St. Patrick's Day Cricut Made Cup for Teacher with free Printable

I decided to whip up a little early teacher appreciation gift this year.  My daughter has been sick constantly and her teacher has just been wonderful helping get her caught up.  I found these little drink cups at the Dollar Tree and added some rainbow sixlets and rolos.  It's much cuter in person.  Getting a good photo of a shiny cup just isn't my bag.

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 Step 1: Prepare the mug's surface by cleaning off all the oils from everyone who's touched it with rubbing alcohol.  Also bought this stuff at the dollar store.

Step 2: Cut out the design.  I used a design I created and put the teacher's initial in the center.  I use easyweed vinyl and follow the setting instructions that come with it.  It's pressure medium, blade depth 3, speed max for my machine.  

Step 3: Weed your design.  I always use a pin.  It's so easy to get into the little spaces.  Also, I have loads of them and they are cheap.  

Now you can see that the design is totally weeded.  It looks great.  

Step 4: You need to transfer the design.  Yes there is a very expensive product you can use to transfer the design.  Or, you can get clear shelf paper at the dollar store.  I've also heard press and seal wrap works.  Haven't tried it though.

Step 5:

 Peel the clear paper from the backing and place it on the front of the design.  Use an old gift card to rub the transfer paper down onto the design.

Step 6: Peel the design off of the backing.  Now it's stuck to the clear transfer sheet.  

Step 7: Place the design on the cup.  Once you have it where you want it, rub it down with the brandishing tool...i.e. old gift card.

Step 8: Carefully peel off the transfer sheet.  I put it back onto the paper backing and use it again a couple of times.  Waste not want not.  

Finally, I filled it with candy and put this cute little card on it.  I forgot curling ribbon so I used an old gold chenille stem.  

  You can download the free St. Patrick's Day printable here.

Valentine's Day Treat Bags

Every year Kamille and I try to make our own Valentine's Day project and tiny gift to hand out to her friends instead of just sending the premade Valentine's Cards.  This year we are making White Chocolate Chex Mix and she is in love with Owls so I made owl themed treat bag labels.  I like to put candy into the pretzel bag sized bags, so these labels are designed for those bags. 

Click Here to Print and Download
I bought the little owl graphics from an etsy shop Printables By Rhonda.  Here is the shop.  Then, I just used my photo editor to design the little cards.  In preschool we don't write to on the cards because they are just too hard to pass out that way.  So, they only have a from line so that my daughter can practice her name.

For the white chocolate chex, the ingredients are really simple - chex and candy melts.  It takes about 6 cups of chex for 1 pound of candy melts.  I also added Valentine's Day sprinkles.

 Melt the chocolate according to the directions on the package.

 Stir in the chex until coated.  Spread on a greased cookie sheet or wax paper and add sprinkles.

Once it dried, I mixed in marshmallows and sweethearts.  I put everything into the pretzel bags.

Christmas Mini Paper Bag Album Tutorial

Now that Christmas is over with, it is time to start organizing all of those Christmas photos.  I thought that I would share one of these adorable little mini paper bag albums Lisa and I made up.  We used black bags - $2.99 at Michael's over buy the wrapping paper.  You fold 2 or 3 bags in 1/2 and then stitch down the middle with your sewing machine.  You can also punch holes and hand stitch it together or tie it together with ribbons. 

 We decorated each page with a little photo mat cut from card stock. 

 Then we clipped in various little embellishments.  I really like variety so there are stickers, titles, and die cuts in this mini album.

 For the pull out pocket pages, we stapled a die cut onto a square of card stock.  It makes the book look bigger and fuller. 

 For a final touch, I wanted a more vintage feel than ribbon.  I got 3 different colors of raffia and tied that around the spine instead of ribbon.  These make really nice stocking stuffers or little thank you gifts for after Christmas.

Printable Coupon ~ Michaels

Here's to helping you get your craft on! Pick one or all, print and save!

Save 50%  on one item at Michaels today, October 11th
or Save 40% on one item, Tuesday, October 12th ~ Saturday, October 16th.
You can also print a coupon good for 40% off your total purchase, now through Saturday, October 16th. This includes sale and regular priced items!! Wow!

Free Kid's Craft Idea Everyday

When checking my email this morning I came across an email update from Free Kid's Crafts. I can't believe I haven't shared this site with you guys yet! Everyday in my email I recieve a new kid's craft that goes along with the season or holiday that is currently approaching. The projects are generally very inexpesive and use materials that I have on hand. It's the perfect way to keep little hands busy while you do a project of your own.

This morning's craft came as this tissue paper pumpkin:

Click for directions.

To subscribe to the newsletter and get a free craft idea emailed to you everday just fill in your name and email address under the Subscribe tab on the left hand side of the page.

They make it kind of fun because you can't see the crafts for the coming days but you can access the craft archives by clicking a previous date on the calendar an left hand side of the page (under the subscribe tab).

Check out Friday's Craft ~ an October Coloring Calendar

Click to print

 

Let your little one color this to uses as a chore chart or a count down to trick or treating on Halloween by placing stickers on each day until Halloween! It's a simple yet fun way to get them excited about the holiday.



Free Photos Angels Fairies Mermaids Gothic Photos Glitter Graphics
http://www.free-foto-animation-digital-images.blogspot.com/

Our Favorite Back To School Ideas

Fall is my favorite time of year! School is just getting under way for most of us. The weather is pushing our kids indoors. It's the perfect time to put on our crafting hats and get creative. I tought I'd give you all a head start by compiling this modge podge of some of my personal favorite back to school ideas.

So here we go!!

Family Fun knows back to school!!!



For the best in easy and fun back to school ideas check out Family Fun

Crafts, recipes, party ideas, and so much more. It's a go to site for me!! Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments box!

Leave it to Martha Stewart!!!

Love her ideas always but this one is sure to get a smile from your little ones. She has created this FREE printable for these super cute little lunch labels/stickers. She's got about 18 new back to school ideas to browse through!

My kids use a reusable lunch bag at our house, so I just printed the labels out on card stock and used the back to write a little "I love you".  My oldest daughter loves to find a surprise in her lunch, I think it helps with the home sickness kids can feel during a 7 hour school day! Find another use for this great freebie? Tell us in the comments!!

School Lunches

So my favorite site for back to school lunches is Weelicious. Now this is kids food at it's finest! She even has a recipe for homemade graham crackers.

This site has made it into daily browsing habits by focusing on healthy and homemade alternatives to the processed convenience foods that we find our kids asking for daily.   She makes the recipes easy to find by breaking them up into food groups or just simply by searching her recipe tab at the top of the blog. Like weelicious on facebook for updates on her son's bento box lunch. I love to see what she'll pack next. The use of a bento box really gives your kids a wide variety of things to eat with smaller portion sizes. Love them!!!

Go Green all the way to Back to School

If you have a preschooler at home (or even an elementary aged child) this fun supplies box is simple to make and FREE if you use items that you already have around the house. And best of all it's a GREEN craft!

The holes in the box top are made by poking a hole with a pencil so your child can feel super independent doing this craft. Try using all different containers for this activity. Instead of a shoe box seal up the ends of a cereal/pasta box for a different shape. Give the kids some fun alphabet stickers and let let them spell their name or the contents of the box on the side.

Just follow the link under the picture to head on over to Preschool Rock  to check all of the other awesome preschool crafting ideas they have!

The Long Thread

The peeps over at The Long Thread are forever coming up with wonderful handmade ideas for every occasion. Follow the link below to find a round up of 20 back to school ideas including the ones pictured below.

Apple backpack from Alpha Mom

Reusable Snack Sack from Reprodepot

Free Embroidery Patterns from Sarah Jane Studios

Good luck to all of you back to schoolers!!!

Happy Crafting!