Paying it forward

So many people looked after us during and after mums illness. Upon arriving home we were often surprised with the gift of a meal being left for us. Some also cooked for mum and dad, meals that they could eat. It is during a crisis that you really are surprised by the kindness of others.

Now that we have got through that immediate period of stress I wanted to do something for those who had done so much for us. I talked about it with Dad and he was happy with my decision. Personalised casserole dishes. This way they could be used to share with others who needed nourishment, but also helpful to be able to return the containers - something that becomes very difficult over a period of time!

I bought the glass dishes with the matching lids as these would be the best for travelling with food. 

I cut the surname out in vinyl with the silhouette cutter. For all of these I used century gothic font as I like the shape of the a. Pedantic I know.

I removed the background to use as my stencil on the glass dish. The insides I used to label the lid. Both names line up and are set to the right.

 With the stencil I used a glass frosting paint from Pebeo.

 I painted a thin coat of the frosting medium onto the stencil and let it dry for 24 hours as per the instructions.

 HOWEVER, when I peeled off the vinyl stencil, the frosting also peeled off. GRRRR. At least I could simply wash the frosting off and start again. I did need to re-cut those names though.

 So, starting again I used the vinyl as the stencil but this time

 I used a sharpie paint pen to colour in the name. This one is silver but when it is drawn on it looks like frosting.

 All coloured in I let it dry completely before removing the vinyl. Sometimes there are overruns from the stencil and I removed these with nail polish on a cotton bud.
Once I was satisfied with the look I baked the bases in the oven for at least 30 minutes at 150 degrees.

Now I just need to deliver them with a little note. 

Personalized Stationery

The basketball mums have been such a great support network and now that this particular group is disbanding, I wanted to do something to thank them. 

I bought little black note books a5 size from Kmart and wanted to personalise them a little. I decided on adding their initial in pink vinyl which I cut on my silhouette machine. 

The process was fairly simple. I selected the swatch font and cut initial in the pink vinyl.

The initials slipped onto the bottom corner like a sticker - then I resealed the plastic. 

To finish I added a little not - this pad was again from Kmart for $3 and was the right size and look for the job.

 The notes were attached with builders string for a simple touch.

Made it

Today I made something. Actually made something. Its been hard because I always did that with mum and haven't been able to get moving since she's been gone. I had a special request from Alexander to make a tshirt for his mates birthday party tonight. Obviously I left it as long as I could until I simply HAD to do it, or face his wrath!

The birthday boy requested vouchers. While that is terribly practical, it is also a bit boring for the attendees, so Xandy wanted a little something extra. Birthday boy is a bit of a tech head, and has his own you tube channel and as such the tshirt design was the youtube app logo.

I stole from somewhere the image which is a very simple red and white graphic shape. I put this into the silhouette software and set up a cut file.

I cut the shape out on freezer paper which I used as a stencil. The freezer paper sticks with a hot iron, but will simply peel off when required.

I painted the required area with red fabric paint, using my finger to avoid brush marks.

Once it was dry, peeled off the stencil and tada! You tube t-shirt.

As I was time poor, I used the hairdryer to speed up the process and then iron the area before removing the stencil.

Then the image was complete and wrapped up in a little pressie. Obviously I didn't make the tshirt - I think that set me back a whole $2.

Edited to add: The pressie is still not delivered because my darling first born left the gift as someone else's house. I will have to make sure it gets to birthday boy and then find out what he thinks! Hrumph - boys. 

Harper name plate

That little girl I mentioned yesterday arrived at 2am this morning. Harper Victoria. Both mum and bubs are very well. So onto her gift.

For a newborn I love a bit of a personalised gift. For a second girl there is less that you need so I like the idea of a name plate or picture.
I did this one using the silhouette. Apologies for crappy photo - my iphone is eternally blurry and you can even see my reflection in the glass.

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The while frame is 12 x 12. Inside the backing is a lustre and I cut the pink butterflies out and glued these on. I printed the name (Chalk-hand-lettering-shaded) using the silver silhouette pen attachment.

 While the silver pen was in I also made a card. I had navy card stock and matching envelope which I stuck to the mat. The card is using carolyna Words font.

The name on the envelope is a little OTT but I did it anyway. The font is hadwriting-draft. The fonts are downloaded from dafonts.com.

big sister little sister

 There is a little girl due any day now and as with all new babies they get a lot of attention. They already have a gorgeous little girl who is 4 and I didn't want her to feel left out so I made these as her present. 
 The bases as basics from Target - nothing to break the bank. Then using Fontdinerdotcom Sparkle font, cut the words out of freezer paper on the silhouette.

Due to the obvious size difference I scaled the lil sis down to an appropriate size. Heated the freezer paper with the iron to get it to stick as a stencil and painted it with silver fabric pain. 

Then to give it that little something else, added some iron on diamontes to the stars.
All wrapped up with a book for big sis to give to her new lil one.

Boys Gift Guide

With a spring in my step, I headed out to the shops on a mission. Birthday shopping. Ugh. Obviously not for my boys but for their mates. This is always quite a challenge because shopping for boys is difficult at the best of times, and when your knowledge of them is limited, it is even harder. Personally I now tend to shy away from Lego packs, especially for a party because there is a tendency for duplication. With Lego out of the mix you need to be a little more creative. I thought I would share with you a couple of the goodies I got:

11 year old boy:
These are notoriously difficult. If it is a big party we tend to all put in to get whatever the boy is into- a basketball hoop or ball, music vouchers, speakers etc. Xandy is the only one celebrating so no option to put in.

The first part is my go to - a hand decorated tshirt. This way I can personalise the gift a little. He isn't particularly sporty, but enjoys fencing, so I cut the 'en garde' on my Silhouette using freezer paper and painted it white on a kmart basic tshirt.

To go with this I got some cycling sunglasses. They come in a good little bag, and we thought they would be useful given the boys are doing bike ed at school in preparation for a cycling school camp.

7 year old boy - twins mate.

These are the ones I struggle with the most, especially since both boys are invited to the party, they both need to do the gifting thing. This particular boy is a bright little button, who has a love of maths. I wanted to get a game for him along math lines.
At the game shop there isn't a lot but I decided on this one- Sleeping Queens which we got for Christmas. Lots of addition in this and simple to play.

From the other twin we got a skateboard. It was on special at Kmart. When giving pairs of presents I like to give something fun and something practical. Then I swap which boy is giving that particular thing.


4 year old boy - into Spy's and Pirates.

There are plenty of spy kits and accessories out there - the big issue is that he is only turning 4. While he is bright, he is still a bit too young for code cracking things. I needed to get creative on this one and realized that he liked to pretend to be a spy, so in reality it is all about the outfit.
A quick trot around kmart lead me to gather this collection of goodies - which tallied up to about $25.
Black tshirt; Black knit shorts; black kids sunglasses; a small torch; binoculars; a stop watch; a black notepad and a black mens toiletries bag.

I wrapped each item with black paper and labelled it with white pen. Like SUPER SPY TSHIRT, SUPER SPY TORCH. This also made the items look like they are meant to be together. Then I packed them all inside the toiletries bag which had plastic zip pockets inside - perfect for keeping all his spy gear together. 

Finally I labelled the bag in the same way.

Chalkboard Style Card- using my silhouette

Seems I'm on a bit of a roll!

The big squirrel needed a card for his birthday and I have been loving the chalkboard signs and thought I would tackle one myself. Sometime in December - when I was "tidying" I lost my cutter mat for my Silhouette machine. It didn't come to light so I order a new one from Craftonline.com.au and it arrived in only a couple of days! Since I was putting in an order, it seemed a good opportunity to try out the silhouette pens - that draw instead of cut. Perfect for this project.

Inspiration:iheartnaptime.net
I scrolled dafonts for some chalky fonts and banners that may do the job, downloaded them and started creating in the silhouette software.

This is what I came up with:

Then it was as simple as changing the blade to the silver pen (in retrospect would have preferred white but thats ok) and it was off doing its thing!!

Then all I had to do was fold it and cut it and mission complete -

 well almost - also needs lovely birthday message inside!!

Acrylic Tumbler Stencil

The big squirrel is clocking up another birthday on Saturday. It is a drag to have your birthday close to Christmas, so we always try to make a bit of a big deal about it. This year we have seafood dumplings for dinner - yum.
The problem each year is what to get. It is hard enough to find gifts at Christmas and now we are back there again!  Somewhat fortuitously, one of the kids broke his favourite cup. It was an accident - a basketball landed on his 'top dad' plastic cup - not too major, just that it was his favourite. I did a silent "yay" as now we could give him a replacement for his birthday.
We hit the shops to get a good plastic cup. Glass breaks and plastic can vary. We ended up with a double walled acrylic - however it is in Christmas green and our only other choice was red. Maybe as the year progresses we may be able to pick up a clear one. (All of $3 at Kmart)

There was some thought as to what to put on this cup, but then I remembered it was a top dad one so I thought a quick internet scan for images as a reference. Lucky for me I found exactly what I wanted and copied the picture through the silhouette software, and made a quick template of the top dad sign.
I cut this using some vinyl I had. I only have pink or black, so chose to make a template and paint it rather than using the vinyl.

 I had some of this frosted medium that is meant to give the effect of frosted glass and its what I had in mind of using until I read that it needed to be baked. Next best was this puffy paint. I have used it on plastic before and its fine - and this cup cant go in the dishwasher so no drama, decision made.

 I mixed the silver and white for a lighter colour and painted it with a paintbrush. I was happy with a texture because it is quite difficult to see on the green.  Peeled off the vinyl and leave for 24 hours to dry before wrapping it up.