Jungle Bedroom

Our home is going through some big changes.  I have a new teenager in the house who wants his own room.  And I have a little guy who is not so little any more and wants to say goodbye to mom's jungle theme.  I checked, and I had never posted a picture of my jungle vinyl.  I made a cute name for his door, but I am most proud of "No more monkeys jumping on the bed."  My brother is an amazing artist.  I envy his artistic talent.  When my first son turned one, he drew several adorable animals to decorate his cake.  I took his monkey and patiently worked until I made a vinyl design with it.  It will come off the wall soon, but it will quickly find a new home in a scrapbook.  Good buy jungle room.  Sniff.

Love is Spelled Time

I love this!!!  This was a custom request from a girl I used to teach in church, and who is now a newlywed.  She approached me before her wedding to have this made because she wanted it hung in their new home together.  She purchased the sign and we worked together to find fonts and embellishments she was happy with.  I hope they have a long, wonderful life together!!

Dinosaur Skull

This was a custom request for a birthday party!  I think the customer might be putting them on buckets for little excavators.

Star Trek

This was a custom request meant to be given as a gift to a Star Trek fanatic.  Live long and prosper!!

Wedding Sign

I happen to know a really talented wedding planner who lives in California.  She hired me to make a vinyl decal for a wedding, and I about died laughing seeing it in action!

Mickey Stache Bank

A good friend is leaving on a Disney cruise in a week.  She wanted her children to help save up for the trip and so a while ago she asked me to make a glass block bank.  She loved it so much she decided to make additional banks as her Fish Extender gifts.  She just posted a picture of her finished banks and they look so adorable!  (She applied the vinyl herself.)

I think this is my favorite use of that somewhat strange mustache fad going on right now.  :)

The wording on the bank says "Disney Stache."

Disney Frames (Fish Extender Gifts)

Okay, bear with me.  I have one more Disney post and then I'm done.  Maybe.  Okay, I promise you won't see any more Mickey this month, how about that?  :)

Disney cruises have a gift exchange tradition called Fish Extenders or FE's.  Last time around I made hand sanitizer bottles and magnets.  This time I decided on personalized frames.  I found four-frame collages at the dollar store.  I knew I wanted to personalize the frames with Disney paper and vinyl lettering.  Since our itinerary had four ports of call I opted to vinyl a port on each frame, plus I added a Mickey head in the center. On the back I added the family's name and the ship name.  They turned out super cute!

Here is my personal frame:

You may notice my frame has three ports and one ship name.  We actually missed a port on our trip due to 7 foot swells.  Unfortunately I couldn't make changes to the gift frames on board the ship.

A second friend liked my frame idea and decided she also wanted to give frames as her FE gifts.  Unfortunately I had already cleared out these particular collage frames, but she found a smaller collage frame at a second dollar store.  This is how her frames turned out:

Disney Glasses

I'm not the only Disney cruiser this season.  Four of my friends are also booked on Disney adventures, with one of my friends cruising over Christmas.  How fun!  This friend approached me to make some fun stocking stuffers for the adults in her party.  I loved her idea!  She found some wine goblets at the dollar store and asked for Mickey heads in black and colorful dots in red and yellow.  We decided to use more of my new polka dot vinyl.  We stuck them on the glasses and finished them off with ribbon tied around the stems.  Adorable!

So adorable in fact, that I decided to make some for the adults in my traveling party for our "Bon Voyage Breakfast."  And I made the red plastic cups above for my boys.  I figured it would be a safer option, I am sure my boys will be wild with excitement on our cruise morning.  :)

Halloween Buckets

Here are pictures from this year's batch of Halloween buckets.  :)

My eldest dressed up as Ash from the Pokemon series.  He decided he wanted a Pikachu on his bucket:

 Isn't he just so handsome??  Oh wait!  Off topic!  Sorry!  ;)

My kindergartener decided to be a ninja for Halloween.  He has been all about karate and ninjas this year.  But wasn't just any ninja, mind you.  He was a ninja with a mustache (snicker!).

I found a great free font with ninja silhouettes with letter cutouts online.  I simply spelled his name and had the most awesome of ninja accessories:

Finally, my toddler dressed as his idol, Mickey Mouse.  I wrote his named in a Disney cartoon font and added Mickey heads of various sizes in classic Mickey Mouse colors.

 I can't wait for next year's challenges!  :)  Happy Halloween!!

How Crazy Is Your Week?

A friend wanted a week-at-a-glance calendar to keep track of all her family's weekly activities.  Between three children in a combination of sports, scouts, study sessions, play dates, and church activities she was starting to feel overwhelmed.  Add to that her exercise classes, book club, and volunteer work, and her husband's (random) part time job and it was getting a little impossible to keep track of who was supposed to be where on what day.

I suggested a dry erase frame.  I have a 16x20 inch frame with a vinyl calendar grid.  Every family member has their own color, so I can easily see the week's events:

I also have an 11x14 inch frame in my kitchen for menu planning.  Whereas my calendar has no backing (the glass is glued to the frame), I chose to frame some colorful fabric.  I also added chipboard letters, buttons, and homemade fabric flowers to dress it up.  Unfortunately I just realized I do not have a final picture with my lettering, I added the days of the week in a dark turquoise color.

My friend opted for a cute idea she found online, and I absolutely adore it!  She picked out a frame with seven openings and asked for colorful paper and vinyled days of the week.  It came out super cute.  I think this idea would be equally cute for a menu board, or with each window having a name of a family member rather than a week day.  I have also seen seven windowed frame collages arranged as clusters rather than in a row so don't let this large frame scare you.  Here are the before and after pictures:

 

Wedding Tile

I made this as a gift for a very special young woman I had the privilege of teaching at church.  She has grown in to a strong, smart, incredible woman.  I am so happy she has found a wonderful man to love and cherish her!  I selected colors based on her reception colors of royal blue and silver.  I also know she loves so I added some pearls.  I wish them much love and joy as they begin their journey together!!

One more Disney Post

Forgive me for throwing my fabulous vacation in the mix again, but I have a few more vinyled items I can show for inspiration.

The first things I can show you are handmade T-shirts and pillowcases.  I wanted my kids to help make some fun items for their trip.  We bought colorful T-shirts and covered them in various sizes of Mickey heads.  Then we sprayed them with bleach and let them sit in the sun.  Once the shirts were dry we washed them and peeled off the vinyl to reveal a custom faded/bleached shirt with dark Mickey heads.  Here is a shot of my boys spraying their shirts:

Unfortunately I do not have a close up shot of the finished product.  My boys wore their shirts to our character breakfast, and if you look really close you can at least get a feel for how the shirts turned out.

We repeated the process for two pillowcases as well.  I did decide to add an initial so my boys would be able to identify their own personal pillowcase.  Once we boarded our ship we turned the pillowcases in to the 'front desk' of the ship with a Sharpie marker.  They were returned to our cabin three days later with signatures from all the main Disney characters!  It was a fantastic souvenir!

The last items I created were luggage tags.  I found colorful leather luggage tags at Michaels for $1 each.  The tags had a pocket for a picture.  I selected appropriate scrapbook paper as the picture, and added a few accents on the plastic window to add even more cute factor.  I used some stickers and Mickey heads cut from vinyl.  This was a useful touch for our trip since we had multiple matching bags.  I will likely recycle some of these tags for my boys' backpacks this school year.

Fish Extenders

I am a Disney fan.  Not over the top obsessed mind you, but I grew up close to Disneyland and visited the park at least every other year.  It is a magical place.  So during the past year I got the idea in my head that I wanted to have my boys experience the Disney magic.  I started to plan a trip to Disney World.  Then I got my hubby involved and he talked me in to switching to a Disney cruise.  The announcement to the boys was made Christmas morning and we took our trip over spring break.  It was fantastic fun!

While planning our trip I learned of a fun game Disney cruisers like to play.  It is a gift exchange called "Fish Extenders" or "FE" for short.  Families sign up to participate in the voluntary exchange and leave gifts for each other throughout the cruise.  Naturally when I was choosing my gift, it HAD to involve vinyl and a crafty flare.  :)

Each person on the gift exchange received a pocket sized bottle of hand sanitizer with a Mickey Mouse hand vinyled on it.  They turned out adorable!  And each person also received two black tile magnets, one with a Disney or cruise symbol and one personalized with their initial.  They were meant to help decorate their cabin doors which are magnetic.  Here are the pictures of my handiwork.  Enjoy!

Personalized Photo Album and Candles

This was a custom request for a person passionate about animals, but especially those from the ocean.

Once again I must apologize for Blogspot.  It continues to rotate my pictures for no good reason.  This album was a small photo album with a hard cover.  The colors were light turquoise and chocolate brown, so we decided to go with a turquoise vinyl.  This is the cover, we added "Kristin" and the turquoise flourish.

Here are the inside covers and the back cover of the album.  We added the animals and flourishes:

I was also asked to embellish two candles.  I found two candles that reminded me of the ocean and added some dolphins and a sea turtle:

Vinyl is an inexpensive way to personalize your home decor or gift.  Custom work generally costs $0.08 a square inch, possibly more if you request a more complex design.  I would be happy to give you a no obligation price quote for any projects you have in mind.

Halloween Custom Work

Here are more samples of customized costumes and trick-or-treat buckets.  First, a bucket for a police officer:

Next, a faux flight pin made out of gold vinyl and a bucket for a bomber pilot:

And finally, some work for an Air Force pilot.  First I added some lightening bolts to a toy motorcycle helmet.  And then I made a jet for the bucket.  The jet was definitely a challenge and I am quite happy how it turned out.

Happy Birthday

This is how we "toadilly" celebrate birthdays in our house.  Mom always seems to slap something up on the wall.  :)  This year we had a dinosaur themed party for my little guy.

The beauty of vinyl is that it easily comes off your walls and you will have no damage to your paint.  I was even able to repurpose the vinyl and make a second birthday sign for a special uncle.

Halloween Pacifier

Isn't this a super cute idea?  You can update your boring binky through the year to match special holidays.  Or, you could choose a monogram or picture that suits your personality.  I just wish I knew that baby was going to be a frog, I would have suggested a little bug.  Wouldn't that have been cute?