Monogrammed Pumpkins

Fall is officially here so it is time for me to finish up adding all of my fall decor to my home.

It's amazing how a simple monogram can make anything look fancy.  

I wanted to decorate my front hallway for fall using
these cream colored pumpkins at Michaels.

Using my Silhouette machine I printed our initials onto black vinyl.

I added some fall foliage into a Lenox vase.  

Under the cloche, I added an image that I printed onto card stock from The Graphics Fairy.  

I wanted some fall leaves, but the leaves haven't really begun to change that much by us, plus I don't love bringing leaves in from outside since you never know what bugs you are bringing in.

My solution...images of leaves from The Graphic Fairy, printed onto regular copy paper and cut out.

They look pretty real.

How is your fall decorating coming along?

I'd love to know.

-Judy

Sharing this with At The Picket Fence

Turning Plain Jane Canisters into Something Special

With the kids back at school, I have been able to start to tackle all of those little things that I didn't have time for all summer.  One of those little things was taking my plain, 

basic canisters and turning them into something a bit more special.

Here is the after photo...after a ten minute project using my Silhouette machine.

Here's how they started.  I always had them labeled so that I could tell them apart.  

My basic labels weren't really cutting it anymore for me.  

I've been a part of blogland too long now to be satisfied with basic labels anymore. Lol

I cut the frames and the letters out of black vinyl using my Silhouette machine.

The easiest way to transfer vinyl is to pull away all of the negative vinyl first.

Then I use clear contact paper and place it sticky side down onto the vinyl and rub until it adheres to the sticky side.  Then I peel up the clear contact paper and it's ready to adhere to whatever surface I am transferring it to.  Ten minutes later I had much cuter canisters.  

Even my husband noticed them over the weekend!

Don't you just love the quick and easy projects?

Do you love vinyl too?

-Judy

Sharing with Stone Gable

Crafty Gifts

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day. 

The weather was just beautiful yesterday and our whole family was here to celebrate.  

This is one of the gifts I made my mom.  I bought a frame and cut a piece of scrapbook paper to size.  Then using my Silhouette machine, I cut out this saying out of white vinyl 

and added it to the outside of the frame.

You could do this with any saying for any occasion. 

For my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-lawI found this beautiful fabric at JoAnn's.

They had all admired the iPad pillow I made my daughter a few weeks ago (you can check out here how I made this).  I decided to make one for each of them.

Here is a close-up of the fabric.  I thought it was so girly and pretty and would go with any decor.

Here is a close-up of the back of the pillow. 

They all loved their iPad pillows.

It was really one of the best Mother's Days.

How about you?  How was your Mother's Day?

-Judy

Silhouette Monogram-Third Time Is A Charm

I received my Silhouette machine for my birthday, which was back in June.  I have used it to make a few projects so far, but had yet to try it with vinyl.  I ordered some vinyl right before we left for vacation and was happy to find it in the mail pile when we arrived home.

I went to the online store and purchased an "S" monogram.  I'm sure I could have designed something, but I really just wanted some instant gratification.  Well, so much for instant.

So far, so good.  It cut easily.

I had even purchased a tool to help me remove the vinyl from the backing.

I cut it to fit the top of a plain step stool my daughter has in her bedroom closet.  On my first attempt I tried to remove the entire backing and then put it down.  It was one of those bad scenes where it kept sticking to my fingers and the more I tried to unstick the more it started to stick to itself.  

Strike One.

This time I tried to remove all the negative portions first and then carefully adhere it to the top of the step stool.  I would definitely call this Strike Two.  I ripped it all off and started to try to figure out a solution. I read the instructions on the vinyl and it talked about a purchasing a transfer sheet.  I really didn't want to purchase anything else.  The more I read about what they wanted me to do with the transfer sheet, the more it reminded me of something else...

Clear contact paper.  Maybe this would work.  I had an unopened roll in the house.

I printed out the "S" monogram for the third time (trust me, I was feeling very sick about wasting so much vinyl).  Again I removed all the negative portions.

Then I cut a piece of clear contact paper to size and adhered it to the top of the monogram.  

Then I placed it on top of the step stool taking care that it was centered and level.  I then used a plastic card and rubbed over the contact paper where the pink vinyl was.  Then I crossed my fingers and started to carefully pull away the clear contact paper...

Then I did the happy dance.  It worked like a charm and the vinyl came off perfectly!  I rubbed out those bubbles with my fingers and now it's perfect.

What a pretty addition to my daughter's room.  Now I can't wait to make more projects using vinyl.

Be sure to stop back tomorrow to see what I did with the extra "S's" I had left over from my failed attempts.

-Judy

Calendar and Message Board

First a bit of big news...last night I hit 400 followers!  Thank you so much for all of your support...this is turning into quite an exciting journey.  So....... I thought it was about time I got a Facebook Fan Page.  I would love if you would "Like" me on Facebook when you get a chance.  You can click on the link on my sidebar.  Thanks so much.

Now onto my actual post - A month or so ago I redid my daughter's room. You can click here to check out the entire transformation and all of the projects I did along the way.

While walking through Target the other day I came across this cute vinyl calendar and dry erase board that I thought would be a great addition to her room.

Right next to her desk she has a memo board (click here for tutorial) and wall art (click here for tutorial) I created along with some vinyl branches and flowers.

I wanted the calendar and dry erase board as part of the grouping.  The flowers and branches were easy enough to move.

Here is the calendar (which we really did need considering the schedule we keep).  Now all my daughter has to do is glance up and can see what she needs to do in the month ahead.

I had to add the dry erase board.  I think that may be one of my daughter's favorite things to do...write on a dry erase board.  She really enjoys playing teacher.

You have to love vinyl.  So easy to put up...and you can remove it easily whenever you want.

Don't forget the Winter Blues party is still open until tonight at midnight.  Click here to link up.  Hope you have a great weekend.

-Judy