Cute Little Girl's Shirt Applique

So it was the Saturday night before Easter and all through the house, not a kiddo was stirring......but mommy was scurrying frantically to find something to fill the Easter baskets! Then I remembered: "Hey, didn't I buy some cute little white shirts on sale to dress up some time?" Yep, found them in my stash, now what to do to dress them up? I've heard that you could use the trusty Cricut to cut out applique..............and I heard correctly! So easy peasy and cute! Just make sure that you have a really sticky mat and your Heat and Bond already ironed to your fabric. Take a look at how these cute little purse appliques turned out:

Here are the sweeties modeling their new shirts for Easter:

Creative Crate

A Little Handbag Cake

With all the word blocks I've been doing lately, I bet you are wondering if I do anything else! I promise, I truly am a schizophrenic crafter - like all of them and can't just focus on one! I do have to admit I've been having a great time with all the different designs with word blocks. However my little girl's 9th birthday forced me to focus on something else: a cake, a little purse cake to be exact:

I just wanted to encourage all you crafters to break out into new ground, if you haven't already! I have heard people say: "oh, I couldn't possibly do that". Whether the "that" is decorating cakes or painting, I want to encourage you to give it a try. No, you may never be Michelangelo, but I think you just might surprise yourself!

Take cakes for instance. No, I don't think I'd ever want to do it professionally, but it sure has expanded my horizons and stretched me! Like almost anything now days, there are some great tutorials on-line. With that and a little willingness to expand your horizons, I think you will surprise yourself. Here are a couple of other recent cakes I've done:

I wish I would have thought to take pictures of the process, but I wasn't thinking "tutorial" at the time. I was thinking "I've got to hurry up and get this cake done before the party!"

When I branched out into fondant, I discovered the pre-made kind that you can purchase is pretty expensive and not all that great tasting. Then I found a great recipe for fondant using marshmallows! Here is the link to that tutorial from the Cake Journal.

One thing I've learned through playing around with my kiddo's birthday cakes and fondant is that if you want the frosting to  be stiff, you need to use gum paste. I do purchase gum paste pre-made because it's not something your going to eat - it hardens up quite nicely. You buy the gumpaste in "white" and then can just mix your food coloring paste into it to get the desired color.

Ok, I hope I've inspired you to just try something you never thought you could do. You just might surprise yourself!

I'm Linking:








Creative Cats - Poppies At Play

Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie

Outside the Box With Variations of Scrabble Tile Jewelry

I wanted to encourage all you "new" crafters. You don't always have to come up with a totally, new, brilliant idea. What about "tweaking" an already super idea? That is one of the fun things about blogging. There are so many creative people out there. I love to see an idea and then expand on it..... and..... that is what I'm doing today!

I know you have all probably seen the popular scrabble tile necklaces out there. You might have even seen the scrabble tile ring that Fonda from Fireflies and Jellybeans did when she was a sweetie and blog swapped with me! Well, let's take that original scrabble tile necklace idea and expand on it! There are already a lot of great tutorials out there on how to cover and glaze the scrabble tile. Here is the link where Fonda did a tutorial on that.

Ok - now let's just take this idea a little further. The original idea was to cover the tile with pretty or fun paper, put a paper glaze on it, glue a bale to the back, add a chain, and poof - you have a stinkin cute necklace! So let's just see how we can change this up a bit:

Take 3 coordinating tiles that you have covered and glazed. Let's connect them together in different ways and see what we come up with:

Add bales (just don't bend the ones you use between the tiles) and connect with E6000 glue:

Or, let's add a rusty ole star and connect with E6000 glue:



Or, let's add a couple of fun scrapbooking paperclips and connect with, you guessed it, E6000 glue:


How about adding them to a barrette?


A little note on this glue:

It's the bomb for keeping things together but be careful with the tube. It's made out of metal and if you squeeze or twist it too much, it breaks and looks like this:

See, wasn't that easy? No rocket science here, just creating, tweaking and little gluing of the fingers!

I'm Linking:

Blue Cricket Design
Fireflies and Jellybeans Show Off Your Stuff Party
Strutt Your Stuff Thursdays with Somewhat Simple
Poppies at Play Creative Cats
Funky Junk's Saturday Night Special
Metamorphisis Mondays

Dance Like No One Is Watching and Blog Swappin Tomorrow

What do you wish for your daughters? One of the things I wish for my daughters is that they can learn early to not worry so much what others think. What I mean is that they can be free to be who God created them to be and live life to the fullest. I love this saying and just had to do it up in those Word Blocks I'm addicted too! So here we go:

How fun is that? Oh - can't forget to mention that I'll be blog swapping with a new friend tomorrow. You'll see Ginger here from Apple Seed Gifts and I'll be over there doing a little tutorial. So come check it out! Have a great Thursday!

I'm Linking:

Blue Cricket Designs

Creations By Kara - Look What I Made


Poppies At Play - Creative Cats

Home - Is Where the Story Begins & Love Spoken Here

Hello everyone! This blogging has just inspired me to create! Here is the latest word block design that I'm adding to my Etsy site:

Are you feeling creative? I just wanted to say how much fun I had blog swapping with Fawnda from Fireflies and Jellybeans! She did a cute little tutorial on how to make a scrabble ring on my blog here and I did a tutorial on her blog on how to make this:



So get your creative panties on and go make one of these fun projects! =0) Only rule is, send me a link or e-mail me a picture and let me know how they turned out!

I'm Linking Up:

Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Night Special

Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday

Reinvented Trash To Treasure

Some What Simple Strut Your Stuff Thursday

Fireflies and JellyBeans Show Off Your Stuff Party

Creations by Kara Look What I Made Party

Creative Cats - Poppies at Play

Craftaholics Valentine Party

Blog Swap with Fireflies and Jellybeans

Hello Punkin Seed Production readers! I am so excited to be blog swapping with Kristi today! Her blocks are SO cute!

I am Fawnda from Fireflies and Jellybeans a little DIY blog that I co-author with my best friend Jeannine.

We have all sorts of fun Projects to try and we love to figure out new things!
I have a fun project for you today! We are going to make Scrabble tile rings! I know that you have seen the scrabble time necklaces and bracelets - so cute... now we are going to add a ring!

Here is what you will need:
A scrabble tile (I got mine from This Etsy shop and the are wonderful!)
Scrapbook paper
Elastic cord
Craft glue
Hot glue
Paper glaze
Scissors or X-acto knife

To help pick out your paper square you can make a "tile viewer" Just cut out a tile size square out of a piece of scrap paper

and use it to put over your paper to decide what design you want on your ring... do I want this brown in cream OR this brown leaf... hmmmmmm choices choices! (BTW the "tile viewer" is not my idea it was on another blog that I can't find again, But I think that it is BRILLIANT!)

Ok, now that you have pick out what you want on your tile, cut out the square piece of paper

Using your craft glue adhere it to your tile. Let the glue dry for a few minutes.

Using your paper glaze spread on an even layer over the whole top of the tile. Let dry (mine took about an hour and a half.)

Cut off a piece of elastic cord about 3-4 inches long

Tie a a loop that will fit around your figure and cut off the excess cord.

Hot glue the elastic cord to the tile where the knot is

Wear with pride! I think I may attach a piece of felt on the back of the ring so that the knot does not bug me as much... I am so sensitive when it come to these things!

Be sure to stop by Fireflies and Jellybeans for many more fun projects!

Thanks Kristi for letting me invade your blog! It was so much FUN!

Old Jewelry Boxes Redo Tutorial - Great Little Girl Gifts!

I hope everyone had a very, Merry Christmas!!! I couldn't post this fun project until after Christmas as it was a gift for my little girls. I'm really happy about the way they turned out. I will be selling custom jewelry boxes on my Etsy if you are interested in having me do a customized jewelry box for someone special. Feel free to e-mail me with what you are looking for. No two are alike! Here is what they looked like before:

They actually look pretty good from the pictures. You can't tell that one of the windows is cracked and that the inside of the drawers are very dirty. A great part of the deal was that I paid about $6 for each of them! Here is what the inside of the drawers looked like before:


So that is one of the first things that has to go - the nasty felt! After I took the felt out, I just made a pattern of it on some poster board and traced the shape on to "Steam-a-Seam 2" (love that stuff). If you haven't appliqued before, just remember to trace your shape onto the side of the Steam-a-Seam that has sticky on the back, then pull off the paper on the other side and iron the sticky side to the BACK of your fabric. The instructions are right on the Steam-a-Seam also. Once you have your Steam-a-Seam onto the back side of your fabric, cut the shape out and pull the remaining paper off and put it onto the poster board, sticky side down. Then iron again and you have a fabric covered posterboard shape. Then all you have to do is glue your fabric covered poster board into place in the drawer. Here are pictures of the process:

This is the drawer after the old felt was removed. Note: I have already painted the outside of the drawer the color I wanted it to be in the end.

Here I'm making the pattern on my poster board with the old felt (ewww!)
Here is my friend "Steam-a-Seam 2":

Here is the Steam-a-Seam, with all the patterns traced, ironed onto the back side of my fabric:

Here is what the drawer looked after I re-lined it (much better):

To finish the project, I spray painted the jewlery boxes black, distressed them, and let pink or blue color "show through" to match the fabric I was doing. To really personalize it, I stitched flowers on coordinating fabric for the "windows". It turned out to be a really fun project and my girls loved them!!! Here are a couple of close-ups:

I'm linking up:

and with Reinvented: http://www.reinventedkb.com/