Kelly Purkey Shop Hipster Santa holiday garland

I know its early to be talking about Christmas decor but when I saw the Hipster Santa stamp set from the Kelly Purkey Shop holiday release it became an immediate favorite and I had so many ideas on what I could make with it. When the stamp set arrived and I started playing with it the stamped Santa's seemed to be dancing across the page. I knew I wanted to stamp them and fussy cut them out and make something non traditional with them.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase using the links below. There is no additional cost to you if you use these links.

I thought they would look super cute strung together on a garland so that's what I decided to make. There are so many fun combinations you can create with the Hipster Santa stamp set so I sat down and wrote out a list of the ones that would work for the garland. I decided to stamp two of each combo so I would have enough to stretch out across our six foot mantle. It didn't take long to fussy cut these out because the Tim Holtz scissor is so sharp and cut paper like a dream. If you don't have these scissors in your supplies, get a pair. I have three different pairs I love them so much.

I knew I wanted them to have some dimension so I also stamped extras so that I could cut out the banners, the coffee cup, the cell phone and the presents. I used foam tape to add the extra piece on top of the base Santa. I love how that little touch of added dimension looks.

I also picked up two bags of red and white tinsel pom poms from Hobby Lobby. Each bag has multiple sizes and I pulled out the large white and the smallest red from the bags to use on the garland. I also purchase thicker thread made for quilting and it was super easy to string them up. I opted to staple the Santa's to the thread but a little piece of washi or regular tape would have worked too.

I couldn't wait to see how this would look hung up so I gathered up some of the holiday stuff I purchased for this year and set up a festive little mantle so I could snap some pictures. How cute are those darn Santa's. The tinsel pom poms really add some fun sparkle and shine.

I think this could also be a super cute alternative to ribbon on your wrapped presents. I can see using some thicker twine to string the Santa's and pom poms and it would be super cute. Or at least have the Santa's dangling from gift tags.

Don't miss out on this stamp set, its my top pick for the season for sure. If you haven't picked up anything from the release or decide to go back for more, you can save 10% on your full order of anything from the shop, (not just holiday kits) with the code OCT10. Its good thru 10/27 so don't wait on that.

This project has me super excited to document our holiday season this year and I cannot wait!!

See you soon,

Featuring Kelly Purkey Shop │2018 Holiday Kits

Christmas has come early and the 2018 Holiday Kits are live over at Kelly Purkey Shop and they will go fast. I cannot wait to use these kits and stamps in my December Daily® this year but in the mean time I was able to play with some of the stamp sets that are part of the holiday release.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase using the links below. There is no additional cost to you if you use these links.

I wanted to use the 6x8 Highline number stamp set so badly so I stamped them to create my own sheet of wrapping paper. I love how this turned out and I know that I will use these big bold numbers a lot in my December album.

I also used stamps from the Merry Everything kit, the Colorful Countdown to Christmas kit, the Good Cheer kit, and the Holiday Monograms stamp set to create my other sheet of paper and the gift tags.

My favorite kit that I cannot wait to incorporate into my December album is the Oh What Fun Travelers Notebook kit. The stamp set in this kit is so cute, LifeLovePaper really killed it with the design of this kit.

I hope you got everything you wanted in the shop update! It makes me so excited for the holidays!!

a little bit of Easter prep

I can't believe its almost time for Easter, now that St. Patrick's Day is over its on to the next holiday countdown as my daughter loves to do.  On Wednesday we got out our little Easter decorations and fancied up the place just a bit.  I don't go over the top just a few bits here and there to mark the season.

Earlier in the week my sweet Instagram friend Jen posted this cute shot of how she decorated here mantle with my little cut file I made a few years back.  You can see more of her super cute decor and her amazing Project Life® pages on her blog here.

It reminded me that while I posted the file on my blog ages ago I had never actually provided a download for it.  So if you are interested you can download the .png files here and the .sil cut files here.

You can see my original post about it here, where I showed how I just dotted on the eyes using a pencil eraser and some brown ink, super easy.

I hope those still under snow get some relief soon.  We have had some amazing weather lately but its raining now as I write this so Spring has not officially hit although its making a really good effort to stick around.

Studio Calico Valentine's Day Letterbox

Well its almost Valentine's Day and today Studio Calico is giving away a super cute printable to make a Valentine's Day Letterbox, you can find it right here.  It is also featured on their blog today and you can see what an amazing job Maggie Massey did with her letterbox.

I made one for the blog post as well but I wanted to share it here too.

I knew immediately that this project would be a fantastic way to re-purpose an extra Studio Calico Project Life box so I adjusted the size of the pieces to fit the shape.  I loved the graphic almost trompe l'oeil look of the pieces when cut in black and white and decided to keep it super graphic.  I used my Silhouette Cameo and the Print and Cut feature to print then cut each piece using the Offset feature so the pieces would have a nice white edge around them.  My husband cut the hole in the front flap of the Project Life box using an exacto knife and it ended up being super easy to cut.  I covered all of the edges that would be shown with black washi tape and covered everything with white cardstock.  I layered each piece on the cover with foam tape for dimension and then cut the red heart out of foil paper for a single pop of color.  I opted not to cut out the larger door opening since the box opened easily but did add some text and the swirls to that piece before printing and cutting.  

Supplies : Studio Calico Valentine's Letterbox Printable, Studio Calico Project Life kit box, Silhouette Cameo, white cardstock, Black Chalk Washi tape, Red Foil cardstock, Fonts – Voluptate Demo and Bergamot Ornaments, adhesive and foam tape

My daughter has already called dibs on this but I really want to keep it for myself.  I guess I need to get busy and make another one for her.

I hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Holiday Decor projects

Last Christmas I had all kinds of ideas for fun things to make and many of them never happened so this year I started early to make sure at least some of them happened.

A few months back I found a super cute idea on Pinterest to make your own mini marquee lights from paper and really wanted to do it until I found this while browsing Target.com recently.

 

They are large (12" high) metal letters with lights and are ready to hang if you so desire.  They also have Believe and Noel. I would have loved to get the Believe since that was the word I had in mind for the paper version but because these are large I didn't have enough room on my mantle to put it with the other items I have planned. 

 

I happily found it in stock at my store despite their online stock checker saying it was out of stock.

 

 

At only $19.99 I thought it was a bargain since I didn't have to make and assemble it myself.  It comes with a super cute woodgrain look but I was hoping for something a bit more shiny.

 

We removed all of the outer clear bulb covers and left the lights in place, we didn't think the plugs for the lights would come out easily enough so we opted to leave them in.  We just wrapped painters tape around each snug up to the metal base and pinched it closed at the top. I also removed the metal rings at the top of the letters with a pair of pliers. I knew I wasn't hanging mine so carefully and with a bit of force and wiggling they came off no problem.

 

 

As far as the paint choices, here is what we used;

 





The Metalcast primer my husband had on hand for another project but it ended up being a really great primer for both of the projects we did.  The white Ultra Cover was okay, it cracked and came out of the can a bit yucky but it could have just been our bad can.  It didn't matter too much in the end since we covered it up with the glitter spray which hid everything well.  The top coat was just to seal the glitter in so it doesn't go everywhere.  He ended up doing two coats of the primer, three thin coats of the white, several coats of the glitter until it looked the way I wanted it too and one coat of the sealer.

Here's how it looks all done and lit up, the white is pretty much covered but it definitely helped to cover the brown up first before applying the glitter. You could probably skip the paint step and just go with a white metal primer instead.

 

Because the won't stand on their own, especially the J and the O my husband took a piece of wood he had on hand and cut a little angled channel in the top and the letters sit down in that just great on their own.  He's painting it white for me to blend in with our mantle and as soon as it's dry I'll add a photo of it.

For my second project, I had found this super cool paper mache deer head at my local JoAnn's a month or so ago when I was there for something else.  It's labeled Craft Essentials item 1279-7577 and it's a nice size about 16" from the bottom to the top of the antlers.  It was $14.99 and with all the other seasonal Christmas crafts at the front of the store.

I thought this would be great painted gold so this is what we used;

The same Metcalcast primer and this Gold Foil paint.  He did two coats of the primer and two coats of the foil paint and this is how it turned out.

 



It's like it was dipped in gold and I love it!  I'm not sure how this paint will work on its own but in combination with the primer it was amazing!  We decided not to seal it so it wouldn't dull the look of the piece.

 

I look forward to adding both of these items to my Christmas décor that will go up in the next few days.

Family Room ReDo Completed

Well, we finally got everything hung up on the wall in our family room and I love how it all turned out.  Eclectic for sure, but it all seems to work.

Here is a look at the whole wall.  I have one little spot on the upper right side that has room for something else, so I'm on the look out for something to go there.  Six of the 10 items I actually made/crafted myself (with assistance from the hubs) so I'm pretty happy about that. 

Here is a look at the left side closer. 

The chalkboard sign you've already seen, the P was purchased at the craft store, its one of the cardboard letters that they have in different sizes.  I painted it with a base coat of this spray paint with a few layers of this one sprayed randomly on top.  The photo of Simone above it was one I took with my iphone and edited with a few different apps, it's a favorite for sure.  The shadow box was purchased at Home Goods and I filled it with a few souvenirs and do-dads from around the house.  Simone added one too, can you guess which one?  I also left some space so I could set something on top of the shadow box at a later date.

In the center of the wall is our most recent family photo.  I purchased a groupon at the end of last year for two photo canvas' and this was one that I did and I just love the way it turned out.  Above it is another version of the embroidery I did recently in my Project Life album, seen here.  It's done right on a 10x10 canvas that I stained with some random stain we had laying around.  I framed out the top of the canvas with some balsa wood I purchased at the craft store.  It was painted with the same paint I used above on the P for the second coat and I just hot glued it to the top of the frame.

One of the things I wanted to do with this wall was have a place to put some photos and change it out here and there.  I've seen several different types of photo hangers out there but wanted to make one myself.  I purchased this frame at Ikea and we painted the backing piece with the same spray paint I used on the P for the first coat.  My husband drilled a few holes into the interior molding and ran three lengths of copper wire for me.  We reassembled the frame backwards so the glass would be on the back instead of the front so I could have access to change out the pictures.  Super easy project that can easily be done in one day.

Here are some photos of the process;

this is the interior piece that he drilled the holes in for the wire.

Here is a look at the wall from the right hand side.  I purchased the silver gilded tray at Home Goods as well.  I plan to add flowers to it instead of a candle.  The chalkboard tray below you've seen already and the map below it was a last minute edition that I made Saturday evening.

I really wanted to add some sort of map element to the wall and couldn't find anything that wasn't really large.  I had initially laid this out in Photoshop to fit a 12 x 8 frame I had on hand, but in the end I wanted a more hand made look so I decided to try to cut the map out with my Cameo.  There is a map image in the Silhouette store but the states all fit snug together and I wanted just the state outlines.  I ended up having to make this myself and it took quite a few hours to get it right and quite a few starts and stops because things weren't working for me.  After a few not so good attempts I finally got it to cut and lift off the mat in one piece and I was so happy with how it turned out. 

 

I cut it out of textured white cardstock, and picked another piece of gray cardstock as the background.  I didn't want the whole thing stuck tightly to the backing paper so I only put a bit of adhesive randomly, mainly in the areas that had larger sections so it would stick.  One trick I've come up with for adding adhesive to really tiny areas is to lay a piece of waxed paper down and roll my dot roller over my items while they're on top of the waxed paper.  The extra adhesive sticks to the waxed paper but still allows me to lift it off.  I covered three Studio Calico veneer hearts with three coats of Red Glitter Zing embossing powder and placed them on the map to represent where our family lives and ourselves too.  I printed the quote on a piece of vellum and cut the banner shape myself.  Even with the veneer hearts I was able to reassemble the frame with the glass and it closed up just fine.

 

Here are some close ups.

I do believe this is now my most favorite item I've ever made and I'm beyond thrilled with how it turned out.

I had a lot of positive responses on Instagram the other night when I posted it and several asked for the file.  So if you want it, I'm happy to share.  You can download it here.

I did add both Hawaii and Alaska to the file but will say I have not cut these myself and seeing as so many bits of these states are tiny I cannot vouch for it working for you.  However the mainland states will cut but I would advise slowing down your cutting speed, not using super thick paper and taking your time lifting it off your mat.  I did a fair amount of clean up with an exacto knife after I got mine off the mat.

Thanks so much for looking and I hope you love the file.

Chalkboard art made easy

I've been wanting to redo the main focal wall of our family room for some time now and finally decided to tackle it.  I've looked longingly at all the amazing gallery walls on Pinterest long enough!

I wanted to try to make as many things as I could for this new wall and decided I wanted a few chalkboard elements included.  I decided to try two different things to see how it would go.  I have several plain art canvas' laying around and at Christmas time I picked up two faux silver trays at the dollar store.  Armed with a can of Chalkboard spray paint I was ready to go.

The first thing I did was tape off the edges of the two trays I planned to paint.  It's definitely easier to work with the straight sided tray.  The other one I painted was oval and that took quite awhile to tape off because of the curved edges.

The canvas was an inexpensive one from the craft store, it's 16 x 20 and it was pre-primed.  My husband did the first few coats for me and since we had a nice sunny day the coats dried quickly.  I wanted to make sure we had a really nice coat of the paint on each piece so I bet we had at least 8 thin coats on each piece.  The trays each had an embossed design on the center section and after we were done painting these were no longer visible. 

 



I left them outside to dry for several hours and left them to cure for two days before I added any chalk to them.  Not sure that step was necessary but its what I did and since I wasn't sure what I was going to put on them it gave me a few days to decide.

I have a list of several items I wanted to incorporate into my new wall and one thing that I wanted to make sure to do was make it as personal as I could.  I decided to pay homage to the year we got married on the small rectangular silver tray.

Since I'm not that great at free hand drawing anything I knew if I had something to look at I can usually copy something with fairly good success.  When I was designing what I wanted in Photoshop Elements I realized that if I just cut out what I had designed on my Cameo I could just use it as a stencil.

Here is my design cut and placed and ready to fill in.

I just held it down tight and basically colored in the stencil with chalk.  When it was pretty well covered I removed the paper and did any clean up needed.  I made sure to fill everything in the best I could and cleaned up all the stray bits of chalk dust.  And trust me, there was a lot of it. 

Here is the finished tray, I added the hearts myself because that corner looked a bit bare.  I need to figure out how to seal them since they will be hanging on the wall and will gather dust.  I've heard hair spray works but I'm still researching that. 

* One thing I want to add is I did not season these pieces as you normally would with a newly painted chalkboard piece.  I decided not to do that because I wanted the dark black background vs. the chalky white one you would get on a seasoned board.  This was purely a personal choice but I'm sure the pieces would have stood up to a good rub down with chalk.

For the canvas I decided to first drawn my own frame around the edge.  I used a piece of paper cut a bit smaller than my canvas size and just dragged my chalk along the edge while I made sure to hold it down tight.  It created a nice sharp edge on one side and a softer more irregular edge on the other.

I repeated with a smaller piece of paper to make another frame line and when I was done I added lines in the corners to mimic the mitered edge of a picture frame.

What to put in the frame took some time to decided.  Eventually after much deliberation and approval from my husband I decided on a line from a favorite song.  I used the same technique as the tray to add my text to this piece.  I decided to make the font more graphic since the other was so curvy, I thought it would be a nice contrast to use different styles for each piece since they will hang on the same wall.  Before I started filling in my text I placed a book underneath the canvas that was the same thickness.  It helped to have a nice firm surface to fill in each letter.  I did save all the centers of each letter from my template like the A, D, O, R and B and just laid them down holding carefully while I filled in each letter.  I thought it would be easier to do that than try to remove the chalk after and I definitely think it was.  I had a fair amount of clean up to do on this piece and just dipped q-tips in a bit of water to help get any large smudges off.  It took some time but eventually I got it cleaned up to my liking while still leaving a few stray bits to keep it looking hand done. 

Here are the two finished pieces together.

I could see so many possibilities with this, using my Cameo just took so much of the stress of free hand drawing away.  If you don't have a Cameo you could still design your art, print it out on your home comptuer and cut it out with a sharp craft knife and go from there.

I have a few more hand made items for my wall so I'll share those as they get done.