Victorian Demon Silhouette

More Halloween decorations. I can't decorate outside but I can inside. Buut...I think I'm not feeling it so much this year because I have to bring all my Halloween stuff from storage (go to storage, put it in the car, drive it back and carry big tubs across a parking lot to my apartment) and I really don't want to do that. I live in about 250 sq ft (only half joking) so I don't want to bring more stuff in. 

SOOO I'm really only decorating with some stuff I've found at Target or Michaels that I really wanted.

I love silhouettes. Love them. And I love silhouettes on plates (remember these? Kelly them)

Above is a silver charger from Michael's. and below is the silhouette I made on my Silhouette Cameo out of vinyl. I used 3 different designs from the silhouette store to get this. The first is the lady then I bought a demon and used it's wings then I got devil horns and put them all together.

If you look close, you can see she has fangs!

Cute wrapping and Cute Vinyl decals

 Emily turned 9 a month and a half ago ! NINE! WOW. Anyway, I had fun wrapping her gifts. The animal inspiration is from here and the giant E's were made on my silhouette using cardstock.

 Also about 2 months ago I had been seeing this "no triceratops riding" sign all over the place and wanted one. But from what I saw it's an actual sign somewhere? Not sure but I couldn't buy it. Sooooo I made it!! I am SO proud of myself. really. I searched and spent a lot of time making this. The triceratops, red part and person are all just screen captures from the web and in the Silhouette software I made made them all come together:) I looked for blank white plastic to use for the sign part but I couldn't find it and didn't really know how to word it when looking online. Then I was helping my sister-in-law clean her back yard and in some drawers that had been exposed to the elements were these white plastic pieces that were exactly what I was looking for! They are exactly like a thin for sale sign or yard sale sign. After cutting the size I wanted, I used a corner rounder punch and a hole punch for the top and bottom.  I made one for her backyard and for the girls room and one for my nephew's room. 

 Below is a decal I made for my sister-in-laws toilet. The design is from the web and made on my Silhouette.

And one more decal for my sister-in-law. The "rub me on your butt" image is from here. 

Teacher Gift: Make your own banner

Have you seen these make your own banner kits? They are so cool! I thought they were only available in Australia so I started to make my own. Then I thought, these would make AWESOME teacher gifts! You can have them say ANYTHING and they can easily changed because it's held together with brads. SO I started planning and noticed this was going to add up price-wise. I looked some more on online and discovered...it's not so hard to buy online. Duh. I just never searched for another brand. I have bought but not received yet, this brand from amazon and will give this to Emily and Ava's teacher as an end-of-the-year gift. I will still make my own because I can make it in the colors I want and size I want. The "I like big books..." banner is only about 2" tall where-as the others are about 5" tall. 

Meow is the Time was made for my niece Bird. Above is my girls room but it doesn't live there anymore.

I gave the Stay Gold one to Jessica (my sister-in-law) because after I made it she reminded me her boyfriend has that tattooed on his knuckles! Duh! I loved loved loved The Outsiders book when I was younger and "Stay Gold, Pony Boy" is a very well known line from the book/movie.

The above one is for my friend Jenny B in Japan. She's a teacher over there and I thought this would be awesome in her classroom. She LOVES to read and of course can appreciate that this is a play on the song by Sir Mix-a-lot called I LIKE BIG BUTTS. Thank you whoever thought up the above saying (got that on pinterest).
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Below I have made available to you the alphabet pre tabbed! I've never done this before so I have no idea how it will print out but if you have a Silhouette machine you can save these pictures below to your computer, then open in the Silhouette software and trace. If you don't have a cutting machine you should still be able to save to your computer, print, resize, trace, cutout and admire. let me know how it goes if you do use them.

I have included a blank bar below for spacing if you don't want to use a symbol in between words.

I do plan on making numbers and punctuation but I figured I had better post this now or it's never going to happen.

Totoro Hoodie

Plain grey hoodie from Old Navy, Totoro graphic for the Silhouette Cameo from here. Very grateful someone took the time to make it into a Silhouette file! The Soot Sprites I made into Silhouette Files by tracing ones I found on the internet. All the heat transfer colors are layered one on top of the other. 

In case you don't know who Totoro is, see above:) He's from the movie My Neighbor Totoro. 

Heat Transfer Shirts for Back to School

I never make back to school clothes. With sooooo many cute store bought clothes out there why bother? Besides, when I sew it's not to try and save money (that's not always possible! But you can get some really cute store bought stuff on sale!). I sew to be creative and scratch an itch usually. So anyway, I'm pretty excited I actually made stuff for school! These cute puff-sleeved tees are from Old Navy (I have used them before here and here). I bought them last year when they were on sale for $3.75 each. 

Kelly posted about the Star Wars convention here in Germany and she had made a tank top using this At-At design. I had to have it!! Emily loves Star Wars and how cute is this design???? 

I used my Silhouette Cameo for all of these.

This one is my favorite. Besides it being adorable, I layered heat transfer and am so proud of how it turned out!  It's supposed to be Emily:)

And Soot Sprites! From the Totoro and Spirited away movies. Love these things. I may have gotten a tattoo of them on my feet....if you're reading this Dad, then I didn't get another tattoo. 

I used the trace function on my Silhouette using a graphic off the internet. Once again Kelly came to my rescue! She is sooo knowledgeable on so many things. Thank you Kelly!! I made a bunch of Soot Sprites using vinyl decal material for my sister-in-law and nieces house. When they get them and install them I'll post pictures. 

This one is my least favorite. I think I should add more too it. The Sting Ray is fuzzy; I do like that part.

And then Ava's!! She only has one so far. Can you read what it says?? 

All designs except Star Wars and Soot Sprites are from the Silhouette Store.

This may be my foot in the front, my nieces in the middle (she um...didn't want to finish getting hers done. It hurt. A.LOT.) and my sister-in-laws in the far back. They didn't come out as cute as I envisioned but I still love them.

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1st are some felt and yarn flowers I made. I saw this post and this pinterest pin and then searched for more and had to make some. I had to scratch that itch. I LOVE THEM. I had Emily and her friend Tara make one each for their teacher for one of the days of Teacher Appreciation Week. Wednesday was bring a flower (real, fake, drawn, etc.). I used my clover pom pom tool and wool felt (although for Emily's, the blue one, she used acrylic felt). I used the tutorial from deliacreates for the Black Eyed Susan's.

I collaborated on this Batman sign with a friend for her son. She bought the paint and wood (really really thin wood panel about 1/4" thick and about 14"x18") and i provided and cut out the letters and logo on my Silhouette. I had to find the Batman logo online and trace it in the Silhouette program as they don't sell it in the store. The idea came from a sign on etsy but now I can't find the exact one (it was the same colors). If you just Google the saying you get links for other ones but not the one we got the color scheme from.

Ava in the middle of a Nutella high. Nutella is a hazelnut chocolate spread like peanut butter. Its huge here but it was available in Vons and other supermarkets even before we moved here 9 years ago. It's great on waffles, banana bread and lots of other stuff. 

The weather has been an ASS here. Just plain mean. One day rainy, one day cold, one day super windy and then out of the blue 70 degrees and beautiful. Then back to ugly. Slowly we have been acquiring new patio furniture and I have been trying to sit out here on the days the sun shines (so once a week??). It has been soooooo awesome finally having a patio and backyard all to ourselves. I could stare at my furniture all day....

Below is a belated birthday gift for Jon. Yes, you see correctly. It's for his man cave (it's in the basement so it really is a cave) but it gets no light so we have this near my computer. All supplies except jar are from this place on etsy. It's called "look ma no bra".

And this is the one below we got Jon's sister for Christmas from twigterrariums.com.

I know I showed this on Instagram but can't remember if I posted here. Ava wrote on my couch cushions. The same ones I made. That took hours of constructing, making piping and putting in zippers. She said she didn't do it. Maybe she didn't.. maybe Jon did it as a way to lash out. 

*I have not tried to wash it. I am actually thinking I might leave it...

Doll house redo and felt star garland

 Just random things I forgot to blog but are crafty.

Wool Felt Star banner. 

I saw this on createdblissfully last May and loved it. But no hand sewing for me.  It's been hanging for some time now and never blogged. I guess because it's just two pictures and that's not very exciting.

This too has been done a while ago. I know I say that about everything. Almost everything. Some things I blog right away and others sit...anyway, if you remember, I got the girls this barbie house in the states at a garage sale. I love it and I don't have a problem with how big it is but I do have a problem with how the furniture doesn't fit! You can see in the picture (here) that the furniture technically fits but they have no where to move around and the bathroom had to be two rooms because the vanity and tub and toilet don't all fit in one room. Had I known this I wouldn't have bought it and shipped it back! They rarely played with it. So I cleared out the bookshelf in the playroom, "wall papered it" and "carpeted it". I do have to say for the record that I know it's a crap job and I totally plan on changing it and making it much better when we move back to the States and have access to more stuff. But for right now it's ok and they play with it. I was thinking I might print out wall paper from that Heather Ross book . Wouldn't that be cute?? 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to make faux rugs. This is vinyl in three colors (above) and one for the living room carpet. I used thick spongy shelf liner for the "wall-to-wall carpet" and the vinyl stuck perfectly to it. I used some scrap booking frames to make frames for the walls and had the girls color in pictures.

For the bedroom I cut up the back of an Emily Strange calendar. They look like album covers don't they??

And lastly, zippers. I bought a bundle of zippers from etsy of various sizes but all above 16" and although they are cheap, I don't always need 16". I usually end up cutting them to a smaller size. But I feel horrible throwing out the left overs which can be quite a lot (see below) because usually it's colors I can use again so I found a bunch of zippers for 1 euro and took off the heads. I then threaded them on the left over zippers. Now i have some zippers with different color heads but I like it. And no I did not have success with every zipper I tried this on. Some I could not get the zipper head back on like this pink one. I have no idea why.

I love these girls so much. I want to squeeze them and hug them all the time. I love when Ava gets in my bed in the mornings. She is such a cuddler and doesn't mind if I breathe on her. BUT she is the devil and we've been having a really really hard time at night putting her to bed. She just won't sleep. She does the usual of getting up to get a drink, tell me something, etc. So after too many nights of screaming at each other and me giving it a lot of thought of what will work for us, for her  (Emily doesn't need incentive to get in bed and be good. She just is) I came up with a plan. After I told her it was night night  and the crying started, I took her into the kitchen and filled a tiny bowl with 5 M&M's (nema-nums). I told her that if she went to bed with no more crying, no getting up , no playing, no talking, etc. she would get the 5 M&M's in the morning with her breakfast. But every time she did something she wasn't supposed to I would put one M&M back.   I drilled her over and over while getting her ready for bed saying what happens if you come down and talk to me? what happens if you play? and What happens if you're good? And so on. She answered correctly and seemed to understand. She went to bed last night with NO problems. NONE. Holy cow it worked! For months years even we have had problems with her. Not always super bad and not always making me want to pull my hair out (sometimes she only comes down stairs once). But last night not one peep from her. This morning she woke up in a good mood (presumably because she actually got a lot of sleep!) and asked if I remembered about her M&M's. The reason I bribed her with M&M's is because they are her favorite. She LOVES plain M&M's. But I am stingy with them and she only gets 3 maybe every other night after dinner or she is particularly good. They are special to her. Cross your fingers this can continue to work for us. Jon thinks I'm going to have a heart attack from our screaming matches so this had to work...or I will find something else to bribe her with. A pony?

Sooo over my photo taking.