Altered LED Candle - "welcome"

Saw a post on Facebook where someone else has altered these LED candles available from Dollar Tree and so, I had to give it a try:

Such an easy project using contact paper and my Cricut Explore. 

Thanks for visiting. 

Over the Hill Diaper Cake

I'm a little nervous how our friend Art is going to react to his 50th birthday "cake":

It is either going to be a great source of amusement or we are never being invited over again.

Did you know that there are different types of adult incontinence products?  I didn't (guess that's a good thing).  I had intended to buy the underwear style which looks more like a baby's diaper, but grabbed a package of guard pad style because it was cheaper.  It wasn't until I opened the package that I realized my mistake, so I just decided to go with it  as I didn't want to waste my purchase.

I hot glued an empty coffee can to the center of my tray as a base for the cake.  I then unwrapped the individual pads, rolled them like a jelly roll  (adhesive strips to the inside where it wouldn't show) and wrapped an elastic around the center of each roll.  The  bottom layer of the cake was made with these individual rolls which were arranged around the coffee can  and held in place by an large elastic .  The top layer of the case is more rolls held together by an elastic.

The two layers of cake are held together by bamboo skewers (just like dowels in a real cake) to which I attached  mesh ribbon and a over the hill tombstone  as a topper.  The elastics holding together the rolls of guard pads are hidden using black grosgrain ribbon.  I attached four "Happy Birthday Art" cuts (welded using Cricut CraftRoom) to the ribbon on the bottom layer and three "50" cuts to the ribbon on the top layer of the cake.

Around the cake, I added various senior products such as reading glasses, pill dispenser, denture cleaning products, tums and hemorrhoid cream.


I also took a empty baby food jar to which I added some marbles, decorated with vinyl to read "Old Geezer Lost Marble Replacements" as an additional senior product for the cake.


I also added a vinyl label to the denture bath (to help identify what the item was).

Supplies Used:

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application
Cricut  Over the Hill Cartridge
Cricut  San Serif Cartridge ("Denture Bath" label)
Cricut  Lyrical Labels Cartridge (lost marbles label)
16" Disposble Aluminium  Foil Catering Tray
Empty Coffee Can
Emplty baby food jar
spray paint (jar lid)
Poster board (tombstone topper)
Card stock from my stash
Celebrate It Black Mesh Ribbon
Celebrate It 360 Black Grosgain Ribbon
Bamboo Skewers
Elastics
Hot glue
Silver vinyl scraps from my stash
Black vinyl scraps from my stash
Various Senior Products


Thanks for visiting.

Witching Hour Clock

The sixth challenge for the Cricut Circle’s Canadian Online Swarm is to make any type of project that has at least one Cricut cut and uses something old and something new.

I decided to alter a clock using the an "old" Halloween cartridge (i.e., Mini Monsters) and a new Halloween cartridge (i.e., A Frightful Affair ). 


I love the sassy witch cut from A Frightful Affair. I cut a couple of extra layers of the witch(one in a silver grey and the other in black), so that I could make the hair silver rather than black. I had to hand trim the hair and the hat from the extra two cuts. The green skin layer was actually cut from a cream piece of paper and then colored with a green Copic marker since I didn't have a suitable shade of green paper.  Lips were drawn in with a sharpie marker.

I  accented the bubbles above the cauldron from the witch cut with Stickles.

After applying the vinyl and gluing the witch cut down , I applied a couple of coats of Mod Podge to the entire clock and voila, my project was done.

Supplies Used:

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application
Cricut A Frightful Affair Cartridge (numbers & witch)
Cricut Mini MonstersCartridge (witching hour phrase)
10" Clock
Vinyl from my stash
Card Stock Recollections, Wausau  and AC
Stickles
Copic Marker (YG67)
Sharpie Marker (fine point red)
Mod Podge

I'm giving this clock away, so I hope the recepient likes it.
 

Witch Parking Sign

It that time of year again - time for the second annual Cricut Circle’s Canadian Online Swarm.  The first challenge is to create Halloween Decor Item with the following criteria:

the project must include the following:

1) at least one Cricut Cut, and

2) the colour purple

and at least one of the following:

a) Glitter

b) Ribbon

c) Use of a Cuttlebug folder.

I decided to make a sign:

Supplies Used:

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application
Cricut San Serif Cartridge (font)
Cricut Pooh & Friends Cartridge (witch’s hat)
Cricut Animal Kingdom Cartridge (frog cut masquerading as a toad)
Cricut Destinations Cartridge (arrow)
Vinyl from my stash
Celebrate It Halloween Metal Sign with glitter around the edge
Sakura Gelly Roll pen (highlighting on hat and toad)
Silver grey marker (warts on toad)

My daughter just loved the sign and hopefully you will too.

Fabulous Witch Shoe Charger Plate

I know it’s only the beginning of August, but I’m starting to get excited for Halloween and couldn’t wait to work on altering this charger plate that I had picked up on clearance:

I had seen the sentiment on a couple of different projects and knew I had to use it.  I laid out all my cuts using Cricut CraftRoom, so that I could make sure all the vinyl cuts would all fit on the centre of the plate.  I also used  CraftRoom to slant the “Good Witch” to give it the feel of an italic font.

The shoe cut did not have a heel tip on stiletto, so I just cut a small piece of silver vinyl to make the tip.  I also added some glossy accent to the spider “embellishment” on the witch’s shoe to add some dimension to it and trimmed off the excess legs so it would look like the rest of the spider wrapped round to the other side of the shoe.

I’m pleased with the way this turned out.  Though, after I finished it, I thought I should have made the shoe purple and green rather than purple and orange.

Supplies Used: 

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application

Cricut A Frightful Affair (font)

Cricut Forever Young (shoe)

Cricut Chic & Scary (spider)

Cricut Lyrical Letters Cartridge (question mark)

Vinyl from my stash

Black Charger Plate

Mark Richards Star Crystal stickers
Black Gems from my stash

Inkssentials glossy accents

LePage Extreme Repair Adhesive

Sawtooth Picture Hanger

Thanks for stopping by to have a look. 

We Love Grandma Frame

Here's a simple altered mirrored frame:

Supplies Used:
Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application
Cricut Base Camp Cartridge
Black Outdoor Grade Vinyl (scraps from a sign company)
Mirrored frame (dollar store)

"Volimu Baku" is Croatian for  "We love Grandma".  My daughters gave this frame to their Croatian grandmother for Mother's Day.
Thanks for looking.

Happy Easter Charger Plate Wall Decor

I've made another charger plate:

I attached a metal picture hanger using LePage Extreme Repair Adhesive to the back of the charger plate for this to be hung on a wall.

Supplies Used: 

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application

Cricut Walk In My Garden Cartridge (daisies)

Cricut Celebrate With Flourish Cartridge (Chick)

Cricut Holiday Cakes Cartridge (“Happy Easter”)

Pink Cricut Vinyl

White Con-Tact Paper

Yellow Outdoor Grade Vinyl (scraps from a sign company)

Green Oracel 631 Vinyl

Googly Eye

Hot Glue

Charger Plate

LePage Extreme Repair Adhesive

Sawtooth Picture Hanger

I’m entering this in the Cricut Circle March Monthly Challenge: Creative Sharing Challenge.  The challenge is to create a piece of wall art (canvas, art board, sign, vinyl directly on wall, framed art, shadow box, etc.) and use at least three colorscolors and two Cricut image cuts.  Since this is a seasonal piece of wall art, I think it qualifies. 

Thanks for looking.

Sandblasting Glass Part II

I thought I'd elaborate on my previous post and supply a little more information on the sandblasting.

Firstly, the title of this post and the preceding one are a little bit of a misnomer (though technically correct) as no sand is involved.  Sandblasting using sand (i.e., silica sand) is a method of etching glass, but not the one I used.  I used aluminium oxide (an alternative abrasive to sand) to etch my glass.  [As an aside, did you know that sandpaper is usually made from aluminium oxide and not sand?]

Why did I choose to use aluminium oxide over silica sand?  Well, the research I did on the types of abrasive that could be used indicated that silica dust particles generated during blasting with sand are small enough to be inhaled into the lungs. This inhalation can cause a number of health problems, including silicosis and lung cancer (both of which can be fatal).  If you are using silica sand, you must take precautions so that you don't breath in ANY of the dust. For example, by using fully enclosed cabinet held under negative pressure that filters out the air discharged from the cabinet.  These types of cabinets allow you stand at a safe distance from the abrasive and manipulate equipment and items in the cabinet with the arms and hands in sealed gloved armholes.   The make-shift cabinet I pictured in my previous post would not qualify as it is neither fully enclosed nor under negative pressure.


Aluminum oxide is an alternative abrasive that doesn't contain silica and therefore is a safer option than silica sand.  You should still wear respiratory protection and take other appropriate precautions when working with aluminum oxide because it does generates dust.  Eye protection is also important because the abrasive particles can cause serious injury if they strike your eyes.  Despite having the box that contained a lot of the dust (and allowed me to collect the aluminum oxide for reuse), I still did my blasting outdoors, wearing thick rubber gloves, a dust mask and eye protection.


OK, lecture over - time for a project.  A wine glass I etched with a beaver (the official emblem of Canada) as a present for a friend's birthday (she's going to be mad at me because we are not supposed to exchange gifts). First, here's a picture of  glass covered with the vinyl stencil that I cut using my Cricut Expresssion, extra vinyl and masking tape added to protect the areas on the glass that I didn't want etched:

Here's the wine glass after it was blasted and the vinyl and masking tape was removed:




I am very happy with the details that showed up after the blasting:

Supplies Used:

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application

Go Canada Cartridge (beaver)

Sans Serif Cartridge (stretched # for beaver's tail)

Outdoor grade vinyl (scraps from a sign shop) 

Wine glass

Masking tape

Sandblaster

Aluminium oxide.

Sandblasting Glass

So Denubug from the Cricut Circle Forum posted about a great deal on compressors that could be used with Copic markers for airbrushing.  Well, I managed to get a compressor, but instead of using it for airbrushing, I picked up a sandblasting gun.  This is my first project etching glass by sandblasting:

I used the Sans Serif cartridge to cut out "DIANE" from some outdoor grade vinyl, weeded out the letters and applied the remaining vinyl to the jar.   I taped around the vinyl on the jar to protect a greater area and I then blasted the jar with the using the sandblasting gun filled with  Aluminium Oxide sand.  I am impressed with how much deeper of a etch I got using the sandblasting gun over etching cream.


Here's the type of sandblasting gun I used and a picture of the homemade blast cabinet I made from a plastic storage box:





Finally, here's another picture of the jar filled with some peanut butter cups:



Thanks for looking!

40th Anniversary Centerpieces

I’m still here.  Sorry for the lack of posts, but I was busy making the following centerpieces for a non-profit Croatian Folklore group that I’m involved with:

The group was celebrating their 40^th anniversary with a dinner and dance and I volunteered to make 42 centerpieces for the tables.  Being a volunteer based non-profit organization, keeping cost down was important and I am proud that I was able to put these together at a cost of about 50 cents each for the materials. 

Supplies Used:

Cricut Expression & Cricut CraftRoom Application

Superman Cartridge (font for vinyl lettering on pot)

Hello Kitty Font Cartridge (“40”)

Ribbons & Rosettes Cartridge (rosette and medallion)

Outdoor grade vinyl (scraps from a sign shop) in red and blue

Copic Marker (to outline card stock medallion and the "40")

Red Tissue Paper

Red Tulle from the Dollar Store

Styrofoam balls

Bamboo Skewers

Martha Stewart Glitter and Glitter Glue

Martha Stewart Scoring Board

Recollections brand card stock

Small Ceramic Pots

Hot glue and glue gun

I cut the name of the group and the years from the vinyl first and put in on the pot (double sided so you could read it from either side of the pot).  I cut the Styrofoam balls in half and glued a half ball to the bottom of the pot.  Glitter glue was applied to the skewers and then the glitter.  The rosettes were cut (six cuts – 2 of each of in red, white and blue) from the card stock, folded and glued together with a “40” medallion on each side of the rosette.  I stuck the pointy end of the skewer into the Styrofoam ball half, stuffed the pot with the tissue paper to hide the Styrofoam, used the tulle as the top layer of the pot stuffing and then slipped the rosette onto the skewer.  While I didn’t track my time exactly (no need to as my time was being donated), I spent well over 40 hours making these centerpieces. The most time consuming was the weeding and application of the vinyl on the pots. 

The dinner was a success and one person at each table got to take home my creation.

Thanks so much for looking.

Cricut Earrings

I am not a jewellery maker, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone by making these earrings:

 Supplies Used:
Cricut Expression
Cricut Circle Exclusive Everyday Cartridge

Lever back earring posts
Headpin Finding
Crystal bead
Silver toned round bead
Halcraft 20mm Peridot shell bead
Sparkly Silver Outdoor Vinyl

I think this turned out kind of cute and would be fun to wear to a Cricut Circle meet-up.

Happy Valentine's Day Charger Plate

We've taken down all of our Christmas decorations and the house looked so bare.  Of course, that means I have to put up something for St. Valentine's Day and I decided to decorate another charger plate.

I picked up this charger plate  (very sparkly - I like sparkly) from Wal-Mart back in mid-December.  The silvery-white vinyl  is scraps that I got from a generous local sign shop and the pink vinyl is Cricut brand.  I used the Lyrical Letter's cartridge for "Valentine's" and the Base Camp cartridge for "Happy" and "DAY"(welded with Cricut CraftRoom).  The Indie Art cartridge was used for the hearts.

Well, it may not do that much for the "bareness", but it's a start.  Thanks for looking.

Dear Santa Shirt

This is a quick project I made that I intend to wear often this holiday season:

The tunic shirt is from Costco. The font is from Lyrical Letters Cartridge and I used Cricut Design Studio to flip the phrase and it's cut from Silhouette flocked heat transfer vinyl. I then ironed it onto the shirt.  Here's a close-up:









The poinsettia is a Dress It Up button I picked up from Michaels.

Easy peasy and the Silhouette flocked heat transfer vinyl cut wonderfully with my Expression.

Bilingual "Merry Christmas" Charger Plates

I decorated a couple of charger plates that I picked up at Michael's with vinyl scraps that I got from a generous local sign shop.  The first is a [surprise, surprise] Croatian-English bilingual plate:

I used the Winter Woodland cartridge for the font, the Inspired Heart cartridge for the nativity scene and the Wrap-it-Up cartridge for the snowflakes.

The second is a French-English bilingual plate:

I used the Lyrical Letter's cartridge for the font and the tree, the star on the tree is from the Graphically Speaking cartridge (welded with Design Studio) and the Picturesque cartridge  was used for the scrolls.

I think the charger plates are a fantastic quick project that has a lot of punch for a small price.

Halloween Costume

My hubby and I dressed as characters from the Grease movie for our annual Halloween party. 

I was a Pink Lady

 

and he was a T-Bird

For his costume, I used repositional Con-Tact paper to put the lettering and logo on his leather jacket.  The "T" was cut from Cricut Base Camp cartridge, the "BIRDS" was cut using the Cricut Sans Serif cartridge and the bird was cut from Cricut A Child's Year cartridge.

After the party, I removed the Con-Tact paper.  It did remove a little colour from the leather jacket, but nothing too noticeable.  He'll be able to continue to wear the jacket.

Here is the Design Studio cut file if you're interested.

Thanks for looking.

Witching Hour Clock

I decided to alter a clock for Halloween. (If you haven’t guessed already, Halloween is one of my favourite holidays.)

Here’s the clock:

Here's a close up of the bottom of the clock with a little less glare:

Supplies Used:
Battery Operated Wall Clock
Cricut Expression
Cricut Celebrate With Flourish Cartridge (witches)
Cricut Chic and Scary Cartridge (web)
Cricut Accent Essentials Cartridge (circle)
Cricut Ashlyn’s Alphabet Cartridge (“witching hour”)
Martha Stewart fine glitter
Halloween Confetti (ghost)
Recollection Pumpkin Stickers
Hot fix Gems
Xyron
Vinyl
Paper from K&Company and solid cardstock from my stash

Thanks for looking

Halloween Fridge

I’m decorating my home in preparation for a Halloween party we’re throwing.  I decided that my bar fridge needed something, so here is what I came up with:

I think the finger prints on the fridge that show up in the picture add to the spook factor I  (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). 

Supplies Used:
Cricut Expression
Cricut Happy Hauntings Cartridge
White Con-Tact Paper

Thanks for looking.

Halloween Tealight Holders: "So...What's New?"--Blog Hop Day 2

Welcome back for the second day of the "So...What's New?" Blog Hop.  Again, if you arrived here from My Mind's Dust Bunnies, you are heading in the right direction.  If not, then you will need to go to the  TX Scrapper Mom blog and start the hop there.

Sticking with Halloween, my project is a set of altered tealight holders:

I found these candle holders at Michael's on clearance at three for $1 (can't beat that) and thought they'd be perfect for Halloween.  I used Con-Tact brand paper rather than vinyl for this project because of its price and because I like the marble print on the paper.  

Supplies Used:
Cricut Expression
Cricut Chic and Scary Cartridge
Orange Glass Votive Holders
Black Marble Con-Tact Paper

I'd love for you to comment and let me know what you think of my tealight holders.

Also, I am offering a prize from my blog for the hop, but  you will have to read my post from yesterday (So...What's New?"--Blog Hop Day 1) to find out how to win and what prize is that I am giving away.

The next stop on the hop is the My Craft and Chat Cafe blog.

Mr. J. - Classroom Hero

At the start of the school year, one of my daughter’s teachers sent home a sheet to be signed off by the student and the parent setting out the classroom behaviour expectations.  It used superheroes and humour to get the point across as to how he expected students to behave.  Well, the school year went on and Mr. J has turned out to be one of my daughter’s favourite teachers and a true CLASSROOM HERO!

To thank him, I embellished a glass jar with vinyl as an end of the year gift and filled it with superhero candy. 

The Man of Steel logo cut is from the Superman cartridge at three inches.  I used Design Studio to hide the “Superman” at the bottom of the cut and replaced it with “Mr. Johnston” cut from the Sans Serif Solutions cartridge.

Thanks for looking

Canada Day Wine Glass

Here's a patriotic glass I made for Canada Day for the Circut Circle weekly challenge.

I used the negative image cut from contact paper as a stencil.  DecoColor oil based paint makers were used to colour inside the stencil on the glass.  After the paint was almost dry (still a little tacky), I peeled off the contact paper. 

The maple leaf is from the Cupcake Wrappers cartridge, "Canada" is from San Serif and the "happy" and "day" are from Cursive 101  welded with Design Studio.