Mastercard Commercial Quality Gifts

I needed new gift ideas for teachers & friends who had already received my standard glass light block (see previous blog post). So, I came up with these tiles, which I already had in my basement left over from some past projects. I used the Opposites Attract Critcut cartridge to cut the letters for the Girl Scout Tiles. The Girl Scout sayings are part of the Girl Scout Law. The teacher's tile was adapted from a plaque I saw in a store that was actually intended for families. I used the Plantin School catridge to cut my letters and the Locker Talk cartrisge to cut my globe.

A couple of thoughts if you are going to do these projects yourself. The multi-colored tile is unsealed slate. Even though I washed the slate before I added my lettering, I still had difficulty getting the lettering to stick. After laying my letter down, I used modge podge on the whole tile, using a criss-cross motion so that in case any streaking showed, it would look intentional. This sealed both the lettering and my tile. There was some slight show of the modge podge, but the criss cross pattern actually made it look professionally painted.

Need help with sentiments for your tiles? Go shopping! Premade greeting cards, plaques at local hobby stores and home furnishing sections. You can find so much online as well. Then personalize the sentiment in some way. Making something you can't buy anywhere else will make your inexpensive gifts priceless. Isn't that what makes the Mastercard commercials so great??? 1 tile: $.90. Vinyl lettering: $2. Stand: $3.99. A gift made only for them, priceless!

Season of Lights - One "Upped"

I LOVE the glass blocks with the Christmas lights inserted into them and have found they are great, low-cost teacher gifts with high impact. My daughters' teachers still display them in their classes every year and the girls take so much pride in saying, "I gave that to Miss X when I was in her class 2 years ago." But this year I have the Cricut. Which means the blocks have to be taken up just a notch.

My husband is an avid Missouri fan. And if you are from the midwest, you know that MU does NOT mix with KU. We have the Borderline Showdown every year here in KC to prove who is top dog - "bragging rights". My husband's boss is one of those "detested KU people", as was my own grandmother. So for Christmas this year, he broke down and had me make his boss a KU lightbox. I found the ornament at WalMart. The jayhawk is actually a face tattoo. It had great adhesion and a transparency that most stickers do not have. The other KU letters are vinyl cut with the Cricut (plantin schoolbook text).

His boss loved it and has plans to incite other KU fans in the office against my DH!

Turkey Time Napkin Holder

The gals over at Bitten By The Bug Blog do these challenges. The current challenge was to use any cut from the Cricut machine to create something about blessings, turkeys, thankfulness, etc. You get the idea. This napkin holder was created exclusively from the My Community cartridge and layers.

To make this, cut 2 base turkeys at 10". Cut one layer of the turkey at 10" (I cut mine in orange and cut a second at the same size in green). Cut the second layer at 9.5" (I cut mine in a yellow pattern). For the frame of the napkin holder, take a child's size wire hanger. Holding the hanger at the two pointed ends (which would slip through the armholes of your clothes) and the hook towards you stomach, bend the two pointed ends towards you. This should cause the center of the hanger (which would normally hold slacks) to move out and opposite from the hook end. Your hanger is diamond shaped. Bend the new top of you diamond up 90 degrees from the rest of the hanger. This end will insert into your tail of the turkey. I also found that I needed to cut the bottom of my longer tailend level so it would sit flush on the table.

Now bend the hook of the hanger up 90 degrees as well and then twist the hook 90 degrees. To add your turkey cuts to the hanger skeleton, cut the head and body off of one of your full turkey cuts. Cut the feet off both. Add on your layers of colored tail feathers. Glue your two tail pieces together at the edges leaving a pocket that will slip over the non-hook side of your holder. The tail that you added the colored tail feathers to will be the one to face in on the holder. The other one will be shorter because you cut the head and body away. This shorter one will be to the back side of the holder.

Add your layers onto the beak and neck. To help with the 3-D effect, I continued my cut around the neck of the turkey. The head and body are actually only taped onto my hook at this point. For the sake of the picture, I folded my napkins in half. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pillow cases and matching baby dolls jammies

I've been on a kick of creating personalized pillow cases using my sewing skills and my super fun Cricut machine to add names of lucky birthday girls to the side margins. I've also used scraps from the projects to make pajamas for American Girl dolls and Bitty Baby dolls and matching pillows for the babies. This idea works great, so long as I get the invite within a week's time!

Stepping Out

I am a late bloomer. Last in my class to shave my legs. Last girl to brag about the first kiss. Nearly the last one to get e-mail. But after being tempted by what going on on the "Bitten By The Bug" Blog, I decided I couldn't miss out on any more fun and be the last to start blogging!