I’m sorry there wasn’t a blog last week. And there won’t be for a few more weeks. I am taking a break to address some health concerns. Hopefully, the break won’t be long.

Thanks for your support!!!
Lu

Well, I got some markers at a good price; and have not done anything with them since I bought them. Then, yesterday this came in the mail!!

I really like this magazine; and signed up to get a year’s worth on HSN a year ago. It was about $20.00 for each magazine and I think I got 4. The kick to it is that you got a CD full of images and papers, a tutorial CD, a stamp set, a die set and an embossing folder each time.

I’m always excited to do the projects in the magazine because you get all the images with it so you can reproduce everything exactly. Well, if you are as good at the tools as they are!! This time I love the flowers and the peacock on the front and wanted to try that immediately!!

So, here are my first tries; not so good. My first try was on normal, kind of light weight cardstock.  I used a normal, black ink pad. You can tell that it didn’t work well. The markers went all the way through the paper and the blending smeared everything!!

Then, I remembered that I had bought some paper that was special for the markers. Attempt two. I started with the normal ink pad but then, remembered hearing somewhere that you need to use a different ink. I had an old StazOn pad and tried that. The markers still went all the way through. And the ink still smeared.

Looks like I need to watch some tutorials!!! We all have those things that just don’t work the first time; and a little knowledge might help us do them better!!! Never be afraid to try something new! Not doing it completely to your satisfaction the first time opens the door to learn!!! I’ll let you know how my learning goes!

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I told you that I was doing some things for a wedding and I thought that you’d like to see.  I had the Cricut write and cut everything!  The shape for this one was a Celebrate sign on the Cricut software.

These are double sided signs that are going in the centerpieces.  They read great in person but not so good in the photo. And yes I caught the spelling error and redid!

This sign is for the food table.  The bride brought me the frame and I made the sign to fit. It is just paper but looks really nice in the frame.

These are going on the thank you bags. Yes there is a red, white and black theme!

I’m so glad that the bride likes everything!!!  We did a few more things that I will post next week!

Headed to Utah to a funeral, planning on picking up some more fun stuff!!  Come back soon!!!!

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So, here are the rest of the wedding things. Again, I had the Cricut do as much as I could. On the invitations I used Word and printed them.

This is a sign that they are putting on the road to help people find the venue; we did 3 of these.  This is obviously a second marriage for each of them!!

Because this is a second marriage they wanted to remember those that have passed on.  The bride found this saying and she is going to put pictures on the sides. This was an 11″ x 14″ sign they are putting on a table.

This is the invitation. We had to have the printing done with our inkjet printer because I couldn’t get it to work right on the Cricut.  Then, you can see that we put it on black paper and decorated it!  This is a small one, we did 20 of these. Then, we also did a couple that were 8.5″ x 11″ that they posted in their church meeting houses.

Thanks for taking time to stop by!!!!

P.S. We went to Utah last week, so more new fun stuff coming soon!!!

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I told you all last week that I was working on some things for a wedding. So, I thought I’d show you one of the things.

This is a wood frame I bought from the clearance section at my local hobby store. I have cut a lot of vinyl, but haven’t applied it to the wood myself before; so, this was a new thing for me. I have previously cut the vinyl at work and the other people have applied it; and they always use a sealer over it. I didn’t want to use a sealer if I didn’t need to. I’ve watched some how to’s and decided just to try it. The board looks like it is kind of white washed and feels chalky, but that didn’t stop me! I like the look of the frame and the base board. I felt like adding a sealer would change the look.

I typed in, chose a font, sized and cut out the saying in Cricut Design Space. I used Cricut Permanant vinyl because it was on sale this week. Then I weeded. It was a little harder to weed than some other brands I’ve used, but I got it weeded okay.

Now to get the transfer tape on without bubbles. This design is 9.5″ x 16.5″ so it was a large area to cover straight. Steve helped and we got that done.

Next step was to get it on the board! Once we had it straight and centered, getting it down again without bubbles is the trick. I’ve done this on things before, but nothing of this size. But with Steve’s help we got it down!

Let the braising begin!! I knew it could be harder because the finish on the wood was not very smooth or thick. So, I pushed hard and long! It’s hard to tell if you have this step done enough.  Then we started to peel the transfer tape. When it came off the board white, we got a little worried. We had several places where the lettering was coming with the transfer tape. I put back and braised again each time. Some of them I had to pick off the transfer tape with my fingernail and then peel. At this point I was pretty sure we were going to need a sealer.

Once we got it all off the transfer tape and on the board I used my hair dryer to warm the lettering up and took the liner sheet and braised it all again really well. We decided to let it set over night and see what happened.

The next morning when I checked it, almost everything was stuck to the board well except the first letter. I wondered what to do to fix just that one spot. I finally decided to use some wood glue I had and see if that would fix it, if not a sealer was the next choice.

It worked Great!!! I just brushed a little on the part of the letter that wasn’t stuck and carefully put it back down. Again I left it overnight. It is all sticking great now!! And I’m so glad because I have 3 more frames that I want to do something on!!

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