Captain America Present

So the last couple of weeks, I have been telling you about my new obsession with wrapping gifts. My husband always jokes that I've set the bar high and I can never return to just plain old wrapping paper and a bow, haha.

If you missed the previous posts, you can see the pirate one here and the cowboy one here.

This time, the birthday party's theme was super heroes. At first I asked my son which super hero I should decorate the present with and he suggested Superman. I couldn't figure out how to add a cape to the present and there aren't really any other elements to Superman's outfit other than the emblem. I thought that was pretty boring, so I went looking for other super hero ideas and came up with Captain America. Yes, I know I live in Canada, but his costume just has so many recognizable elements and the ideas started brewing.

My son was still keen on having Superman, but I begged and pleaded him to change his mind, told him that Captain America was more fun for me, and I was the one wrapping it, so he was just going to have to live with it (end of 5-year-old rant. Mine. Not his)

So this is what I came up with. I used the same blue paper that I used for the cowboy to wrap the present. I just used a folded 11x17 sheet of legal paper folded in half to make the white bottom. I cut the star and the stripes out on my Silhouette (again, they could have easily been done by hand, but I'm lazy and I can't cut very straight) and just glued it all on the top of the wrapping paper.

The present

 This time I actually remembered to take a picture of the coordinating card. I used this font to get the Captain America font. I did have to alter it a little bit as it didn't have enough rings, but then I made it into a card using my Silhouette Studio program. I didn't have blue paper that was the same color as the wrapping paper, (and after I was all done I had a big DUH moment when I realized I could have just used a scrap piece of wrapping paper for the blue- oh well) so I just used some other blue paper that I had lying around.

The recipient was pretty pleased with the present, and his mom said she knew right away that it was supposed to be Captain America, so I guess that means I did a good enough job, right?



I'll be linking up here:

Cowboy Present

So last week I showed you the pirate present, which was one of my first attempts at coordinating the present with the birthday party theme. (I had one or two previous to it, but didn't take pictures)

This week, I'm showing you one I made for a cowboy themed birthday party that my son attended.

First I wrapped the present in blue wrapping paper. I cut a triangle out of some red wrapping paper that I had and glued it to the top to create the bandana. Then, using my Silhouette cutter, I cut out some paisley shapes, a sheriff star and some buttons and glued those on as well. It's difficult to see from this picture, but if you look really closely, I also cut out some fringe on my Silhouette and attached it around all the sides!

I made a cowboy hat card that went along with it, but silly me, I forgot to take a picture of it :(

I really had a lot of fun creating this little cowboy present and I think it turned out really cute! What do you think?



I'm linking up here:

Pirate Present

My son is now of the age where he is beginning to be invited to birthday parties on a fairly regular basis. Seeing as I never seem to have the right kind of wrapping paper/gift bags, etc. I am always at a loss as to how to wrap the gift. I try to stock up on wrapping paper, but no matter how hard I try I always seem to have the wrong gendered stuff, or no ribbon to match, etc. All that brought about the inspiration for this wrapping.

For this one, (obviously) the friend was having a pirate birthday party. I had the black and white striped wrapping paper, (which at the time was the most masculine paper I could find in my stash) which I wrapped the gift in. And then I spruced it up to look like a treasure map. I cut out the little dotted pieces and the 'x' using my Silhouette craft cutter (though it probably would've been just as easy to do by hand, but I'm lazy!) and then I just used glue to stick it onto the present. The pirate pictured up in the right-hand corner is actually the card I made to go with the present. It is a shape that I downloaded from the Silhouette store.

I'm obsessed. This is my new "thing". I love wrapping gifts and figuring out how I'm going to coordinate it with the birthday party's theme. Come back next week when I'll be sharing my "cowboy" present.

  I'm linking up here!:

A Quick Easter Bucket

Has anyone else had a winter like mine? I feel as though we've been perpetually sick! We are still recovering from our latest bout - strep throat. Not fun. It knocked me out for about 3 days. Why is it that getting put out of commission for a couple of days, seems to throw everything off for weeks!!??

Anyway, now I'm trying to play catch up. We had little man's 4th birthday party (I'll post pictures of his cake, but I unfortunately didn't get a SINGLE picture of the party :( - that makes me soo sad, but I was on my own for hosting the party, so what's a mom to do?)

The other day I was reminded that little man's preschool class was going to be having an Easter party and that they were each to bring an easter basket. Hmmmm.... I didn't have a basket in the house, so what's a crafty mom do? She makes one, of course!

I used an old dishwasher tabs container- cut down, some scrapbook paper, ribbon, wire and trusty ol' mod podge. I think it turned out really cute! What do you think?

Erasers and a favourite crafting accessory

My son came to me this afternoon begging to do a craft. We were originally going to do some painting (that boy loves to paint - I have to limit the amount of paint available to him at one time as he'll keep painting and painting until it is all gone, even if that means his project is a few inches thick!)  When we went downstairs to retrieve the paint we came across this:

I've seen some various projects around involving regular sculpey, but I received this kit in a 'crafting care package' from my mom. (She's basically cleaning out her craft supplies and sending them my way - almost like my own little craft store - except it's always a surprise as to what I receive! )

Anyway, my son saw them when I first received the package a couple of months ago and has been begging to do them almost on a daily basis. He's seen these ads on tv for all these stupid delightful little collectible erasers (like, really, how many erasers does one need?! and isn't the purpose of an eraser to, well, erase stuff, not to collect?!  this is my anti pack rat self ranting here).. Anyway, I digress.

Basically, this stuff works like play-doh, you just mold it into the shapes you want and then bake them in the oven for 10 minutes. Pretty cool.


Please don't judge the little critters that I made.

Yes, I made them. This is how my son tends to play play-doh and the like. He gets the stuff out and then instructs me what to make. Yah, so educational and enriching for him, I'm sure.

Anyway, they would have turned out slightly better if dear son had not gone and lost the little rolling pin and sculpting knife that came with the kit. He discovered them, and they disappeared shortly after we received the kit (anything that looks like a weapon...boys).


Now onto one of my new favourite crafting accessories.

I received mine in my stocking this past Christmas and I think it's the handiest little tool.

(source: Lee Valley website)
You see, I don't have a craft room to call my own, so most of my crafting usually takes place on my kitchen table. This little thing is great for laying on the table (it takes the place of newspapers) It's got a glossy finish on it, so if I'm painting with acrylic paints, etc. the spills chip off easily.

If you're anything like me, I tend to get carried away crafting and not notice the time, but will suddenly look up and realize that I need to get busy making supper and need to clean up my crafting stuff in a hurry. Well on this little gem, the corners snap together to make itself into a little tray, then I can just pick the whole thing up and remove it back to my junk heap craft stash in the basement until the next time I'm able to pick up my crafting.

And the best part? It's only 5 smackeroos!  You can find it here.

There are a couple other things there that I have on my wish list, such as their painting triangles and glue spreaders. I bought some of their rare earth magnets last year to use in the quiet book I made for my son for Christmas (post to come soon!) Much cheaper than the ones at Michaels! I love Lee Valley (and no, this is not a paid or otherwise compensated post, I just really love them.)

What about you? Do you have a favourite crafting gizmo, accessory, etc. that you use?

A Very Girly Wreath

A sneak peek!

Since I've only just started this blog, I have a few pre-blog craft projects that I thought I would share with you. I'm still in the middle of decorating little miss' bedroom. She's currently still sleeping in our room, but I'm sick of sharing I think all of us would be better off if she moved to her own room.

Right now our old computer is still set up in her room, but I'm currently in the process of transferring all the files off the old beast and putting them onto my new laptop. {edit - I finally finished tonight! Let the decorating begin!} Some of that has been a little bit of a learning curve figuring out how to retrieve the info from a PC and taking it to a Mac. Thankfully, this process has become a lot easier (and even possible!) in the last few years...

I know, I know...I bore you...

Anyway, here is a wreath I made for my daughters room (I'm all into the girly, girly stuff - I hope she will be too even when she's older)

I got my idea from here:

Beverly over at Flamingo Toes made this uber cute Halloween wreath. Even though I'm not really into the whole halloween thing, I was in love with this wreath. I took the idea and ran with it, changed up the colors, added my daughters initial and ended up with this:

                                  I know there's a wonky bit at the top - it's since been trimmed down a little!

I made the letter out of cereal box cardboard (classy, I know!),  covered in scrapbook paper and distressed with distressing ink.

I still haven't hung it up in the room. It's on the to do list. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to have the computer desk disassembled to make room for the crib and then I can begin decorating in all things girly :)

My sister has similar cute ones that she made for her daughters that you can check out here.

Apologies

Okay, I have to apologize for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. My little miss has been teething and it has not been pretty. It's been a long couple of weeks with very little sleep! I have only just today got caught up on all my blog reading as I have just felt too exhausted to even think about reading.

I do have a post ready to go, I just need to get the pictures off my other computer...yah, I still haven't transferred them to my laptop. Well, I did try but technology (and my thumb drive) didn't get along with me, so I'll have to try again once I'm getting more sleep. Anyway, I should have it up shortly.