Bubble Tube personalization, ie: Putting small vinyl letters on small tubes.

My niece is getting married next weekend, and I've been helping her with some of her decorations for her wedding. In previous posts, I posted signs and favor bags that I've made for her using my silhouette machine and other scrapbooking tools.  When they had the idea for the small tube bubbles instead of birdseed or sparklers, I thought, "OMG, I can SO personalize those for them".   Not remembering how not easy it is to weed small copy.

 Well, I cut out all the copy needed using my silhouette machine, and at that moment remembered how hard it was to weed out small copy.  And I'm thinking, OMG, a week is not enough time to do this!

So I started out by weeding out the inside portions of all the letters and numbers. Those inside parts of the "A" is really really tiny.  LOL

 

 Then I went and pulled off most of the black vinyl leaving just the copy.  And of course I began to lose some of the letters, and I would carefully use my weeding tool to put the letters and commas back onto the backing paper.  Then I'd put the transfer tape on top of that, and sometimes I'd lose some of the commas or letters there.

 Then I'd pull the transfer tape away from the backing sheet (sometimes losing a letter here or there) and then transfer the vinyl copy to the bubble tube.  Oh, I had to clean the bubble tubes first with alcohol because in a few places, we had bubble liquid on the tubes. And I'd sometimes lose a letter here or there too.

Well, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that you could actually transfer the whole piece of vinyl, before weeding, then weed off the parts you don't need.  I thought, "Well, it can't go any slower than the way I was doing it before." So I tried it, and OMG, doing it this way made life so much easier and faster!

 I still weed the center of the letters & numbers first.

 You then peel the backing paper from everything, being careful to make sure everything transferred to the transfer paper, then adhere it all to the bubble tube.

 Carefully pull off the transfer tape.

 And I mean carefully.  You still can pull off letters, but by using my weeding too, I could actually push the letter onto the bubble tube to help it to stick.

 Carefully weeding the copy.

 It's working!

And here is the final product!

I am thinking about sealing it with some mod podge, but I will need to test it first.

Adventures in wedding favor making....

I have been helping my niece with her wedding decorations.   And one thing that she wanted was this wedding favor bag.  They are going to do a candy bar, and she wanted bags for them to put candy in with this saying:

First thing that came to mind was, oh no, I can't print white on kraft bags through my ink-jet printer.  Next thought was to purchase a rubber stamp.  But all the rubber stamps for this type of thing are coming from China, and it took 4 weeks for me to get a Christmas gift that said it would take 10 days last year.  So, scratch that, plus the rubber stamps were running from $25-$60 not including shipping.  It would be ok if it would be reusable, but how many more times will they be stamping that?

So, what to do?  Next thought, I could silkscreen it onto the bag.  I could cut vinyl for a stencil and buy the whole silkscreen kit and go from there.  Ok, Cool!  That would work.  So I order the kit, which only came with black ink, crap!  Now I will have to order white ink, well, let's see if Michael's has it and I can use their coupon!  Yep!  Score! 40% off!

So I sit down and design the stencil, made sure to mirror it to make sure I didn't silk screen upside down.   And I cut out the stencil, and the letters are going to be too small and too thin to do that.  Ding dang it!  Now what to do?  Cut it all out in vinyl?  Nope, still have a bit of a problem weeding.

Let's try using Avery decals!  So I go to buy the decals, design everything on their website, print it out, and everything is off center.  GREAT. Try to move it so that it would print correctly...Nope.  Totally doesn't help.  Now I'm getting REALLY frustrated. Never had that problem with printing with their labels before.  What to do?

Make your own labels!  I found that I could take a solid sheet of sticker paper, print out what I want, and then using my handy dandy really large circle punch, I could punch the labels out to put on the bag!!  Did it work....  YES!  I know I could have cut them out with my silhouette if I use their cut and scan option, but since I had all the issues with the avery labels, I just thought the easiest way was to punch them out with my very large circle punch.

 

Above is the sheet of stickers and the large circle punch!

 You just turn the circle punch upside down to align it with the image you printed, and punch it out!  After cutting 3 circles out on one side, I'd take my paper cutter and trim off the section I punched.  

This worked out beautifully!

These are the finished bags, not exactly like the first sample that she wanted, but she loves how they turned out!  So very excited that she liked them!  So when things won't work out the first time, there are many other options!

Wedding decor, birthday gifts, and USA Rugby

My niece is getting married in a few months, and I've been helping her with some of her wedding decor and gifts.  Here are the bridal hangers that I made for her.  These are done with wooden hangers and gold vinyl. These were so much fun to make, and really easy. 

I've seen these on pinterest and on etsy.  And after figuring out what colors she wanted, I cut the vinyl out, placed them on the hangers, then sealed it with mod podge. 

 She also wanted a couple of signs made, here are two that I did so far.  I still have 2 more to make.  I bought the top wood sign from Michael's, then decorated it with vinyl.

 

 The above sign I got in the $1 section at Target, but it was $3.  LOL  Then decorated that with vinyl.

 

 She also wanted a little banner for her card box, so i created this from white burlap using the banner file from Big Dreams Embroidery.

 Since I had my Silhouette out, I decided to make some labels for my canisters.  Normally there's not a problem, until you need to figure out which one is flour and which one is bread flour.  LOL.

 Then I whipped out some coffee cup tags with my Sizzix and Tim Holtz's Fresh Brew Bigz die. 
These were really fun to make!  I love being able to make them the colors I need for gifts.  I think I might need to package some up to give as gifts.

Then I made a sign for my niece Kat.  She LOVES to read, and I thought this would be a cute sign for her to have around while she's reading.  Plus she sent the saying to my nephew as a meme, so I knew it would be perfect!!

 

 Next project I did was for my step-son, he wanted the USA Rugby logo for his megaphone.  So I made him some logos.  It was my second time to use multi-colors in a decal.

 This is him at the USA Sevens tournament last weekend.  LOL  And those are the decals on the megaphone.  Glad he's got the USA spirit in him!!

Fabric projects

Happy March! It has been a few months since I've posted, sorry that it's been so long.  And it's not like I have had a ton of stuff to do since I'm not working at the moment.  But I've just been forgetting to update some of the projects I've been working on, and it's been a lot.   First up are the fabric projects I've been doing the past few months. 

 One of our friends had a baby, and I had this baby blanket that I needed to embroider something on and to give as a gift, so I decided to embroider it for them. I appliqued the letter "B" on the blanket, then used my embroidery software to type in his name. Easy peasy.  Then I remembered I had some bibs, so I embroidered some monster faces on it with embroidery designs from Urban Threads the Monster Factory design pack.  I've had this set for awhile, and it was the first time I've used them.  I think I need to make more of these!  Maybe on some shirts or a blanket.  LOL

 Next up are some hearts that I made for a swap I'm in this month.  I usually only make the minimum amount of anything, but these were so fun that I made 2 sets!  I think I need to make some for myself! And definitely for my sister to sell for her charity.

 I also started using my silhouette to cut freezer paper stencils to use to paint on fabric.  My daughter-in-law asked me to help her make some destination pillows.  I had no idea what that was till she started sending me photos.  LOL  She wanted one that said "Portland" for their Air BNB room. I sent her the pillow case and the sample.  So she put the sample in a frame, and took a photo of the pillow on the bed.  Very cool!  Makes me want to do more painting!

Paintings this year

 So I went to a few more painting classes this year, and here are a few of the ones I have done.  Since the move I haven't been able to do another class, but I'll try to go very soon!!

 

Memorial Ornaments

 Saw these memorial ornaments on pinterest this year, and my friends and family had lost people in their lives this year, so I thought I'd make them some ornaments.  And one of my friends loved them so much, she ordered a few for me to make for her family. 

Christmas gifts 2016

 These are some of the things I've been working on this Christmas for gifts to give out and for gifts for my friends to give out.

 I did the glitter ornaments this year like everyone has been doing on the Cricut/Silhouette boards o Facebook.  They are so much fun to make, but I have glitter EVERYWHERE!!  This is one I made for my friend Kay.

And I've realized that I must not go on Pinterest  right before Christmas.  Mainly because I have a form of crafting ADD.  I start out with one project, then see something else I like, so I MUST make that.  I've spent many days at Michael's and JoAnns.  LOL

I found Jenga snowmen ornaments that were so cute, I had to make them!  So here are my versions of them.

 Then I saw book pages cut and decopauged on Jenga pieces.  So of course I had to do that.  Good thing that I already had a book torn apart for wedding reception decorations.  I just used some pages of that book.

 Then I came across pom pom snowmen.  They are so darn cute!  I then had to pull out my pom pom makers and make some of those.  Ok, only had enough time to make two of them.  One is pictured below. 

 Then of course after scrolling a bit on Pinterest, I found Fortune Cookie ornaments!  Of course I just HAD to make those because they were so easy.  LOL 

 And I only made one of those because I had an idea for decorating my home for Phil's family Christmas party that we're having next month.  I decided it would be cool to make the above ornament with everyone's names on them that will be here next month, and then they can take the ornament home with them when they go.  But I love it so much, they may not get to take the ornament home with them.  LOL

 Well, then my niece got engaged to her fiance this past weekend.  She is my only niece that is on my side of the family, and I love her and her fiance SO much that I had to make her an ornament.  LOL  She was engaged in Disneyland, so of course I had to make a Mickey and Minnie one.

 Then I saw these memorial ornaments on Pinterest, and made a few for people who have lost someone recently. 

 And my crafting this Christmas started with an order from my friend of towels for her whole family.  Every year she has had me do Blankets for her.  But doing that every year for a few years now, I think she decided to change up because they all have a ton of blankets.  And I just love how these towels came out!

So, that is my Christmas crafting so far.  But since we're celebrating with Phil's family in January, I'll still have time to make more stuff and decorate the house after Christmas too.  Will post more photos of that when I get there.  :)