Hey Dad, your cards are in this post, so if you keep reading you will see them. Because, like always, they are not in the mail. OK, I don’t know if the one my sister is sending you is in the mail yet or not, but I do know mine has not yet shipped.
Love you!
I made this card for my cousin to give her dad.
This is just a basic card for dads, there is no theme, but I really like it.
Inside is a simple pop-up that says “Dad” so from front to inside it reads “Happy Father’s Day Dad”
I really like the way the front turned out. I just used colored card-stock and a patterned scrapbook paper. I made sure there was no distance between the rectangles when cutting the patterned paper. I used Silhouette‘s print and cut feature for the front sentiment.
I used sketch pens on the letters before cutting them out.
I think the card is elegant and still masculine.
My sister asked me to make a card for our dad, but she requested it be different from the one I would give him.
So I made this one for her to send. I think it fits her and her family pretty good, as they are (well, really, we all are) huge Star Wars & LEGO fans.
The LEGO Darth Vader was also part of the blog hop I talked about here.
I wanted to do something different for my dad, than just another card. I have seen all the fun puns on Pinterest saying “World’s Best Pop” attached to a soda bottle. But my Dad lives out-of-town, and really I didn’t want to give him some soda.
At SVG Cuts I found this soda bottle in their Surf Shack kit and knew it would be perfect.
Using the bottle, I made a custom label, for the base and the neck. I also used the print and cut feature to decorate the bottle top.
The base label says “Happy Father’s Day to the Worlds Best Pop” which I again used the print and cut feature. I filled it with candy for him to enjoy.
I think it is quite a unique card and I had a blast making it.
I had an older brother who loved Star Wars, so I too, loved Star Wars.
When you are the youngest sibling and your older sibling becomes obsessed with something, you will go one of two ways. You will either loath it or love it. I went with the latter option.
We watched, we played with the action figures, ate off the dishware, wore the underoos, slept with the stuffed animals on the sheets, and reenacted our favorite scenes. When you love Star Wars, you always love Star Wars. It doesn’t fade with time, it actually gets stronger.
As a result my siblings and I have passed on this love to our children. My eldest son could name all the main characters before he was two.
But let me clarify something, while we all love Star Wars, we are not fanatics. I do not know all things Star Wars, nor do I know the names of obscure characters or their back histories. We’re not that bad.
Thanks to the internet and media there is now a ‘holiday’ for Star Wars. It is May 4th, why you ask (as if you don’t already know), because when you say “May the Fourth” it sounds like “May the Force“. I know, I know, geekdome at its highest.
As a result a SVG company (SVG Cutting Files) hosted a May the Fourth blog hop, and I received some fun Star Wars cutting files from them. (The hop was only the one day, so you can no longer participate or receive the files, sorry).
I used a couple of files to make some birthday cards for my Star Wars loving nieces.
One of my nieces also loves Hello Kitty, so the Hello Kitty Yoda was perfect for her. Both of my nieces, and everyone, loves Ewoks, so I made my other niece a card with the cute little Ewok.
I had intended cut out her name on the front, so that the inside color would show through, but I was having some major operator errors that day. I kept doing it backwards, upside down, etc. When I messed up with the last piece of cardstock, the night before I needed them, I had to improviser. I cut a rectangle out of the inside color and used the negative of her name.
Inside the Hello Kitty Yoda I phrased the ‘happy birthday’ sentiment just the way Yoda would.
You can actually translate words from Ewokese to English and back. Ewokese doesn’t have words for every English word, but they have enough. However, they do not have a phrase for “Happy Birthday” or anything close that I could use to convey that message. So the sentiment on the front of the card translates to “wow! Gee Whiz” or “Oh My Goodness!” as a way to show excitement.
In a similar design as the Yoda card, it just says “Happy Birthday” inside.
The girls loved them, and said they would keep them forever.
Happy Crafting
Freezer paper is every crafters’ best friend and I can now see why.
I have made shirts for the boys before using Heat Transfer Vinyl and Printable Heat Transfer Material, but never using fabric paint.
For this month’s Silhouette Challenge the theme was patriotic. Seriously you could go anywhere with that theme, but I decided the boys needed custom shirts to wear on the 4th of July.
I wanted to make a stencil out of freezer paper that I cut with my Silhouette Cameo. I didn’t want the basic plain old flag, but I wanted something kinda flag related.
So I cam up with this shirt for Sid. It says “Stars and Stripes” and has coordinating graphics with the words. And it was done in Red, White, & Blue. Tots Adorbs huh?
Since I didn’t actually want them to match I decided to make Ian a Capt. America shirt. Because who is more patriotic than Capt. America?
The process
Create and cut your design, you don’t have to use a cutting machine to make a shirt out of freezer paper but it sure is helpful.
In the cutting machine the freezer paper can be cut with shiny side up or shiny side down. However, the shiny side is the side you will iron to your fabric, so if you cut shiny side up, you will need to mirror (flip horizontally) your design. I used a blade of 2, speed of 3 and thickness of 10. But there has been a variety of recommended settings on-line, so make sure to do a test cut first.
Iron on your stencil. Put the shiny side down on your fabric and use a dry iron on the setting for your fabric. Use lots of pressure, and pay extra special attention to the edges. You don’t want paint to bleed under the stencil. Freezer paper and transfer tape don’t mix, so you will have to put all those little letter innards back by hand. I made font decisions with this in consideration.
Here is a little confession. I don’t paint much, so I didn’t have any paint sponges or foam brushes or anything at home. You know what I did have though? Make-up foam applicator, which worked just fine.
Make sure you place a piece of cardboard or a few pieces of cardstock between the layers of your shirt. The paint can bleed through, and you don’t want it showing up on the back of your shirt.
Make sure you dab and lift, do not brush. Brushing can lead to paint bleeding under your stencil. The idea is have many thin layers of paint instead of one thick one. I decided I wanted the ‘and’ to be a mix of red and blue, because I didn’t want too much of one color.
Let your paint dry and peel up your stencil. You may have to hold down the shirt to avoid stretching the newly painted fabric.
Most fabric paint requires you to heat set it, running the iron over the design so the paint doesn’t wash off. The fabric paint I bought did not have that on the instructions, but I did it anyway. I ran the iron over the front of the shirt, with a pillowcase in between, after is had dried for a couple of days. I turned it inside out and washed it after that.
If you notice above the word “stars” you can see a little smear of red pain because the frame of my stencil was too small. I didn’t run the iron over that part, and it was mostly gone after washing it. So I am glad I did heat set the rest of the shirt.
The Captain America shirt seemed like it was going to be easy, but I forgot about the fact that there is a red circle next to a blue circle with no white between.
So I had to paint it on two different days.
The stencils were different circles, so the inner white circle is actually two. After all the above was dry, I removed the circle next to the blue, but left the one where it should be white. I then added another circle to cover the blue center. This one didn’t stick as well because I was afraid to mess up the paint, so I didn’t press to hard or long.
This lead to some bleeding of the red paint in to the blue circle.
But it only looks bad close up.
My older son then informed me he no longer likes Capt. America, so he wouldn’t wear the shirt for me.
He did tell me he was a Mystic Forest Ranger Zombie Hunter though.
At least Sid was cooperative.
Happy Crafting
Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?
My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so pursue the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!
I Tri and Craft 