Custom Vinyl Frame - The Many Jobs of Dad

This has been one of the most fun projects I have completed!  What a wonderful expression of love for someone important in your life!  This was given as a gift for Christmas, but this idea could be used for any holiday or birthday.  This frame is quite large because the recipient is such a fantastic dad, but you could apply this idea to any size collage frame.

Please click on the picture to enlarge it if you are having trouble seeing the detail.

Custom Work - Decorating for Guests

We sure love when family comes to visit. It doesn't happen often because we are so far south and no one seems to want to vacation in the hot, humid climate. So when a grandma comes to visit it is an especially big deal! My boys have named the guest room "The Grandma Room." I thought that was so cute, we officially named the room using vinyl. And when my mother came to visit over Christmas, I let the boys put red hearts anywhere they pleased. They even put hearts on the door knob! :)

Vinyl can also be used to help your guests, not just welcome them. A few years back, a grandmother generously offered to watch my children while my husband and I vacationed for 10 days. I knew that she would feel lost in our new house, and that she wouldn't be able to talk to us on a regular basis based on our travel plans. So I labeled drawers and cabinets to help her navigate the kitchen, dress the kids, and find important supplies like diapers and towels.

You can customize your cabinets, drawers, bins, canisters, and any other smooth surface. You can pick almost any type true font (there are thousands free on the internet!), the size of the font, and pick colors that match your decorating scheme. You may also choose to label with pictures, this is a great organizing tool for children's rooms and play areas.
And the application is a breeze! You do not have to apply each letter individually, your designs will be coated with transfer tape. Simply peel off the tape with the design, place the design on your surface, and burnish with a credit card or bowl scraper. You will then be able to carefully peel away the transfer tape and your design will stay in place until you decide you are ready for a change.

Handprint Vinyl Tiles

One of the best parts of my new adventure is working with very creative people! My neighbor had such an adorable idea for holiday gifts this year, she asked me to design a tile with handprints to give to grandparents. Her tiles came out so well I had to make one for my own mother (who is the world's best grandma, in my humble opinion! :) )

For this tile I had each child come to my house so I could collect their actual handprints with paint. I also had the older children write their names with a fat marker. I was able to scan the handprints and names in to the computer and turn those images in to cutting files. The tiles were further personalized by using each child's favorite color.

Each tile was personalized with children's names and ages. I have covered some of this information to protect their identities, but hopefully you can tell how adorable the finished tiles are.

Individual handprints could fit on a 6 inch tile, however a multiple handprint design would require a 12 inch tile or other larger 'canvas' such as a wood sign or frame.

Custom Vinyl Frame - Wedding

I was so excited when a very good friend asked me to personalize a framed picture to celebrate her recent marriage. Her favorite color is red, which made a common appearance at her reception. I requested a picture with white, hazy edges and found a beautiful black and red frame. I think the final product came out very beautifully!

LDS Young Women Vinyl 2010 Theme

These designs represent the new LDS Young Women's theme for 2010:

“Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).

One of the things I love about this scripture is that there are multiple messages you can pull from it. I thought I would make a few designs to emphasize some of the highlights.

DESIGN A:

DESIGN B:

DESIGN C:

DESIGN D:

You can choose any color for these designs, and with design D you may also choose a second accent color for "thy God."

If you have a different design in mind or would like to add some embellishments please feel free to contact me! I love to design!

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