More Silhouette – Black Friday

At 50% off all shapes, now is the time to stock up on anything and everything you could want in the Silhouette store!   I shared half of my designs in my last post and here is a look at the rest.  Click on each image to go to my store or see my entire portfolio here.

Holiday Shapes:

Holiday Vinyl Phrases:

Vinyl Quotes & Subway Art:

Print & Cut Designs:

Come on, don’t you just love these?  I’m totally excited about this batch of designs.  This was my first stab at Print & Cut designs – let me know what you think.  Do you use the Silhouette for print & cut or just cutting?  I also love the vinyl shapes – it gives so much more freedom to be able to have letters and shapes separated in a vinyl format.  The design possibilities are so much bigger with that option.  Tell me how you feel about that, too.  Loving the vinyl like me?

Hope your Thanksgiving holiday was as wonderful as mine.  Enjoy your holiday crafting!

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Activity Days: Your Happily Ever After (Part 1)

I have lots to share, though so I need to get to it.  Today, enjoy the first installment of our mother-daughter Activity Day Recognition Night.  Seriously, this thing was put together 92% with the Silhouette.  It should be a commercial.

(Click here for Part 2 and here for Part 3 of this activity.)

download jpeg of invite – blank (I used Copperplate Gothic font)

Overview of the evening:
(Click here for Part 2 and here for Part 3 of this activity.)

Click on the following image to download a large jpeg of the logo.

Theme: Your Happily Ever After (based on speech given by Dieter Uchdorf here) leading to a focus on PRINCESSES.  Could there be anything better for 8-11 year-old girls?  As you will see, there is not.

Food was involved…salad, yummy biscuits, skewered fruit and daughter-served brownie sundaes.  But I wasn’t in charge of that part and happily put it out of my mind.  Give me the assignment for decorations any day.

Note: If I were doing this activity again, I would skip the dinner and replace that time with a more hands-on learning activity (relating to President Uchtdorf’s talk) and an opportunity for the girls to share their learning about the gospel with their mothers.  Either way is great but after doing activities for the last 2 years, that is something I would have done a little differently now.

Program: 

(photoshoot as arriving)

Welcome

Dinner (girls served moms and brought dishes to kitchen before picking up desserts)

Message & Recognition of Activities Girls had done over the last 6 months

Craft

Concluding Remarks & Clean Up

Decor:

1. Cake Stands – a staple in throwing parties and can be used for everything, not just food display.

I used my pink, aqua, lime, yellow and white cake stands (made with a little epoxy attaching a candlestick or dessert glass to the bottom of a plate and spray painting the entire thing with 2X Rustoleum paint) as the centerpieces because….well, because it’s spring and they are little girls and we were doing princess stuff and…it’s what I already had.

2. Mason Jars with Colored Daisies 

Believe me when I tell you that you only need one flower per table to make it work.  Especially when you add a couple of skinny-doweled Silhouette cut-outs to portray the theme.  For me, it meant a crown and a “Your Happily Ever After” label card.  Wrap them loosely in tissue paper to keep them in place and to hide the ends.  Cost: about $1 if you shop sales for the daisies.

click here to download the smaller logo that we used in the layered centerpiece picks

3.  Plastic Tablecloth Ruffles

I saw this idea for creating a table runner using a plastic tablecloth and adapted it to work on a round table.  Click for tutorial here.  Perfect for anchoring the centerpiece on these large tables and making the whole thing look and feel more rich than it cost.  You get 4 ruffles from each plastic tablecloth = that means 25 cents each.  Plus, the ruffles look great draped at the top of my shutter backdrop.

4.  Plastic Tablecloth Chair Bows

I’m sure you have seen these before but they must be done.  An inexpensive way to add flair to ordinary folding chairs and to make the whole place feel like a celebration.  Just cut down the length of a long plastic table cloth (we used the fold lines as guides) and you get 8 strips for bows.  12.5 cents each.

5.  Candy Jars

I’ll post about these in just a bit and give you a quick tutorial but what I will say here is that the girls made these darling candy jars in the activity before our event with the intention of using them as our primary decoration at the Recognition Night.  Click here for instructions.  Personalized, filled with purpose, and the perfect way to reinforce the message of the evening.  More coming on what I mean by that.  These are not your ordinary candy jar.  But let me tell you that the impact of the girls walking into the night with their mothers and seeing their work looking so perfectly lovely and enticing was a highlight of the evening.

6.  Supplies for Craft

Part of our evening included a take-away craft that each girl got to create with their mothers.  After cutting a 2″x6″ board into 6″ blocks, painting and sanding them, they were ready for the night.  Our partners were in charge of that part (bless them) and I tackled 28 sets of vinyl lettering on the Silhouette.  The vinyl shapes are available in my Silhouette store.  Click here for the princess and crown.  Click here for daughter of a heavenly king.  I added some Staz-On ink to the vinyl edges to create a distressed look but it really didn’t need it.  Plain or distressed – it looked great either way. The girls added a little rhinestone bling to their blocks and got to take them home as well to remind them of who they are and why they are here.

Here’s the thing, though.  I like everything to have purpose.  So, I designed the craft supplies to be part of the actual centerpieces of the table.  Large shallow bowls that held the vinyl, craft sticks for rubbing, and rhinestones rested on a cake stand.  Wood blocks were loving tucked under another pedestal and the ruffled tablecloth surrounded the entire thing.  It looked great and there was no time wasted on handing out supplies.  Efficient and beautiful.  The perfect party.

7.  Photo Booth

You first saw my photo booth at Cole’s superhero party and here it makes an appearance so that we could snap a quick pic of each mother with their daughter (probably to be used at a future activity….still working on the exact project idea).  Invites told them that they could come dressed as princesses or in coordinating outfits if they chose.  DARLING!  Some of them really got into it and only added to the feeling of celebration.  Seriously, do this every year, Kolette.

8.  Scallop Wrapping Paper Placemats

The Silhouette didn’t fail me as I cut out a slew of 12″ scalloped circles from a roll of wrapping paper.  I cut it into squares first then used two mats to keep the assembly line going as I cut out all the cute scallops.  We mixed and matched napkins and paper cup colors to keep it all random but coordinating.  They looked great with the green polka-dot placemats.

See, I told you that the Silhouette played a big role in pulling off this evening!  We were so happy to see all the mothers embracing the evening and making it special for each of their daughters.  Whether they dressed alike or worked side by side to complete the craft, it was a beautiful evening of sharing one-on-one time with some of the most important people in their lives.  Thank you mothers!

Click here for Part II and here for Part III of this activity.

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Activity Days: Your Happily Ever After (Part 3) – Candy Jars

I’ve made about 30 cake stands using this technique so when the idea of creating candy jars doing the same thing, it was a quick yes from me.  You’ll see the cake stands used as the decor in so many of my events and parties because they are super versatile.  Click here for a quick list of how to create them.  Today I’ll tell you how I made our candy jars for our Activity Day Recognition Night.  These are great for any occasion, event, or gift-giving need.  Grad gifts?  Sure. Father’s Day?  Why not?  Just change out the tag, fill it with a favorite treat or small item and it will work for any person or event.

Here’s How:

1.  Gather supplies.

• candlestick (I purchased mine at Dollar Tree and they can also be ordered here in cases of 12 and delivered to your store for free.)
• jar with wide mouth lid (Also purchased at a dollar store with squishy veggies inside.  Those got dumped, jars were washed and labels removed.)
• Rustoleum 2X Coverage spray paint
• quick-drying epoxy (Gorilla or Hammerhead)
• E6000
• small wood drawer pull or wood knob (found at Hobby Lobby for less than $.10 each)
• ribbon and tag (optional)
• candy or other treat
• written notes (optional)
• tag – jpeg download click here (you can add your own name to the space)

2.  Clean jars.  I chose a short, squatty jar and tall skinny one for variation.  I also tested them to make sure I could get the labels off easily since I was doing so many.  Plus, the lids needed to not stink after washing (so no pickle jars for me).

3.  Attach knob or drawer pull to lid with E6000 (can also use epoxy for quick-drying).  Note: knobs are not meant to be pulled on when opening.  To make them more sturdy, consider nailing a small nail through the lid and into the knob after attaching.

4.  Spray paint candlestick and lid with knob.  Spray lightly in multiple coats for the smoothest coverage.  Be sure to get in all the nooks and crannies.  Dry completely.

5.  Attach candlestick to bottom of jar using quick-dry epoxy or E6000.

6.  Add ribbon and tag.  Fill with candy, nuts, or other treats and treasures.

If you look closely, you’ll see that I used Double Bubble Gum for this project.  To create even more connection to the event, we took excerpts from the message of the evening and little tasks that we wanted the girls to do supporting the idea of their “Happily Ever After” and typed them out onto white paper.  We cut them into strips and had each girl wrap a piece of gum with a strip of paper, attaching one end with scotch tape to the gum then rolling it up and attaching it with another piece of tape.

The girls took their candy jars home that night and were encouraged to take one piece of candy each day, unwrap the task, do it or think about the message while they enjoyed their treat.  Our jars fit about 18 pieces of candy.  This was a great way to take the message home with them and reinforce the principles for over two weeks.  If you are giving these as a gift, consider wrapping each candy with a message of why you admire that person, favorite memories, or reasons why you love them.  Click on the image below to get a pdf of our messages.

If you are using the actual creating of these jars as an activity like we did, plan on having the knobs already attached to the lids and the candlesticks and lids pre-painted so they are dry.  You can have them clean their own jars if you want but we washed them ahead of time and soaked them to remove the labels.  The girls got to choose the type of jar they wanted and the color as well.  They also assembled their tags and tied the ribbon.  Finally, they wrapped each candy in a strip of paper.  Everyone was finished with theirs as well as completing the ones for absent girls within an hour.  We had them keep their jars with us and the next time they saw them it was looking so fabulous at the dinner a few weeks later.

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