DIY Mother’s Day Gift – From Child’s Handwriting to Cricut Cut File

April 30, 2018 No Comments

Handmade Gift Giver

*Note: This tutorial requires use of a Cricut or other die cutting machine. Don’t have one? Visit my shop and let me make the decal for you!

*This post contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase from a link on this page, I may earn a small commission – at no extra cost to you!! Read my full statement here!

Sometimes getting gifts for others is really easy for me. Of course there are times when people will flat out say what they want. Other times I’ll have a perfect (I think!) idea that’ll be sure to please. However, there are lots of times that I just. don’t. know.

I’ve always been a big supporter of two types of gifts: handmade and “experience”/consumable gifts. Whenever I’m stuck on a gift giving occasion, I usually start with these two categories in mind.

This year, I bought myself a Cricut for Christmas. I think that probably 90% of the gifts I’ve given this year have been Cricut-made! I have also really been into turning handwriting and custom drawn designs into cut files for the Cricut. (This was one of the main reasons I upgraded to a new machine!) I recently turned a friend’s daughter’s handwriting into a sweet keepsake, and posted earlier about turning my handwriting into a fun summer doormat.

handwriting keepsake — Keepsake from child’s handwriting

It was on my mind that I wanted to turn my oldest son’s handwriting into keepsakes for his grandmothers this year for a DIY Mother’s Day gift. Inspiration struck in Wal-Mart when I saw these $5 vases. My middle son was with me, so I let him pick the color of vase for them so he could feel like he had a hand in the gift too!

From Handwriting to Cricut Design Space Cut File

Get The Design On Paper

The first step in this process is to get your design/word onto paper. I had my son write “Grammy” and “Nannie” on white paper using several different markers. We tried a magic marker, a Sharpie, and a Crayola broad tip marker. We ended up liking the look of the Sharpie writing the best – it had fewer color streaks/gaps and made a nice solid line.

Take a picture of the paper using a smart phone or camera. When you take the picture, just make sure there’s no shadows on top of the word. (If there’s a phone shadow somewhere else on the page it’ll be fine!) Either e-mail the picture to yourself or upload it to your computer. Take note of where you save the picture!

Upload the Picture in Design Space

Open a new canvas in Cricut’s Design Space, and click “Upload.” Click the option to “upload image,” and find your picture on your computer. Select “simple” once the picture of your design appears, since a word has only one color and is not an intricate design!

Upload in Design Space

Crop & Clean Up Your Design

Zoom out and crop your design. This will minimize the amount of tiny imperfections you have to erase before cutting your file!

Use the Select & Erase tool to delete your background and any “holes” of letters.

Switch to the Erase tool, zoom in, and scroll around to look for any tiny random black dots left in your design. I find that these are far easier to spot after switching to “Preview” mode!

clean up custom uploaded image in design space

Save and Insert Into Canvas

Once the design is cleaned up, choose to “save as a cut image” and rename your design.

After saving, you should be redirected to the Upload page. Select your design, and click “Insert Image.”

save and insert custom upload in design space

Re-size and Cut!

Measure your project space to see what dimensions your cut file should have. One way to resize it exactly to the size you desire is to select the file, then manually type the desired dimensions in the dimension box. (Hit enter to apply! If the lock icon is locked, you will only need to adjust one of your dimensions, the other will auto-adjust.)

If you have multiple files to cut, arrange them on your mat with some space in between them, select both layers, and click “attach.” This will make them stay spaced out exactly like you want them when sent to the cutting mat!

When your design is sized correctly, load your materials and cut your file!

Apply Your Design

When done cutting, weed your design, clean the surface of the vase with rubbing alcohol, and use transfer tape to apply your design!

Get Started on YOUR DIY Mother’s Day Gift

The possibilities are endless when you learn to turn handwriting and drawings into custom vinyl cuts. You can turn anything into a keepsake! Are you going to use handwriting to personalize a DIY Mother’s Day gift?? Please share your pictures with me on Instagram using #MoreTimesMothersDay!

Don’t forget to check out my tutorial to make a custom drawn design into a fun doormat, and to visit my shop if you need me to cut the vinyl for you!

DIY

Summer Floral Grapevine Wreath DIY

April 23, 2018 No Comments

summer floral grapevine wreath diy

It took me about 10 years of living in my own home to get a wreath on the door. TEN! In 2015, I had a goal to get something on my door for every season. In June 2016, we moved to a new house. At Christmas of that year, I finally made a snowflake door hanger. I made an “everyday” wreath for the door somewhere in the middle of 2017. Once I had something on the door though, there hasn’t been a season that it’s been bare. Part of that is because I discovered I really enjoyed making wreaths – so much so that I began selling them and hosting wreath parties. But it was also because I found out what apparently so many of you already know. Having something on the door drastically changes the look of your porch. It honestly makes me happy when I come home to see our door decor. I usually make burlap wreaths, but this spring I decided I’d try my hand at a DIY floral grapevine wreath.

*This post contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase after clicking one of my links here, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra charge to you! Read my full statement here!

Floral Grapevine Wreath DIY Supplies

Supplies for floral grapevine wreath diy

The supplies here cost roughly $10 – if you even need to purchase all of it. I already had the spool of floral wire on hand, but you can buy a small pack of pre-cut floral wire pieces for $1. The grapevine wreath was under $5 at Wal-Mart (or get some friends together for a DIY party, and let Amazon send you a pack!), and the flowers were $0.97 per bunch! If I had a Hobby Lobby or Michael’s in a convenient location, I’d maybe use a coupon and spring for some more realistic looking or different style flowers. But to be honest I liked the colors of these anyway!

I decided to wire my flowers in for two reasons:

I want the option of reusing my grapevine wreath frame.
I’m not super confident in my floral arrangement abilities – so non-permanence is a must for me + flowers.

If you’re not concerned about those things or want to save on time, then by all means, bust out the hot glue and stick those suckers on! But know that wiring them is not hard – just a little bit more time consuming than gluing.

Step 1: Whitewash the Grapevine Wreath

The term “whitewash” technically refers to a specific mixture of substances. All I wanted was a whitewash look, so I just mixed white acrylic paint with water to get a less opaque, thinner mixture. I did not want my wreath to be stark white, so thinning the paint helps with that. I don’t have a magic ratio, but I can tell you my cup had more water than paint. It was at least 2:1, but probably more like 3:1. Squeeze some white paint into a disposable cup, add about a half inch to an inch of water, and mix. If you’re concerned – start slow. You can add more water easily – it’s a little more of a hassle and wasteful to have to deal with thickening the mixture! Your mixture should look like white water. It does not take much just to do one wreath!

Acrylic paint whitewash

If you are working indoors or on a surface you care about, be sure to cover your surface with some sort of paper! There will be splatter! I used a 2″ foam brush, but you could use any size that will fit in your cup. Before you paint, press the brush against the side of the cup to drain the excess. Then just paint it on. Try to get into the crevies & spaces, and rotate your wreath a few times so you can see how it looks from different angles! Here’s mine when I was finished!

whitewashed grapevine wreath

Step 2: Attach the Wires

If you’re hot gluing – obviously you’ll skip this step! Your wreath will dry pretty quickly, so now will be a good time to trim your stems to a length that will stick into the grapevine and play around with some arrangements. If you’re wiring, here we go! I’m not a florist and have very limited knowledge of what is proper when it comes to floral tape. BUT. I know that my flowers are hangin’ in there, so if nothing else, this method works!

Trim your flowers to each have a stem about 2-3″ using wire cutters. (You don’t want them all in a big bunch.) Floral tape is self adhering, so it sticks to itself when you press it. Pull out a length of tape, and wrap it around the top of the stem once or twice to get it adhered/started.
Cut a length of floral wire about 8-10″ long, and fold it in half.
a) If your flower looks like this, with several little stems/gaps immediately below the flower, then feed the wire through the gaps:
b) If your flower looks like this, with just a solid stem, then flower:
then open your floral wire back straight and lay it parallel to the stem with the half-way fold in the wire at the top of the floral tape. Wrap the tape around the wire once, then fold the wire back down like this:

Step 3: Keep Wrapping!

Start wrapping the floral tape around the wire and stem while pressing it into itself. You’ll want to move down the flower’s stem as you go, being sure to overlap with the previous wrap. Keep going for about an inch or so, and stop. *I have found it easier to twist/spin the flower than wrap the tape around making a tangled mess. Try some things and find what works for you!
Clip your stem (below where you’ve wrapped), but not the floral wires! Continue wrapping just the wires until you reach the end of the wire/get a length long enough to reach all the way through your wreath with some excess length for securing. If you feel like stopping before your wire ends, just clip the wire when you feel like you’ve gone long enough. Do 1 more wrap past the wire’s end to close up the end of the new stem.

Step 4: Attach your Flowers

Stick your new stem through the grapevine wreath, then wrap it around a grapevine on the back side to secure it.

attach flowers to wreath

Repeat with all of your flowers! Here’s what mine looked like after attaching my whole group of flowers.

floral grapevine wreath diy

I think if you are going for a minimalist wreath this is fine how it is! You could also add more flowers than I did if you do not want to add a sign or letter. I had a letter that I had painted and used on an old wreath (that has since faded and been thrown away, RIP) so I stopped with just those! (And let’s face it – I was kind of tired of the floral tape!)

floral wreath diy

If you try this wreath, please click “tried it” on the original Pinterest pin & show me your picture. I’d love to see what you come up with & hear how it worked for you!! If you’re revamping your whole porch, try out my summer doormat DIY too! The fun doormats popping up everywhere are so cute and really easy to make.

To get my DIY’s straight to your inbox, be sure to sign up for my mailing list! Good luck on your project!!

DIY, Freebies

Summer Doormat DIY – Free File Download

April 2, 2018 No Comments

*This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from one of the links in this post, I’ll receive a small commission, at no extra charge to you!

Please only use my file for personal use! Do not create items for sale to others using my handlettered design in any way. You also may not use the file in its original or in an altered form to sell it as an .svg or any other type of digital download.

A Fresh Greeting

I’ve been seeing fun DIY door mats all over social media lately (if you haven’t – remember, I run in crafty circles!) Anyway, I was more than ready to get one made up for our porch since ours was old and gross. I was able to find some time over Spring Break to knock it out!

Come In We're Awesome Doormat DIY — At least I think we are…

This was suprisingly simple after following a few YouTube tutorials for tips on stenciling. There are lots of methods out there, but I went with a freezer paper stencil pressed onto my mat. I used acrylic paint marked as safe for outdoor use (found at WalMart!) and a stiff bristle stenciling brush to paint on a plain coir doormat. (I got my mat at Home Depot, then found this one at Target cheaper!)

DIY Doormat materials

From Handlettering to Doormat DIY

After this successful project, I really wanted to do one that I could share with you. (The one I made was created using free for personal use fonts – so the file I used to cut my stencil can’t be shared! I’ll be happy to tell you what fonts I used if you want to create it for yourself!) My sister was putting together a summer themed basket for an auction at her daughter’s school, so we thought a summer-themed door mat would be a unique addition.

I started with a hand-lettered “summertime.” There are lots of pieces of paper in my house right now with the word “summertime” drawn on them. I finally settled on this version:

Summertime handlettering

Once I had my design, I snapped a picture with my phone, e-mailed it to myself, and uploaded it into Cricut’s Design Space to convert it to a cut file. If you’ve got a newer Cricut yourself, you should definitely play around with getting some of your own handwriting uploaded into Design Space to cut. It’s surprisingly easy!!

Convert to a Stencil

As the word is written, it cuts with “holes” detached for the s, e’s, and r. This is perfect when using vinyl, since you are using the letters themselves (the black of the photo!) When I stencil, I much prefer to have my holes attached for a more traditional stencil. I used to think this was incredibly annoying as you have to go back in later and fill in all of the little lines where the stencil was attached to the holes. But do you know what’s even more annoying than that? Keeping up with/ironing on a bunch of tiny pieces then hoping they stay put when you paint. Here’s what my cut file looked like after I added in the bars to keep the holes attached!

If you are using Cricut’s Design Space, here are links to the public Design Space files for both the original (holes not attached) and the stencil cut (holes attached)! No uploading, resizing, or anything at all needed if you’re making a door mat. If you’re on Silhouette, there is a .png for you to upload into your design software at the end of this post.

Cut It Out!

Once you’ve got your file ready to go, prepare your large cutting mat with freezer paper – shiny side down. Cut the file, weed the words (since it’s a stencil!), then remove the stencil carefully. I used to have curled up papers after cutting, then I came across the tip to pull the mat from the paper, and my life was changed. Go slow so that you don’t make any tears. I did tear one little bar on the big hole of the S in “Summertime,” but luckily there were two connectors – so no little piece to keep track of!

Place & Press

The next step is to place your stencil (& turn on your iron!). Take the time to get a ruler out! I just eyeball my placement first, then measure from the left and right edges to see if the gap from word to edge of the mat matches on each side. Once I get it centered horizontally, I work to get the design level by measuring from the bottom of the mat up to the bottom of the lower line of text in several places. If they all (pretty much) match, then I go for it.

Get the freezer paper placed, then press with a hot iron (no steam). Don’t rub the iron around, just set it down and apply pressure, pick it up, then do another spot. Continue until you get every inch of the freezer paper ironed down. If you pick at freezer paper, it WILL come up. It is not a super sticky bond, but it is stable if you don’t mess around with it. Watch the places you iron. You will be able to notice a difference in the surfaces that are adhered and those that aren’t. I repeat: Do not pick at the freezer paper!

Paint Time!

Once your freezer paper is applied, get your paint ready! I used a multi-surface acrylic paint. Anything labeled for outdoor use should work. The stiff bristled brushes are the only brushes I will ever use for stenciling ever again in my life. They hold paint well, but are great at letting it go. And on these mats, the bristles from the brush get down in the bristles for the mat, and it’s perfect!

While painting, keep the brush perpendicular to the mat. When you start getting crazy and sideways, that’s when your brush is going to get up under the stencil. (Which is a bad thing!) I had one spot where I had to put my finger onto the stencil to hold it as I painted around (I think it was around the hole of the ‘A’). If you see the stencil start to lift, just get your hand in there for extra security.

I do two coats of paint to try to get good coverage. If you have a spot that was troublesome with the stencil, hold off on the 2nd coat and do it with a small brush after you pull the stencil off!

Stencil Success!

I think that stenciling on a door mat is maybe the only stenciling I will do for a long time. Seriously, these things come off so clean! There is virtually no bleed since the excess paint can go straight down into the bristles of the mat. Pull off your stencil as soon as you get done painting, & enjoy your new DIY doormat! I think this is cute for a front porch, but would be great on a back porch too – where the livin’ really is easy! Do some yardwork, kick up your feet with a good book, then admire your handiwork as you slip back inside.

What are you going to use the cut file for? Share pictures of your creations with me! If you’re doing a complete porch makeover, check out my shop for a custom wreath to freshen things up or this post for a DIY floral wreath!!

**Please use my file for personal use only! Do not create items for sale to others using my handlettered design in any way. You also may not use the file in its original or in an altered form to sell it as an .svg or any other type of digital download.

Holidays

Halloween Pumpkin Cake

August 25, 2017 No Comments

Halloween cake

*This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase an item after clicking a link in this post, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra charge to you!

Bake Me a Pumpkin Cake!

We recently threw a Halloween (birthday) party for my three year old. His birthday is in August, but he’s batty for Halloween (see what I did there?) – so we went with it. You can read about the party as a whole here, but I wanted to give a few more details about the good stuff – the food – so we’ll start with the cake!

I decorate cakes sometimes as a side hobby/job. Which may sound at first like it’s a great thing when it comes to planning my kids’ birthday parties. It’s a double edged sword though. On one hand, I don’t have to pick a cake from the book at Wal-Mart. And I’m able to give my kids a custom cake that doesn’t break the bank. Because my budget is definitely going to land my kids a grocery store cake if I’m not doing it myself. (I feel like I should say that I actually love the Wal-Mart whipped icing. Like I sometimes actually crave it. But I don’t want to make my kids pick a sheet cake when they know good and well I can make them something else!)

I also don’t have to worry about a cake surviving a drive. I hate cake driving! And I’m pretty sure everyone else on the road hates cake driving too. (I know my husband especially hates cake driving when he’s the one doing it. Because I can’t control my gasps and need to grip the door handles on every turn.) Next time someone is driving like crazy slow in front of you, take a deep breath. Convince yourself they’re delivering some kid the birthday cake of their dreams. It’ll help calm you down. Maybe. I also don’t have to worry about somebody spelling my child’s name wrong or sending us a cake wreck. Not all of my cakes have turned out perfectly, but I don’t recall any TOTAL disasters. Okay, maybe one.

These points are all great reminders of why it’s nice to be able to bake my own cakes. However, I always tell my children to take their expectations down a notch for their cakes. Because I’m not just making their cake, I’m having to do decorations and other food and clean my house too! So it makes for a bit more work on top of regular birthday planning. Therefore, I need the cake to be easy and fast when it’s for us.

Super Easy Halloween Pumpkin Cake

I asked my son what he wanted for his Halloween birthday cake, and his only requests were “sprinkles and pumpkins.” So I went literal, and gave that boy a sprinkle explosion topped with a pumpkin. He loved it. To me it kind of looked more like a sprinkle disaster, but kids do. not. care. I don’t know what it is about sprinkles, but they want them on donuts, cakes, and anywhere else they’ll stick.

Make it Work

I cannot tell you how easy this pumpkin cake was. The pumpkin part alone would be plenty for a small party. I just needed a place for the requested sprinkles so I did two tiers!

The Bottom Tier

The bottom cake tier was assembled from two 9″ round cakes. I leveled my layers with a cake leveler (a serrated knife would work fine too!), placed one on a 12″ cake board, then iced them with buttercream. The iced bottom cake went in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes to let the buttercream get somewhat set so that as I tried to press sprinkles into the cake I didn’t wind up with a palm full of icing. I could not find Halloween sprinkles anywhere (because remember – this was an August party!!) so I went with a bright blue/green/white round sprinkle mixture along with orange and black nonpareils.

In hindsight, I definitely should have just picked one of those color schemes, because I did not love them all mixed together. And not to mention, the different sizes of sprinkles didn’t adhere to the cake uniformly, so keep that in mind too if you’re mixing several types of sprinkles! Again though, the man of the hour was thrilled with the sprinkle situation, so I am happy.

*Note – if you are making a tiered cake as pictured, and are not familiar with how to stack cakes read the tips at the bottom of this post!

The Pumpkin Construction

Once the bottom cake was sprinkled, I began work on the pumpkin. For this element I baked two bundt cakes, leveled them, and built the pumpkin cut-sides together – with a healthy heap of buttercream in between, of course. There was a gaping hole in the middle of my pumpkin, so I filled it with scraps from the leveling. (I did not serve the scraps in the middle! They were just in there so I could have a surface built up to ice as the middle of the pumpkin & to set my stem on!)

The Icing

I dyed my icing orange using gel food coloring. I would highly recommend buying gel coloring if you are coloring buttercream, as liquid coloring will cause your icing texture to change and possibly separate. To get the icing on the pumpkin smooth, I iced the cake first not caring what it looked like – just getting icing for coverage. I then took my small angled spatula, and starting at the bottom of the pumpkin ran it up and over the top smoothing toward the center. I went all the way around the pumpkin doing this, making sure each stroke slightly overlapped the one before. This ended up leaving small vertical ridges of icing where the strokes were. But I actually liked that since pumpkins don’t have a smooth surface anyhow!

The Face & Stem

The facial features were cut from black fondant. You can get it cheap at a craft store with a 40% or 50% off coupon if this is all you need it for! I was stumped on what to do for the stem. I did not want to just put a huge ball of brown fondant in the middle as that seemed wasteful. So I ended up using a little bit more of those cake scraps from the leveling mixed with some extra icing to form a cakeball stem. Then I coated it with chocolate candy melts that I had left over from the time I bought the stuff for (but then forgot) to make a treat to take over to our new neighbors. Oops. Perhaps I should take them a belated welcome treat? Maybe one cakeball stem?

In the end, the birthday boy loved his cake, and it was not so time consuming that I couldn’t get anything else done! That’s my kind of cake.

*For stacking cakes, you’ll want to make sure that the top tier has a cardboard cake circle underneath it approximately the same size as the bottom of the pumpkin. The bottom tier will need some sort of supports added so that the weight of the top tier does not crush the bottom one over time. You can either cut 4-6 wooden dowel rods or straws cut to the height of the bottom cake. Evenly space them so that the top cake will rest on them. The dowel rods will be a stronger choice than straws if the cake will be sitting for a long time.

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