Christmas Craft Party

It had been a while since I hosted a party for some very special young ladies that I adore.  (I call them my "adopted daughters" and I have been lucky enough to serve them at church for the past 4+ years.)  I found some really nice cursive Christmas words in the Target $1 section and I cleaned them out.  I also found some 3-D wooden Christmas trees with great crafting potential.  Then I pulled out paint, glitter, paper, bells, ribbon, and other embellishments.  I truly loved their Christmas masterpieces.  But note to self, have them do the glitter outside next time!  Lol!

I've discovered wood signs!

So I learned about a business in Tomball named Junkin Gypsies that helps you create wood slat signs.  I love the look of these signs so I was glad I was able to visit with my neighbor.  We had an absolute blast!!!  I know many do not like to get dirty, but I love working with my hands.  I loved the smell of the wood as I sanded the edges.  I loved hammering the nails.   And I loved painting my creation.  They had so many adorable designs to choose from, but ultimately I opted for  this Christmas tree design.  It definitely took longer than we expected, but I am super happy with how it turned out and I am already looking forward to returning to make another sign or decoration.

Super Saturday

I am currently serving on the activities committee for my ward's Relief Society.  Once a month we try to throw a fun, educational, uplifting activity.  And every few years our group hosts a Super Saturday full of crafting goodness.  I have sort of been designated the crafting guru of the group and will be leading three crafts.

The first craft is a small wooden perpetual calendar.  It is really adorable finished, with ribbon tied around it.  Unfortunately I didn't take a finished photograph before many hands sort of messed up my pristine craft.  I haven't had time to touch it up yet.

 The other two crafts I will be helping with  are Christmas designs on decorative charger plates.  I know simpler would have been easier, but I am all about letting people customize their crafts to fit their home and their tastes.  So I let them choose between a few colors of plates and a few colors of vinyl.  I was cutting so much vinyl between the calendar and the plates!!  But the crafts were well received and I had fun bouncing around helping the women.  I thought the Wise Men design on the red plate was stunning!

Snowflake Decals

Snowflakes are so fun during the holidays.  This year snowflakes graced our windows, mirrors, fridge, and soap dispensers.

Here is a shot of snowflake tile magnets.  The magnets are made of light blue glass tiles and white glossy vinyl.

In our kitchen we use an olive oil dispenser for hand soap.  This season we covered it in snowflakes made out of frosted vinyl, which has the same effect as glass etching.

Nativity Silhouettes

This year I prepared several nativity silhouettes for a crafting party.  I designed them to fit on either a six inch square tile or a 7 inch square floating frame.

Design 1:  Halos
(Please be aware that the people have single halos.  The double halo is an effect of a shadow from the camera flash)

Design 2:  Swirls

Design 3:  Family Embrace

Design 4:  Primitive

One Cry, One Birth, One Life Tile

One cry awakened the world, One birth changed history, One life made all the difference!

I fell in love with this thought from the moment I heard it.  This quote was a request from a friend and I love how it came out.  This tile could be reserved as a special addition to your holiday decor during Christmas or Easter, or you could display it year-round to testify of Christ.

The above sample is chocolate brown vinyl on a sandstone tile.

Welcome Santa

Yep, still love that Christmasy font!  I was doing a bit of personal holiday shopping and came across an amazing red sequined frame that I fell hopelessly in love with!  I decided to make a message for a future guest in our home.  :)

A project like this is very simple.  All you need is a frame and piece of colorful scrapbook paper.  The vinyl is applied to the paper under the glass.  This has two benefits- you can clean the frame easily without damaging the vinyl design, and you can replace the framed design with different photographs or designs later in the year.  I have a feeling this cute sparkly frame will make an appearance during the Valentine season...

Merry Christmas!

Would you like to make your vehicle or front door look more festive this holiday season?  I discovered this wonderful Christmasy font that I just love!

The decal in this picture has 3 inch lettering and is approximately 21 inches long.  It is cut from bright red vinyl.   I can of course customize the size and wording if you would like something different, just contact me.  :)

Santa Name Tags

So how smart are your kids?  When I was a little girl I noticed Santa's handwriting looked an awful lot like my dad's barely legible chicken scratch.  Now that I am playing the role of the big red guy, I want to deceive my kids as long as possible and make Santa's presents extra special under the tree.  So this year I decided to label our Santa presents with oversized, glittery letters.  I love, love, love how it came out!  This is definitely a new tradition for our family!

I applied the letters directly to the wrapping paper using a glue stick.  On Christmas morning I discovered I was able to pull the letters off fairly easily and use them in my Christmas scrapbook.  An extra bonus!

Glittered cardstock comes in a rainbow of colors.  The cost of glittered lettering is $3.50 per sheet.  I am able to rearrange the letters of your text to squeeze as many letters as possible on to your sheet.  For my presents I cut letters averaging three inches tall, and was able to cut six names (with five letters each) per one scrapbook page.

Cookie Plate

A request for a personalized cookie plate for Santa.  You can transform any dish, platter, or charger plate in to a fun holiday tradition.  Ross, Marshalls, Home Goods, Tuesday Morning, and other similar stores are a great place to find inexpensive gems to decorate!

Custom Coasters

I thought I would post a sample of a custom job I was hired for. A good friend asked for "Arizona Christmas, but non-cowboy" coasters. These are the designs I came up with. I think the southwestern adobe house with the manger is my favorite.

Custom Snowflakes

How would you like to create your own winter holiday decor? I found the most fun website where you can cut virtual snowflakes. My kids have a blast with this site, you should definitely check it out:

http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/

I first recommend that you first "Visit the Gallery." There are over 20 million flakes that have been created and saved on this web page, and it is incredibly inspiring to see what other people have created.

Once you are ready to give your own creative talents a go, click on "Make a Flake" in the bottom left corner (if you are still in the gallery). You can then begin to design your own snowflakes. You can preview them along the way to see how your finished product will look. When you are happy with you design click on "Save my Flake."

Fun, right? My kids love playing with this web page. (In fact they just saw me blogging about it and asked if we could make more flakes today...) But why am I talking about this on Toadilly Homemade? Because I can turn your snowflakes in to paper cutouts or vinyl decals! All you need to do is go to the gallery, click on your snowflakes of choice and select "View Image." Your snowflake will open in a new window where you can right click on the flake and save it as an image file. You simply need to email the image files to toadillyhomemade@sbcglobal.net and let me do the rest of the work!

I can cut the snowflakes in any of your favorite colors. If you want to keep it traditional, I have white, baby blue, and frosted (glass etch) vinyl in stock. For a little extra you can jazz up your flakes by choosing royal blue glitter or silver holographic vinyl.

If you would like to see snowflake designs I have already created from the Make-a-Flake website, visit:
http://toadillyhomemade.blogspot.com/2009/11/snowflake-decals.html

Each of us is an innkeeper...

**Note - Naturally I caught the misspelling AFTER I snapped the picture.  I did fix the design but forgot to snap a photo before my personal tile made it in to the attic.  I will try to remember to update the picture next holiday season.  :)

"Each of us in an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus."

This is a beautiful quote by Neal A. Maxwell that touches on the true meaning of Christmas. The Christmas star on this tile is made with gold leaf vinyl, and there is a manger filled with hay in the bottom corner. Both graphics can be removed if you prefer a words only tile.

Snowflake Decals

I am just ACHING for winter!! I live in Houston and it is still in the mid-70's temperature range. We have yet to experience fall while I have family shoveling snow and using ice picks in other states. So I thought I would try to get in the mood... :)

An easy way to bring winter in to your home is to decorate with vinyl snowflakes. You can place them on glass windows, mirrors, walls, doors, candles, ceramic canisters in your kitchen, and more! This is a great decorating activity for kids too.

I loved my test cuts so much, I decorated my laptop for the season!