Crafty To Do List: Make a Stamp

One of the items on my crafty to-do list was to make a stamp.  I ended up making a stamp of sun glasses.  I tried it out last week, with embossing powder (the purple in the picture) and silver ink.  Since I didn’t have an acrylic block that would fit it, the stamping didn’t come out as good as I would have liked, but I think once I can remedy that it will work just as good as my other stamps.

This was made using the Silhouette Cameo with the stamping material and stamping mat.

Screen Shot 2016-04-17 at 6.42.17 PM

 

 

Hanson T-Shirts

For Hanson Day in May I decided to make a couple of custom Hanson T-shirts for the weekend.  I am getting into using heat transfer vinyl (and hoping that I will get a heat press for Christmas so I can stop using the iron – which works well but not as great as a press would) and I also decided to make a rhinestone Hanson symbol.  A lot of people stopped me and asked where I got the shirt so it was always nice to say, “I made it!”

The vinyl shirt was blue glitter and symbols to mean “eat, sleep, hanson” Although we teased for Hanson Day Weekend I should put Red Xs through the first two because there’s so much Hanson going on there is not a lot of time for eating and sleeping!  I’m sure these shirts will be making an appearance on the fall tour at some point – although when I went to photograph them I did notice that some of the vinyl and rhinestones are coming loose so they will have to be fixed up a bit first!

The rhinestone shirt was silver rhinestones on a red shirt.  This one was tough to make, it took a long time to set all the rhinestones in place, but I am super happy with how it came out.  I am going to try to make another rhinestone shirt soon – probably the Mets NY… so stay tuned to see how that comes out 🙂

 

EDIT I managed to fix the popped up vinyl and rhinstone using my hair straightener! It’s probably not enough of a heat press to do an entire shirt but it definitely worked in a pinch!

Try It Tuesday: Hanson Earrings

I’ve been having fun making all sorts of fun Hanson items with my Silhouette Cameo lately. (And all sorts of other things too)  But one thing I made before Hanson weekend in May was a pair of Hanson earrings (and a second pair to give away on hansonstage)

I bought blank flat earrings, measured out the diameter of the circle and then made 2 Hanson symbols small enough to fit on the earring.  This was actually a lot easier than I was expecting and I was totally happy with how they came out!

Unfortunately I was unable to wear them in Tulsa because I hadn’t worn earrings in a while and my holes had closed up a bit and I wasn’t willing to fight to get the earrings to fit.  But there will be more Hanson days to come that I will get a chance to wear them!

Hanson also ended up releasing silver symbol earrings for sale shortly after I made these. I’ll pretend they got the idea from me 😉

Scrapbook Swaps

There are a lot of groups out there dedicated to doing scrapbook swaps – where several people make duplicates of the same element for scrapbooks and then swap – so you make 21 (or whatever the agreed upon number is) items and then get yours and 20 other designs back all based on a theme.

I finally decided to join a swap last month and found one that had a deadline I was able to participate in.  I did 2 swaps actually – county fair – where I made popcorn and Nautical where I made a nautical rope frame.  Cuts need at least 2 layers and have designated sizes as well (usually 3-4 inches)

This was incredibly tedious and I didn’t realize that although I made sure to make the deadline despite having a life – many others in the group did not. So there was a major delay in getting the swap items back.  I’m not sure I will participate in a swap again. (It’s also harder to participate when you don’t go to Disney yearly and don’t have any kids to scrap either)  I could have used that weekend instead to make my own unique cuts and been farther along on my own scrapping than I am now after taking a weekend off!

Try It Tuesday: Stencil a Canvas

I am in several craft groups that keep giving me all sorts of ideas, so I ended up buying a few canvases, some stencil vinyl and acrylic paint for my latest project.

The image was a purchase from the Silhouette store. I cut the image out on to Oramask 813. I was told this works better than the regular vinyl and prevents bleeding. (Which turned out to not be the case)  I used transfer paper to get the stencil on to the canvas. I rubbed the stencil down as best I could. I painted. I let it dry. I peeled. I was not happy with the results.

I do have a few more canvases planned so I am hoping to figure out whatever the trick may be in order to get the paint to not bleed. (Maybe painting a base coat? Using modpodge? Anyone have any suggestions?)

Here are some pics of how it all went down…

Try It Tuesday: Silhouette Cameo “Nesting”

For this week’s Try It Tuesday I decided to try the “nesting” feature in the Silhouette Cameo Studio software.  This is helpful if you are trying to cut out a lot of things at once and have things of the same color and you want to best get them to fit on a page so that you’re not wasting a lot of paper.  You will need to have just the one color on the page though or this won’t work, so if you are someone who has other colors off of the cutting mat you’ll need to change how you do things in order to use this feature.  The “nesting” button is the one that looks like an N in between Replicate and Modify on the task bar at the top of the program.   Click “Use Cut Area” so that it will fit them in on your page and pick how many rotations and how much padding you want. The less of the padding, the less space there will be between everything but I found that sometimes that leads to things shifting around when cutting.

You can see below I was working on a calendar page (shamrock), some banner titles for a setlist I am working on and a palm tree top.  One photo shows how I couldn’t get them to fit and then the other shows what the nesting tool did. I will say that things did go a little crazy (I am convinced my cameo doesn’t like the color green as I always have trouble with that color for some reason) and all the pieces on top of each other in the bottom left didn’t cut properly because things were shifting around so I did have to cut a few things out a second time.  Next time I’ll be more mindful of the padding and consider doing 2 pages worth of cuts (since that is what ended up happening anyway!)

Everything but the shamrock you should be seeing in action on some future scrapbook saturday posts!

Back To The Island Cancun: Hanson Solo Sets & Activities

Last year there was a new addition to the Back to the Island experience which was a solo set from each of the members of the band. They did the same for this trip.

Day 2 – Zac was up first at 3pm.  His set was only 8 songs and as much as it pains me to say this – was my least favorite of the 3 sets. It went by very quickly, he hardly spoke with the crowd (except to say it was going fast and probably because he wasn’t talking a lot) but he did perform a song they had never performed live before – Wait Here For You – so add another one to my list.  He also did the first repeat song of the trip when he did Juliet.  Which was fine with me as it’s one of my favorites.

Call Out My Name
Get So Low
Wait Here For You
Juliet
On and On
Bittersweet
Fire on the Mountain
Musical Ride

After Zac’s solo set it was time for Isaac’s.  I’m not sure I can sum up his set properly… you kind of had to be there… but I’ll give it a try.  He came out and said that the first song had an “oh yeah” in it that he wanted us to sing along with.  I figured he must be starting with Minute Without You – but then he went into River instead, which has a “never know!” for us to sing – which we all of course picked up on.  He mentioned he had his songs mixed up and then went in to Minute Without You.  Little did we know just how much he had his songs mixed up… He did 2 songs that I’d never heard live before (I don’t think either had been played before) Two Tears and Ordinary Words.

Somewhere during the set he ended up getting a request for “Sometimes”, he said he would think about it – started playing “Someone” and said he’d try to wrap his head around playing Sometimes next. He said he was trying to remember – and now that I’m listening back he was totally wrong from the get go and asked “is that right?” and then said Sometimes is the song he always messed up night after night in 1998 – the second verse always messed him up and he couldn’t remember the lyric – but he’d do it anyway because it was requested. He said he hadn’t played the song in 15 years. (Which I didn’t think was true – but I looked it up and they haven’t done it since The Albertane Tour!)  Except then he started playing Smile.  And slowly everyone in the crowd started realizing “hey, this isn’t what he was supposed to be playing…” and then… Isaac finally realized it himself.  I’ll let you watch the realization unfold.

 

He ended up finishing his set with “Best of Times” which he had to start 3 times because he kept getting tripped up with lyrics.  Sounds like someone may need a teleprompter for tour 😉

 

River
Minute Without You
Two Tears
Being Me
Ordinary Words
Deeper
More Than Anything
Someone
Smile
Best of Times

 

Taylor was the last Hanson show of the trip due to the flip flop in the schedule and his performance ended up at the theater inside instead of out on the beach due to weather concerns. I never did see any rain – so either we were inside and missed it or it didn’t end up being quite as bad as they thought – though it WAS windy because when we went to eat dinner they weren’t sitting anyone outside and the doors to outside kept blowing open from the wind.

Taylor did 4 songs on his own and then called out one of his brothers to help him with the next song.  After Isaac getting picked on by Taylor and Zac the whole week over the Sometimes/Smile flub, Taylor and Isaac did Sometimes for everyone.  Isaac also stayed on stage to perform Sunny Day with Taylor.  Taylor’s set ended up being 11 songs long – the longest of the 3.

My Own
Believe
Never Let Go
Get Out Of My Heart
Sometimes
Sunny Day
Runaway Run
All I Ever Needed
I’ve Been Down
Voice in the Chorus
Make It Out Alive

 

And since I did a poor job of scheduling posts – here’s a recap of the Hanson activities as well –

Pottery Painting with Zac
I painted a whale.  It was fun.  Zac went around from table to table to see how we were doing and chat.  My friend Kim asked him if Isaac had told them about the Sometimes / Smile flub and Zac said that he did.  Then said Isaac is more of a Jerry Lee Lewis than Bing Crosby and that he likes to make sure we are entertained. The reference went a bit over my head but I guess Jerry Lee Lewis is more does whatever he wants and Bing is more by the book? My History of Rock professor would be so disappointed in me!

Mixology with Isaac
The red passes were telling us that this was boring and we were shocked.  But it kind of was.  I think part of the problem was there was a waterfall next to the area he was at – that was on (for some of the event anyway) and then the speakers must not have been facing us, or all the audio was just going up to the very high ceiling so it was a bit hard to follow along with what was going on.  He made 3 drinks with a fan assistant. He broke 1 glass and gave minor injuries to himself and his fan assistant and I heard he also cut his finger with a knife.  I preferred his trivia event last year – even if it was difficult even for me.

Afterparty with Taylor
We got let in to this early and went up by Taylor’s DJ set. He warned me I might not want to stand here. I told him I probably would end up sitting down. He said “not that I dont WANT you up here, but you know how it is”  yes, I know all too well!  We did end up sitting and he came back out a while later after the stampede of girls to get to the front row… for a DJ set!  He did a great mix of music this time and there was quite a surprise with the crew and Isaac all got dressed up in ridiculous costumes and ended up dancing on stage.  I think Taylor was just as surprised as everyone else!

Try It Tuesday: Glitter & Vinyl Ornaments

For the longest time I had been using my Silhouette to cut out only paper for my scrapbook. I joined a few groups on Facebook and found out a bit more about what I can actually do with this machine beyond just paper cutting.  I started to do vinyl cutting and some glitters & paint ornaments.  The first set of ornaments in this set are painted – and I’m not really happy with the results. A lot of spots started chipping on the inside, I re-did the paint several times and just couldn’t get it to stick properly.  But my first vinyl cutting was the names to add to the painted ornaments.

Then I was introduced to glitter ornaments where you swirl floor polish or polycrilic into the ornament and then swirl glitter around so it sticks on the inside.  This seems to get a much better cover and doesn’t seem like it’s falling off at all.  Then I did some layered vinyl on the ornaments to mimic the shirts I made for our Disney trip.  I also did a baseball one (that I have since added a Mets logo to the front and Wright 5 to the back)  I also did some green Ninja Turtle faces as well. These are so easy and I couldn’t believe I was so scared to cut vinyl in the beginning!

Try It Tuesday: Glass Etching

Something that I found out I could do with the assistance of my Silhouette was glass etching. I decided to try things out first with Hanson shot glasses. When I was making some Hanson ornaments (details on that coming next week) I realized I could use the scrap vinyl to create the outline of the symbol and it was just the right size for the shot glasses. 5 minutes of some Armour Etch on it later, and I’ve got a pretty neat Hanson shot glass!

This was another thing I was a bit hesitant to try at first, but it really couldn’t have been easier! (Although the etching cream smells nasty so make sure you’re in a well ventilated area and clean things up really well once you’re done!)

Try It Tuesday: Dreamcatcher

When I was in girl scouts we made Dreamcatchers as one of our projects. That dreamcatcher I made is now long, gone, but I was wanting a new one for my new room!  I found a kit on my favorite site, Blitsy, and figured since I made one when I was a kid no problem – this kit should be pretty easy too! Right? WRONG.

It took me weeks and weeks to do it because I hated how it was coming out. Finally I just kind of gave up because I couldn’t make it how I wanted it in my head no matter how hard I tried.  In the end, I’m not happy with the inner part of the circle, but the rest of it I think came out pretty good!  It’s hanging anyway 🙂

Social Media Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com