More HTV Shirts Part 1

I have FINALLY finished my master's degree.  It feels amazing to have no homework to do!  I am getting back into scrapping with a vengeance.  My daughter's class went to the Boston Museum of Science (as, apparently, did every other class in new England on the same day-it was so crowded).  In kindergarten, there were only 12 students in her class, so making shirts wasn't too time consuming.  We are up to sixteen kids, but it's my thing now, I can't quit.  The kids expect it.  Let's hope that we don't get too many more kids in her class!

I went to the museum's website and reviewed the exhibits, then picked things from the exhibits that I had on my cricut carts.  The kids each got a shirt with a different design, and had to find whatever was on their shirt during their visit to earn a tootsie roll.  Some of them really got in to it, and made sure to take a picture of themselves in front of the corresponding exhibit. 

I used Siser Easyweed heat transfer vinyl that I bought from craftvinyl.com and h&hsignsupply.com, my two favorite places to order.  Craft vinyl has amazing customer service.  H&H Sign Supply offers customizable five packs of vinyl.  I've never been disappointed with either vendor.

I used my old expression and my E2, with blade, pressure and speed on 3.  Vinyl cuts smooth and easy, even tiny, intricate images.  I know some crafters have used vinyl in paper projects when they needed really small details, because it's presticky and cuts so well.  For HTV, the important thing is to remember to flip the design, especially if you are doing any words, so that it will be the correct orientation when it's ironed on.  I didn't take any pictures during the process, but I have more shirts planned so I will next time, so you can see how to weed and all.  However, there are much better tutorials than I can do all over the web.  Both the websites I mentioned above have videos of the process.

So here they are!

The light bulb came from one of the carts preloaded on the E2, I think it's Cricut Alphabet.  The butterfly is from Art Philosophy.  Both were cut at 5 inches.  These are the only two that used glitter, and  I felt a litle guilty about playing favorites, but I didn't have enough glitter on hand for all the girls (there are ten).  My daughter picked the butterfly and the light bulb was for her good friend who was at our house when we were making the shirts. 

The cute chick came from Creat a Critter.  My plan was to have the pieces of the shell lying next to the chick, so I cut the whole chick and ironed on little feeties and then my daughter insisted on covering him up! I didn't cut the bottom layer, just left his eyes as circles so the blue of the shirt would show through, in order to conserve time and vinyl.  He, too, is cut at 5 inches.  they pretty much all were cut the same size.  I picked 5 inches because I could fit four on one piece of vinyl and they were big enough to stand out on the shirts.

I think this one is my favorite. The image came from Dr. Checkup.  The heart is a shimmery vinyl and looked great against the black.

The lightening came off Indie Art.  There are some great sciency icons on Indie Art that I ended up using for the chaperones, like the biohazard sign and the radioactive symbol.  I didn't think to take pictures, though.

This robot came off Brooklyn Iron-on.  As soon as I saw that cart, I wanted it for this museum trip.  There are so many science things on there: the ion I put on my shirt, the ancient floppy disk...But for the kids, I ended up changing my mind.  They are only in second grade so while I did teach them all to count electrons and tell me if my ion was + or -, I wanted things they'd recognize and be able to find in the museum.  But I have lots of plans for the cart later!  I ordered the Boho iron on, too, even though I have no real plans for that one.  My cricut sisters will understand I had to have it anyway!

So that's enough for today, I'll add more tomorrow.  Thanks for looking!

Ice Cream Truck

I got a bonus day off of work today. The census is low so they put me on call, meaning I had to remain available to go in.  So I couldn't stray too far from home. Perfect excuse to scrap!  I did the January title page for my 2007 album and I made this ice cream truck.  My daughter is going to the beach with my mom and sisters for a few days and the ice cream truck comes by every evening. I made this to keep ice cream truck money in at the beach house. 

I cut two ice cream trucks from Pop Up Neighborhood at 5 inches, and reversed one.  I kept the embellishments simple, but couldn't resist embossing the ice cream cone.  For the ice cream man, I modified the milk man from PUN and switched out his milk bottle for a sno cone from the Carousel cart.  A rainbow sno cone is the preferred ice cream truck treat for my daughter and nieces!  I put three stripes of glitter on the cone.  I made a simple rectangle box, 4x2.5x2.5, and glued it between the trucks to hold the cash.  I thought it would be a fun way to hold some cash and save us the nightly scramble when we hear the truck.

A Couple of Layouts

 So I have finally finished scrapping and I wanted to share my Thanksgiving layout.  All the cuts are from the Thanksgiving seasonal cart. 

 Instead of apple pie, we had lemon meringue, my dad's favorite.  I used liquid applique to make the meringue and I love how it came out.  It did get a little squished when I closed the book.  I dusted it with a little chalk to give it a baked, golden brown look.

 The turkey was also chalked.

Lastly, I used the new Dr. Checkup cart to add a title to this page I had already done.  I saved each print out from each well child visit, with height, weight and immunization records and was running out of ideas to embellish them.  I had just stuck this one on an old piece of CM perfect fit paper and left it.  When the Dr. Checkup cart came in the mail, I added the title and icons.  The colors aren't great, but I can live with it.  And now, I get to start on 2007!

More Heat Transfer Vinyl

   I haven't had much time to scrap (don't I always say that?) but I had to make some t shirts.  My daughter's class took a field trip to the seacoast and I used Life's a Beach to put a different sea creature on each child's shirt.  The animals on LAB are cute and kid friendly.  I didn't get any pictures that don't have other people's kids in them, though.
   My mother is a hygienist and one of her bosses just had a baby girl.  The office bought a gift, but she wanted something personal and inexpensive so I made her a onesie.  I used Siser easy weed and a sparkly pink HTV that surprisingly cut very easily.  I think the lettering was from Winter Woodland (but it could be Nursery Rhymes) and the tooth fairy is from A Child's Year.

 Then I had to make a pj top for my daughter's teacher, who is crazy/dedicated enough to have her entire class sleep over at the school as an end of the year treat.  The kids looked forward to it all year and had so much fun.  One of the highlights was that she let them have a can of soda!  I did the lettering from Making the Grade and the sleep mask and soda came from Chore Chart.  I had two types of vinyl-the Siser easy weed, which is by the far the easiest to work with, and another brand I don't remember that doesn't layer as nicely.  That's why the circle under my soda bottle isn't perfect.

 Lastly, my niece loves dogs and has a dog themed party almost every year.  I used the little dalmation from Create a Critter, then put a Doodlecharms party hat on him instead of the fire hat.  She loved him.

Pirate and princess party invites

I had great plans for the invitations but hardly any time, so I ended up simplifying a great deal.  Okie from the cricut messageboard gave me a link to a great site where you can search for fonts by theme and I found just what I wanted (thanks Okie!).  The Pirate invite was cut from Life's a Party and the Princess from Once Upon a Princess.  Fonts were Treasure Map Deadhand and Precious.  I tried to make the wording a little fun and got a few comments, so I think I succeeded.  I added things like "pirate hideout" for our address and "ArrrrSVP" and "have your coachmen drive you to..."

Pirate and Princess Seventh Birthday

My daughter turned seven and, even though after last year's exhausting birthday celebration my husband and I swore we'd never have another party at home, we had a Pirates and Princess Party.  I think I was more excited about the theme than my daughter was!  She had attended a luau party over the summer and wanted that as her theme, but I convinced her that a luau theme would be fun at any age but a Pirate and Princess would be perfect for now.  I had a lot of plans involving my cricut, vinyl and gemstones but, between work, school and other commitments, time got away from me.  But I love the way the things I did find the time to do came out!

I had seen other people use shrinky dink film to make all sorts of things, and so I wanted to make these wine charms so the kids could keep their cups straight.  I wasn't serving wine, of course, but I found awesomely appropriate goblets at Oriental Trading Company.  I used my black cricut pen to draw the skull and crossbones from Life's a Party, at 2.5 in, then went back over it and cut it out.  I used the deep cut blade and multi cut 2 and they cut perfectly.  The tag is an old sizzix die and I just wrote the names in sharpie.  I baked them according to package directions and they came out perfect!  The beads and holder came from Oriental Trading and I used frosted instead of clear shrinky dink film from grafix arts, I think.

 The girls charms turned out a bit trickier.  I used colored shrinky dink film and found it a lot harder to work with.  I needed to multi cut 3 times instead of 2 and sometimes I still had to make a cut with scissors here or there.  The crowns came from Storybook and the first one in the picture below kept curling.  Out of six, I had only 2 that weren't folded over on themselves.

 So I tried switching to a less intricate crown, and it, too, curled and wouldn't uncurl.  I ended up using them curled and firguring it gave them a more 3D crown look.

 The purple one is the "before" baking and the green the after.  The tags, too, would not lay flat, event though they were the same cut as the frosted and the frosted ones curled, then uncurled like the package claims they will. 

I don't know why this picture is flipping, but these are the goblets with the charms on them.  They were a big hit!  The only problem was that the princess goblets came in a pack of 12, half with pink gems and the other half blue and of course all the girls wanted pink.

Thanks for looking, I'll post more party picts soon!

2nd Birthday Pages

I am still finishing up 2006, I just have a little bit of November and December to go.  I am working on the pages in my new scrapbook room. Yeah!  I finally convinced my husband we needed a space for my supplies more than a bed for the infrequent company we have.  I love, love, love it.  I didn't paint the walls, I was too impatient to put my stuff in there.  Some days, I just go sit and look around!  I realized I have too much stuff and I am sorting through the things I have never used and making room.  When it's a little cleaner, I'll take some pictures.
So here is the 2 page spread for my daughter's second birthday party.

 Left side: background is from doodlebug designs, party time was cut from Life's A Party

 Right side: background is doodlebug designs, all cardstock is SU and CM

 Simply Charmed is an adorable cartridge, in my opinion, especially for little kid themes.  The cupcake, birthday party hat, balloon and present with the happy smily faces are all from SC.