how I would look but I said F*** it! I am doing this for the kids! I asked Jayden, "Do you think I am too fat for this?" and he replied "Mom, skeletons come in all shapes and sizes." Gotta love that kid!

I started working on my bow. It helped that I had left over foam board and foam sheets from my sword and pick ax project and by now I am a pro at cutting stencils and foam! And by pro I mean I take a bit less time then my first attempt. I opted out of cutting individual squares!

1) First I cut out the stencil using a grid poster board.
2) Using the stencil I cut out the foam pieces that would cover the foam board front and back.
3) Once again using the stencil I cut out the foam board. I used my paper trimmer to grid the foam sheets.Then I glued the foam sheets onto the foam board using good old fashion elmer's glue.
4) Finally I painted the bow accordingly.

To my surprise, the hubby decided to join in the fun. Of ALL the characters in minecraft we decided to make him a pig!. Yes I said the pig, to many he is Jeffrey. He wore a pair of my pink skinny jeans, a pink polo shirt and the helmet I made him last minute. I think it came out pretty damn awesome!

It was fun and exciting!

Adventures in Crafting: Minecraft Zombie

Yes... I added more to the Mineraft Collection of Crafts.

I made my 8 year old Minecraft fanatic his very own Zombie costume. So here are the steps to making one, to the best of my recollection.

SUPPLIES:

1) ASSORTMENT OF ACRYLIC PAINTS
I used Craftsmart's Foliage Green, Lush Green, Spanish Olive, Olive Green and Shamrock.
2) ONE LOOOONG RECTANGULAR BOX, or 2 arm length rectangular boxex.
3) ONE RECTANGULAR BOX for body. Or a square one with the flaps left open.
4) TAPE
Masking(or painters) and Duct 
5) SPRAY PAINT
I used Krylon's Satin Italian Olive. It was on clearance for like $2. I would probably not have chosen satin. But at $2 I'll live.
NOT PICTURED ITEMS
6) 2-WOODEN SKEWER STICKS
7) SCISSORS
8) TEAL SHIRT
9) BLUE SWEAT PANTS
10) RULER/MEASURE TAPE
11) BOX CUTTER
12) SQUARE BOX FOR HEAD
13) PAINT BRUSHES
14) OLD PAIR OF STOCKINGS
15) ADHESIVE

Used to attach stocking to carboard box. I used rubber cement but I have used hot glue too.

ZOMBIE HEAD

First thing I did was work on the zombie head. It's really all about the face. You can use any image online as a guide. I first spayed painted the whole box. I used about 3 coats ( If you use a brown box you shouldn't 2 coats should do. Then I measured my box and drew a grid of 8x8 squares.

Then stencil your box with the masking tape to get clean lines when you paint the pixel squares. I only used the tape for the front of the face, for the sides back and top I free handed it. It was MUCH faster without the taping. The taping was super time consuming!

Don't forget to cut out the eye wholes. Instead of leaving the eye wholes open like most people do I decided to cut up some stocking and that way you can see through it and have it look more authentic. I used rubber cement to attach the pantyhose pieces to the inside of the box. Warning, you fingers will get messy. I used some tape scraps to push down on the pantyhose.

ZOMBIE ARMS

My mother in law bought Calla Lily's at a wholesale flower warehouse and they came in these long boxes. They were perfect for arms so you may want to visit a florist and ask them if they have any long boxes they are going to through out. Using the box cutter I split the box in 2. Then I had a clueless moment. How was I to cover the hole on the top! I was racking my brain when I realized...HELLO! Just flip the top and now both ends are closed.

I used rubber cement to adhere the box together. To keep the arms from slipping off I stuck a skewer through the box where my son's hand will be so he can have "handle bars." While I was racking my brain about how to keep the skewer from falling out, my husband told me to wrap the inside with duct tape to make it thicker. Then we simply used scissors to cut off the protruding part of the skewer. 

I skewered the box AFTER I painted it but I recommend you do that before. Just like the head I spray painted the box but only up to the where the sleeves would cover it. Then taped up the box to add the the painted details.

ZOMBIE CHEST

For the zombie chest I used a square box and just opened up the bottom flaps and cut out the arm holes and head hole. As you can tell from the bottom photo, I was previously working on the clone trooper body to go with his clone trooper head. That project is on the back burner for now. 

Last but not least put the shirt over the body, put on your arms put on the pants  put on your head and you're a zombie!

Adventures in Crafting: Minecraft Diamond Pickax and Sword

Remember my first minecraft projects? Well they don't end there yet. I am still finishing the creeper but in between I also made a Zombie. There's a sneak peek at the end of this post but for Halloween I will reveal the whole project!

The boys had been harassing me for a Minecraft  sword and  pickax. The iron ones that are sold in store were not going to cut it. They wanted DIAMOND swords.

I used two types of brushes: paint and foam. The foam one I use to apply the adhesive. Whenever Michaels has a 25 for $1.00 sale I always stock up on those babies. They are usually $.50 each! The foam sheets are $.99 each. The teal one was 10 cents cheaper.

The acrylic paints can pretty much be found on sale. That’s why I have different brands like Americana, Craft Smart and Martha Stewart. I only by Martha stuff when they are on sale or I have a coupon. The cutting knife can be just about anything. You can use a detail knife, a box cutter etc. Just make sure the blade is long enough to cut through the foam board.

For adhesive I used Mod Podge. I believe that’s usually like $6.99 but I used one of those 50% coupons.

Trimmers can be found around the $10.00-$20.00 range. They are a great investment. I have had mine for like 10 years! Everything needs a paper trimmer.

The straight edge is very important. As you can see my straight edge is a plastic ruler. It is not so straight anymore. I managed to nick it many times with the detail knife. My foam cutting didn't come out all that. That’s what I get for using a $.25 ruler. Luckily the foam squares cover my imperfect foam board. Invest in a metal ruler. I know I will.

I have seen swords made out of paper and foam boards but I wanted to make sure they didn't cut themselves with foam poster board. I decided to make it out of foam sheets to cover the rough edges of cut foam board.

First I used vanishing grid poster board to make stencils. I happened to have vanishing grid poster board on hand but I would recommend NON-vanishing grid poster board.  I used these images(SWORD / PICKAX)  as a guide.  I imagine you can simply print out the many templates that exist. But I like things done the hard way. 

As you can tell I made a normal size sword (1” squares) for my 8 year old and a mini size (1/2 “squares) for my 3 year old. If the smaller sword looks a bit longer to you that’s because …it is. I didn't want his sword to look like a dagger so I extended the dimensions a bit.

Then I traced the stencils onto the foam poster board. Now the cutting of the poster board will require some elbow grease. So if you have a strong man handy, I recommend you use him! This was my least favorite part of the project.

It took me a whole lot of trial and error to find the best way to cut foam into squares, only to realize that I didn't even have to cut the foam into little squares in the first place!

So here are the two ways to cut foam. Well one is a cutting method, the other is the illusion cut method.

First, use the paper trimmer to make 1” squared grids. Then using the detail/exacto knife cut over the grid lines. The cuts will be straight without the need a straight edge. When I tried cutting the foam using a straight edge I was getting funny looking corners. The foam would stretch and the squares started looking more like rhombuses.

While marking the lines on the foam board I realized that I didn't even need to cut out each individual square. I only realized it after I had cut like over 200 squares! I cut both blue and teal foam but in reality you only really need one color because you’ll need to paint it anyways to get the correct colors on your swords and pickax.

To glue on the foam sheet to the foam boards I used a foam brush and mod podge. I found it to be better than regular Elmer’s glue. It secures much faster. But you can really use whatever you have on hand. You’ll just need a little more patience and retouching.

After all the foam has been applied on each side, it is then time to paint. As you can tell I had started painted the squares before I was finished gluing all of them. DO NOT DO THAT! I mean you can do what you want but it won’t be a good idea. I was testing different mixtures of the acrylic paints to get the colors as close as possible. An I didn't want the paint to go to waste so I painted a few squares.  These are the colors and mixes I decided to go with:

Ocean Breeze is by Craft Smart. It is also the same exact color as the teal foam.

Calypso Blue and Bittersweet Chocolate are by Americana.

If you haven't guessed the second is Ocean Breeze and Calypso Blue mixed.

I ended up also using Pool by Martha Stewart (not pictured) for the pickaxes.

I also mixed calypso blue with black to paint the edges of the sword.

Grab your flat brushes and paint!

The mini sword and pickax are just the most adorable things! They go great with my adorable three year old.

Now that they have their diamond swords and pickax, they can go mining at night and take care of those mobs...especially those zombies!

Make your own MINECRAFT ZOMBIE

Adventures in Crafting: Minecraft Creeper

As I told you before, both my kids love Minecraft. I decided to take on a project for them. My older one loves Star Wars too, so he wanted a "clone trooper modified Steve."  I found this cool website that lets you design your own Minecraft character. You can see all the dimensions.

My little one wanted to be a creeper. I thought the creeper was going to be easier to make since there was really no pattern that needed to be followed. I WAS WRONG! The creeper needed 100 squares per side! It was tough cutting the squares. I should probably invest in a Cricut but this craft is of the thrifty type.

Here are the materials I used:

I have a collection of Target diaper boxes, they are great for storage. 

It's simple enough. Paper trimmer (or Cricut if you're fancy) 

box (doesn't have to be perfectly square) , 

good old fashion Elmers glue, 

Box cutter (not pictured) 

Pair of black pantyhose (not pictured) hot glue gun to attach the pantyhose

Cardstock (for the creeper I found a pack of  different shades of green for $3.00 at Michaels')

For the Storm Trooper, I got 12x12 open cardstock at Michael's as well.  Best part, it was on sale @ 6 for $1.00. I bought 2 sheets of black, 4 different shades of grey (2 sheets of each as well) 4 sheets of white and like 2 sheets of blue.

After 3 sleepless nights we were ready for Megacon 2013!

UPDATE!:

I love it when costumes can be reused! Halloween is coming early this year. Our family shall attend Halloween Extreme!

Halloween Extreme is for the kids but Spooky Empire is more for me. Fine out why!

Jayden wants to go to Halloween extreme as a zombie but of course...a Minecraft Zombie so I have to get started on that. Tristan is going as a creeper because creepers are really scary and well creepy! Here's how the rest of the costume is coming along.

I had to cut off the side because there was no way he was going to be tied down like that for more than 10 seconds! I have gotten a lot faster at gluing down those little squares.

OCTOBER UPDATE:

So we didn't make it to Halloween Extreme nor Spooky Empire. I was sad. But I did finish the Zombie and the creeper.

Here's the rest. My mother-in-law found me a great box at BJ's for the creeper legs. I cut off each end and glues in to the bottom flaps of the body. 

To keep the legs up I knew I needed some kind of L-brackets. I had a couple of Ikea anti-topple devices in our hardware kit. Don't judge me for not fastening my Ikea wardrobe and TV console to the wall! 

I used liquid nails to attach each one to the middle of each leg. I reinforced them with duct tape and it worked perfectly!

Our Community fall festival was this weekend. They had a costume contest which we didn't win. 

WE WERE ROBBED! I had already prepared the boys. Before we left to the festival I told them that we will enter the contest for fun but it will be alright if we don't win. It's all about having a good time and showing off our costumes. They were very gracious losers.  

Up Next: Diamond Sword & Pickax

Adventures in crafting: Storage Bin Re-Vamp

Organization has been my main concern within my bedroom decoration. It's very hard to keep a room organized when you have 4 people in it. Clothes are all over the floor along with toys and...what's that green gunk? Oh yeah... it's a fruit roll up stuck on the carpet. It's tough living with three boys. That's why I have been trying to brighten up our tight living quarters.

So far I have bought a wardrobe from Ikea to keep the kid's clothes in. (I'll post pictures of it later.) FYI, I bought that sucker in the nick-of-time. It went up to $249! I got it at $199.00; I though it was steal at that price. I also bought a Hemnes dresser in As-Is (love it!) for $100 off! My next project is to paint the knobs in a chevron style.

So anyway...I'll get to the storage bins I promise. We have two Ikea tables as night tables. Not much for storage. I knew I needed to buy some bins to place under the table for storage. I found 2 bins on sale at Target! If you don't know by now, Ikea & Target are my favorite stores! The only problem with the storage bins is that they were green. Green is not one of my colors in my decor palette.  I have an obsession with all shades teal, aqua & turquoise. 

I made a trip to Michael's & bought some acrylic paint stencil. At first I thought about making my own stencil but I don't think I am there yet. Martha Stewart to the rescue. I have a love/hate relationship with Martha. I love her products but hate her prices. Come on Martha let's not be greedy. Being greedy landed you in jail last time. I bought her acrylic paints because they were on sale. I bought her stencils because I had a 40% coupon from Michael's. I also bought craft smart because they had the aqua color I liked.

I also bought these Martha Stewart foam brushes
that attach to her acrylic paint bottles. I should have
known there was a reason why they were on clearance.
They were very flimsy. Very cheap quality. The foam
ripped off after each side I painted. There were 6 in the
 package  I used up 5 of them. I didn't remember
reading anything about them being "disposable." What a
disappointment. I pushed threw through & finished the project.
First I covered each side with 2 coats of the light
aqua paint. Then I stenciled the Moroccan design.
I am trying an eclectic print theme for the room.

My personal photographer, Jayden was there to capture me stenciling.

If you have no Idea who Jayden is, his bio is right here.

Then Tah-Dah! And to think I did this all in the Florida heat! I am proud of my imperfect job!

Mom's 70th Birthday!

I know it has been a while since I last published something. It's something that was on my to do list but not on my "must-be-done" list. Also I had not been in much of a good mood lately. I didn't want to write about anything gloomy but now I have a happy topic to blog about. Today is my mom's 70th Birthday! Meet my mother, Reina Isabel. My lovely mother. This is the mother of 3 kids, grandmother to 8+ (plus being all the "adopted" grandchildren she has gained along the way.) People say I neither look like her nor have her personality, I kinda take the lather as offensive. My mom has an awesome personality, are they trying to tell me I don't?

I have never seen 70 look so good! Everyone is always shocked when I tell people her age. I know what you are thinking: "How dare you tell people your mother's real age!" But lying, or being secretive about her age is not my mom's style. She is not ashamed of who she is or what she is. And she shouldn't. What she is... is F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S.


My mother is such a lovable person. She will talk to everyone & anyone. This woman is a ball of sunshine. She is the hardest worker & doesn't live to impress other people. When ever she wears something that may be viewed as "outdated" & I try to encourage her to change her outfit she tells me: "I don't dress for other people, I like to wear what I like." Did I mention she is also wise? My mother has more amazing qualities than anyone I know. I wanted her to feel as special as she is for her birthday. Even though there was no million dollar party ( she would just say is a waste of money) she had a happy birthday. All her kids & grand-kids (one in spirit) were gathered just for her.

My one & only niece.



I had found this awesome idea to make a picture collage on pinterest. My only niece, my mother's 1st & only granddaughter, scanned a bunch a pictures of my mom & emailed them to me. I edited them & printed them through snapfish. They have really good quality prints. Forming the pictures into a huge 70 was a headache. I wanted it to be perfect. I must have built it about 5 times until I was pleased with the look of it. It took me like 3 hours, nothing compared to the 10 hours of labor she endured for me =)




My mom & I don't live in the same city. I try to visit every 3 months. Her birthday is a must! What's a birthday without balloons! My niece & I both agreed on the colors. I liked silver for it's elegance & the yellow for sunshine & happiness...all qualities my mom possesses.






My nephew, sister-in-law, niece, mom, son, dad & my parent's adoptive granddaughter.



The celebration was at my brother's house. We were celebrating his birthday which was the night before. At midnight we started celebrating my mom's birthday. The girls got all dressed up for the occasion.




My oldest, Jayden, fell asleep. But his little brother, Tristan, was up to help grandma start her birthday with a bang. Learn a little more about them here.




My mom loved her "70" collage. I can't wait to celebrate her 80th birthday!

Water Bottle Labels

Tomorrow is the last game for soccer. I like to call Jayden's team the bad news bears. They all have such potential. To all the kids, it's a social club. They barely listen to coach, who by the way, has the patience of a saint. We are on the roster for snacks. Last year there was a mishap with our snack game. It was around Halloween so the hubby & I went out. Jayden slept over his cousin's house. We woke up Saturday morning like at 11:00 am & on the way to pick up Jayden I felt like I had forgotten something. SOCCER! Even though every single Saturday we wake up early to go to soccer on this particular day it slipped our minds. The worst part was that we were responsible for snacks. I didn't even have the courage to face the team on the following practice so I sent the hubby to handle damage control. To make up for it, we bought the kids pizza on the last game of the season.

Apparently coach put us last on the snacks list to make sure we make it. I hope he's not expecting pizza again this year.

I decided to try to make this last game a little special. I made theme water bottle labels! This is good practice for me since I want to make the decorations for Tristan's 3rd birthday.

Now my printer obviously needs some maintenance. But this is really easy to make. Buy circular labels (these are 1" in diameter). Make your design on publisher. Print. Then stick your circles on 11/2" scalloped circles. Glue on a strip of 2X9 scrapbook paper & glue on scalloped circles to scrapbook paper.  I hope the kids find it cute.

I also put the labels on rice crispy treats.

I had a lot of fun making them.

Perfection will not mean Procrastination.

Earlier I stated that I consider myself a half-ass overachiever. Let me expand on that. I have an endless array of projects and goals on my imaginary to do list. My plan of action and my blue prints are all in my head. They are of grandeur. Most of them stay in my head with the hope that one day they will just spontaneously generate. No, not really. I am not delusional. Well maybe I am with somethings. A little delusion is quite healthy.

My projects don't get off the ground because I am a perfectionist. Not the kind that will work on something forever until it is just right. I am the kind that will procrastinate if it is not absolutely perfect in my head. The worst feeling in the world for me (besides finding out I was lied to) is disappointment. It is beyond aggravating when things don't work out the way I envisioned them. When I have a project in my mind I NEVER take it one step at a time. If I think that step 11 is not going to be possible for "X" reason, I refuse to go through step 1-10 to leave it unfinished. The fear of having a halt in my project prevents me from starting one in the first place. I guess I have to weigh my options. I mean what's worst? Procrastinating or having unfinished projects? 

As I am writing this I have an excellent peripheral view of a headboard project I started. I keep looking up at it because it is incomplete. Neurotic? I know right. I need to learn to enjoy the completion of every step and avoid being so hard on myself that I am not ready for the next. I almost had a melt down while starting off. I saw this upholstered headboard on this blog. I fell in love with the fabric and the concept of the squares. Before I decided if I could actually do it I did endless hours of research. Once again neurotic right? Research to make a headboard? Well as much as I LOVED the fabric I was not sure if it was the perfect fabric. I looked through hundreds of fabrics online. Once I found a fabric I liked online I decided to go to my local home fabrics store. They had the original print I liked but not in the color I liked. They had other fabrics that I liked. I couldn't make up my mind! I literally had a different fabric in my cart when I made the final decision and chose this one.

This is one of the finished squares. Disaster struck when my mother-in-law was helping me cut the fabric. The print was not symmetrical and I wanted the design to be centered on each square. Also there were wide and narrow designs and I wanted the wide ones only. My mother-in-law cut out the narrow ones by mistake. So now I had uneven, non-matching squares. I almost scratched the whole project and was about to go and spend another $30.00 on new fabric. I told myself to stop freaking out. FYI I internally freak out. I didn't let my mother-in-law see my apprehension. Instead I decided to just go with the flow. Assembling the squares was another mental freak out.

 The board I bought to make the 10X10 squares were not 1/4 mahogany underlay like the tutorial said. In spanish it's called "carton piedra"; if you speak spanish you know that piedra means rock. That should have been a sign. We asked the guy at home depot if we can staple through it and he said "yeah". He lied, partially. The staples did not go through with ease. If you plan on completing this project, do not use this type of board.

The same guy also cut out my 10x10 squares. There were some that came out as rhombuses. That was aggravating. If you are a geek like me you know that a rhombus does not have right (90 degree) angles. I overly  stress the little things. I started assembling the 24 squares. The first day I only completed 10 because I was using a manual staple gun since the automatic was not doing it's job. I took a 4 day rest because my hand was so sore. Just yesterday I finished all 24 squares.  Voilá!

I am planning to mount it this week. 

This blog is another project that won't get lost in my mind. I want it to be visually captivating but that won't deter me from maintaining a steady pace. I'll try to post at least once a week. I'm starting to accept imperfections in my life.  This blog and  this headboard is only the beginning.

UPDATE: 7/15/2012
I did mount the headboard that week but I wanted to finish more decorating projects before I posted the pictures. Since I finished the headboard I have also added a wardrobe, some frames, and a chest. None of those items are ready for a reveal. But here's a pic of the headboard mounted. I need some decor on those empty walls!

I think I should have mounted it a little higher. But overall I am happy with the results. 

Thanks Sawdust & Embryos for the inspiration!