Parties | I Tri and Craft

April 24, 2014
by Dawn Marie Leave a comment

Gift Card Birthday Box ~ Free download

It is Birthday Party Season!

OK. So there is really no Birthday Party Season, most people can’t really plan on when a birthday is. But it seems like we had a lot of birthday parties to attend in the months of March & April.

For one such birthday I was unsure if we were going to be able to attend. Kids were sick and so I put off getting a gift, then I decided to stop on the way to the party.

Don’t judge me, you all have done that too.

But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men….

The day got away from me and I wouldn’t have time to run in and find a present. Alone with the kids in tow. But I could stop and grab a gift card.

You know, there needs to be more dive thru services for things like this. A gift card ATM. Go ahead, run with my idea. Just include me in the royalties.

I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to stand around the card isle finding the perfect gift card holder. But as the baby was sleeping, I did have time to make a little box with a tag.

I made a box template and tags in Silhouette Studio and filled them with some digital paper in birthday pattern.

I used the sketch pen feature to address the tag.

It is a little deeper than a gift card, but I filled the space with tissue paper. I wanted something a little more substantial than an envelope.

The boys and I ran into the store, bought a gift card conveniently located next to the check out counter, and made it to the party on time.

For those of you who might find yourself in the same kind of rush you may download this box here.

You will need Adobe Reader, a printer, scissors and glue.

Happy Crafting

Please remember this is for your own personal use only. You may print the item as many times as you need for your own personal use but please do not forward, share, sell or in any other way distribute this file, or use for any commercial purposes or claim as your own design. If you would like to feature this item, please do so as a link to this page. Thank you.

April 23, 2014
by Dawn Marie Leave a comment

Teacher Appreciation Week

As adults we have fully come to understand and value teachers.

Growing up we had bad ones, ones we didn’t like, ones that might not have liked us and we had great ones.

But as an adult with kids we can fully understand the difficulty teachers face everyday trying to get our kids to learn.

How do you gets kids interested? How do you keep their attention? How do you explain super complicated things in ways they understand? How do you make them sit still and listen? How do you keep up with all the academic rules, regulation & bureaucracy? But above all how do you not lose your desire to teach?

I don’t have the answers. But I do know that as parents we need to take the extra step to let our children’s teacher know that we care.

Not only do we care about our children’s education, but we care about those that are providing it. We need to give them a little thanks.

This year Teacher Appreciation Week is May 5-9. So get on Pinterest, or Google and find an idea for a nice homemade gift or card. Or just reach out with a call or an email. Tell those who spend so much time with our kids trying to better their lives that we appreciate all they do.

I helped celebrate some teachers at my nieces’ school with these decorations. The PTSO (Parent Teacher Student Organization) got the teacher dinner and dessert during conference days. My sister (who was on the PTSO for her girls’ school) and I decorated the break room where the food was set out.

I designed all the decorations using graphics from Just So Scrappy‘s digital scrapbooking kit School Rules.

Of course using my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all these decorations is a real time (and hand) saver.

There wasn’t really a great place to hang the two banners we strung them from the table.

My sister made different pies, so we made folded tent cards so the teachers would know what kind of pie.

The mini-bunting flags were used to decorate the pies. The flags have little tabs that fold over the string to attach more easily.

The teachers really appreciated all the decorations but of course their favorite was the Keep Calm sign.

Remember to thank your teachers

April 22, 2014
by Dawn Marie 5 Comments

Monster High Birthday Card with the Silhouette Sketch Feature

I have been loving the sketch feature that my Silhouette Cameo has.

Being able to draw with it gives me more options than just print n’ cut.

This weekend we will be attending a birthday party for a little girl who is turning six and just loves Monster High. Since her favorite character is Lagoona Blue I made her a personalized birthday card.

Lagoona Blue Birthday Card

I will be providing a tutorial on how to make this card, so tune in next week for the details.

Lagoona Blue

I think my favorite thing about the card is the fish bowl purse. I used clear sticker paper to give the appearance of glass.

Happy Crafting

I shared this project on the Silhouette Challenges Blog

April 16, 2014
by Dawn Marie Leave a comment

Easter Bunny Juice Boxes for a Preschool Easter Party

Ian has his Easter party at school today.
So what do I volunteer to bring?
Juice boxes of course because I can make them look like super cute little bunnies.
I found these Hansen’s Junior Juice
boxes and thought the would be perfect because there are just 4.23 oz, a perfect size for little 4 & 5 year olds.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all the parts for the bunny.

I was grateful that I had two mats! I could load another one to cut, while I was taking all these little parts off.
I then just glued them all together and wrapped around the boxes.

I made 20 boxes and was able to use one 12×12″ sheet of pink card stock, scrap pieces of black and 7 sheets of 8.5×11″ white card stock. I also had the googly eyes, so I only had to buy the juice boxes, which I got 20 for less than $7.

I also broke out my Cameo to make a letter matching egg game. I got the eggs 18/$1 and I already had the vinyl. I cut out an upper case and a lower case letter, and put them on different colored eggs.

I put the upper case on the top half and lower case on the bottom half. The kids then would match the two letter s together.