Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Vinyl Projects~

Over the past couple of months, I've done a couple of vinyl projects for myself or friends that I wanted to share.
 
Wedding Tiles are always popular but I like how these have the first initial instead of the last name that you see all the time. I also like the simplicity of the date...and no 'Est.' in front of it.
Unless you've been living under a rock...you know that SUBWAY art is all the rage these days. Here are a couple of projects I've just recently done.
A good friend of mine is from San Francisco & wanted to surprise her parents with a large sign that had all the places they used to go in SF when they lived there. So she sent me the words & I imported the logos or fonts that matched the place, then put the board together. LOVE the way it turned out!!
Recently, 2 of the ladies who serve in YW with me JUST had babies. They were both 3rd babies so I REALLY wanted to do something special for them but different since they weren't really in NEED of baby stuff. I found the idea of baby subway art on Pinterest & thought it was DARLING!! Here is what I came up with for them.
Recently, 2 of the ladies who serve in YW with me JUST had babies. They were both 3rd babies so I REALLY wanted to do something special for them but different since they weren't really in NEED of baby stuff. I found the idea of baby subway art on Pinterest & thought it was DARLING!! Here is what I came up with for them.
When I was called as YW Pres, the YW closet had some value boards in there. I liked the idea of having a board with each value but the boards in the closet were old and needed a little face lift. So...to get ready for New Beginnings in January, I re-did all the boards. I'm proud to say that I modge-podged paper to the front of a wood board. I've NEVER MODGE PODGED BEFORE!! SO YAY FOR ME!! Then added the value in white vinyl & a small flower to match. I was really happy with how they turned out!
 
Every Christmas, I decorate my downstairs bathroom in lots of holly berries. I add hand towels, Christmas ribbon, & a Christmas soap dispenser. This year I also added this vinyl to our glass shower door. This vinyl makes it look like the glass has been etched but really its just a large vinyl applique. It is subtle but I think added the perfect final touch to the bathroom. 
  
Happy Crafting Everyone!!

Monday, February 25, 2013

"Tickled Pink" Baby Shower



A couple weekends ago, I had the chance to help out with a baby shower for cute little AMY EVANS. She is not only a friend, she serves in YW with me, & is my sons 2nd grade teacher. She is just a doll!! Love her! Was so excited when she announced that she was preggers with her first baby and even more excited when she announced it was a GIRL!! Poor thing...I called dibs on helping with her shower about 5 minutes after she posted the sex of the baby news on Facebook!
My house {filled with 4 boys}, is defiantly lacking in pink!! I get a little bit of a 'GIRLY' fix since I serve in YW but always love when I get a chance to let my girly side let loose.
 
Amy won't have a nursery quite yet, but had sent me pictures via Pinterest of the nurseries that she liked. All of which were in the colors of raspberry, watermelon & aqua blue. Here is the invite that I came up with to match those colors.
I'm kind of a theme girl. More for the sake of my sanity than for any other reason. As I plan a party, having a theme helps me organize my thoughts and pull it all together.
So for Amy's shower I came up with
"TICKLED PINK~IT'S A GIRL!"
I had cut put paper into flowers & butterflies & asked guests to write wishes, words of wisdom & advice on them & then hang on the wishing tree that greeted them in my foyer as they arrived.
Here is what it looked like at the end of the shower when it was full.
Here is a look at the gift table. My friend RACHEL BLASER made the adorable tutu banner. Didn't it turn our cute? and oh so girly!!
Here is a look at the serving table
 
~Pre Food~

 
~Post Food~
The LADY who did the food, is a friend of mine & also Amy's aunt.
The food was AH-MAY-ZING!! We are talking gourmet menu. It not only sounded good but tasted better! I'm not a fan of planning the food so I was happy that she took that portion of the shower over. Thanks Risa!!
 
 
 
 For drinks, we served 3 different types of *PINK* lemonade. I had also bought hot pink straws and made custom water bottles for the drinks {which were applied by my friend BRITTANY BARNARD}.
Misc. ACCENTS

For accents, I think it's ALL in the small details. So I  added coordinating scrapbook paper & ribbon to candles that I already had. I also bought bunches of flowers in different shades of pink from the dollar tree and then put them in Ball jars that I dyed blue. Yep!! I dyed Ball jars blue...who knew?!
Here are the ones that I did...
Here is the tutorial that I followed. It was actually REALLY simple to do!
I had found a couple of cute free printable online over at
that I just printed and framed in white frames.
 
I also made some pinwheels that we hung around the shower.
Of course we HAD to do a baby clothes line.

And FINALLY...the FAVORS!! 
 My GREAT friend, JAMIE PIEPER, put together Raspberry Vanilla Bath Salts for every guest to take as they left. They were pink...{of course}...and put them in empty baby food jars. DARLING!!
 
 
Everything about the shower turned out wonderful!! I have to say one more thank you to all the ladies who helped put this shower together: Brittany, Jamie, Risa, Amanda & Rachel (left before we took the picture). It was just FABULOUS and the perfect way to celebrate Amy & baby girl Evans!!

UPDATE: I am adding copies of the files that I used for signs, etc at the shower. To download, just right click on the image you want, then save to your computer.
Everyone is welcome to use it. Please, if you post to your blog/site, link the file back to my blog. Thanks!!
 


 
 
 

"Taste The Rainbow~Savor the Blessings" New Beginnings

The end of January we held our annual New Beginnings. This evening is held for the purpose to introduce the YW program & Personal Progress Program to the girls who are 11 turning 12 each year. This year our theme was
"TASTE THE RAINBOW & SAVOR THE BLESSINGS"
 
 
We've known for a LONG time that we wanted to do a "RAINBOW" theme for this evening after getting the idea for our evening from here~
Love that Marci Coombs and all of her FAB-U-LOUS ideas!!
So we stole the idea from her and gave it our own spin.
 
Here's what we came up with....


 Here is the invite that we made for each of our YW. We tied a rainbow unicorn sucker to each one. They turned out adorable & the girls loved getting an invite with a treat to eat!!
Below is a BLANK copy of the invite that you are welcome to download and use.
 


 
{a look at the front of the room}
Each YW value has a color...We wanted to introduce these values & Personal Progress program to the upcoming girls by talking about each value, it's color, what its color reminds us of and the blessings that we've experienced as we've worked on that value in doing the Personal Progress program.
We assigned the evening's program to our YW & may I just say they did a TREMENDOUS job!!
 
The program went like this...
YW THEME-YW
YW LOGO & MOTTO'S-YW
CLASS MEANINGS/LOGOS-CLASS PRESIDENTS
 
INTRODUCTION/WELCOME-YW Pres
 
INTRODUCTION & TESTIMONY OF PP PROGRAM-Laurels Class Pres
 
SPECIAL MUSICAL NUMBER-6 YW {2 from each class}
"I walk by Faith"
{there is a new version of this song that now includes 'VIRTUE' value in it}
 
VALUE PRESENTATION-1 leader & 7 YW
We had a 1 girl introduce each value. We gave them a simple script to go off of and asked them to elaborate with there experiences & testimony.
The script was "Hi my name is __________________. I've been asked to present the value of FAITH. The color for FAITH is White. 
To me that color represents __________________.
I have tasted of this value and savored in the blessings by
______________________________________________. 
GUESS WHO? SPOTLIGHT & INTRODUCTION OF 11 YR OLDS-2nd Councilor
(we presented each of these girls with a large rainbow sucker}
CLOSING REMARKS-BISHOP
 
This beautiful frame is my friend Terri's. She let me borrow it for my wedding I did in December & since then I've kind of hijacked it. :) I've used it MULTIPLE times & just LOVE IT!! I think I may need to buy her a new one and keep this one :)
The decorations were VERY easy and cheap. The back drops were created with colored crate paper streamers. The balloons we hung upside down so we didn't have to buy helium. I brought marbles to put in them before we blew them up to weigh they down but forgot to actually put them in the balloons. I would highly suggest that you DO use the marbles if you hang balloons this way. Ours hung OK, but kept sticking to each other because of static and I think the extra weight of the marble would've helped avoid that. We already had the colored table toppers in our closet. Can't get cheaper than crate paper and balloons.
Side Views
There were a couple things that I made new to decorate for the evening.
One was the value boards. We had these in our closet BUT they were old and icky from years of use. So I gave each value board a little face lift. They needed it!!
I also put together the small floral arrangements for each value color. Believe it or not..I already owned the vases (from my friend Emily's wedding I did last year) & I had ALL the flowers in my craft box, EXCEPT for the white ones & the gold (that I had to buy).  But making those were pretty cheap & easy! :)
 
In the back of the room we had the refreshment table & a candy table.
The candy table was what we had for the girls as their take home for the night.
Isn't this table darling. Thanks to my second councilor, JAMIE PIEPER, for putting it all together.
I made the pinwheels to go over the candy table. Super easy but time consuming. They make me happy!! But if I never make another pinwheel it will be too soon.
 
My cute secretary, RACHEL BLASER put together these buckets for the YW to put their candy in.  
 For the refreshments...We made rainbow cupcake & rainbow jello to serve. Both were a HUGE hit with the girls!! I can't take credit for either though. One of the advisers made all the cupcakes & My mom actually made the rainbow jello cups for me.
My adorable secretary also made the 2 pennant banners that we had in the value colors. We hung one on the front table & one on the refreshment table.
2 things that I'm a little OCD about are having the paper products & water bottle labels match. I know...no one else probably even notices but it's kind of a big deal to me.  We've had these cute rainbow napkins in our closet just waiting to be used for over a year. Don't they go just perfectly?
The whole evening went off with out a hitch!! Im grateful to all my AMAZING YW & the job they did on the program that night. Also to my AMAZING YW leaders and for their help pulling it all together. I am blessed!!
UPDATE: I AM ADDING the BLANK files that we used for this. You are welcome to download and use. Just right click on the image and save it to your computer. As always, if you post these images online, please just link it back to my blog.
 



Thanks!!