Be Our Guest

This is a very cute (and mostly free) project for your guests that may need a toiletry or two while staying at your house (Inspired by THIS). Before this project, I use to make fun of Grant all the time for taking the shampoos, conditioners, soaps, lotions, etc. from our hotel rooms. But now he’s calling me a hypocrite because I’m the first one to grab them when we’re there. I’ve created quite the collection, and now I have a great use for them, displayed in our extra bathroom for our guests to use as they need!

Aside from the free toiletries, you’ll need a cute jar to put them in and some vinyl for the “be our guest” quote. If you don’t stay at hotels, or haven’t accumulated enough of a stock pile, head down the travel-size aisle in Wal-Mart, Target, or the like, and stock up there.

I begged my sister to help me with the design. She has a little graphic design in her background, so I’m always bugging her for tips & suggestions. I’m pretty happy with the final layout. I uploaded this file to Google Drive. I used the fonts: ‘be our’ – Decker, and ‘Guest’ – Cantoni Pro.

As for the vinyl, I had a hard time deciding between white or black. In the end I went with white, personal preference.

Fill up the jar & place it strategically. Well, I guess only I need to place it strategically, because of my two little boys. I’d love to leave it on the counter by the sink, but I think I’ll have to leave it up high on the shelf where they can’t come close to touching it!

 

{what you need}
●Jar – I bought mine at Michaels (less then $5, with 40% off coupon)
●Vinyl – Black or White
●Fonts: ‘be our’ – Decker, ‘Guest’ – Cantoni Pro

 

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L week

We did L week a couple weeks before Christmas and the same week that we went to my little brother’s wedding. Needless to say it was a short L week, but I tried to get enough packed it. L is for Ladybug, Lights, Lamb, & Letters.

LADYBUG – (1) We started L week with a big letter L and traced it with his finger then put ladybug stickers on it. Once again, I made these stickers & made them 3 different sizes, for the next activity. (2) Using this paper with 3 leaf sizes, little G shorted the ladybugs on the corresponding leaves (big, medium, and small). (3) Using black paper & a hole punch, make a bunch of ladybug spots. Then using this ladybug counting page, add that many spots on each ladybug. (4) Ladybug snacks. I used mini leave cookie cutters and had them cut leaves from cheese & topped them with dried blueberries (the ladybugs). (5) Make ladybug rocks. Find random shaped rocks (or you can go for round rocks. Little G likes the long ones), paint them red, then draw a face & dots with a black marker.

 

LIGHTS – (1) We talked about all the different kinds of lights using this light page. He colored the lights & traced the Ls. (2) Using vinyl, I cut out uppercase ‘L’s on my silhouette and the boys went around to all the light switches in the house and put ‘L’s on them. (3) We did more light pages, including color by size, patterns, & color the ABC lights using scrabble letters to play the game. (I used this Christmas light font for that page) (4) Light search. I gave the boys head lamps & hid paper Christmas lights on the walls in their room & turned off the light. They loved using the headlamps to find them. (5) We put Christmas lights on their mini Christmas tree! A definite favorite of theirs! (6) candy Christmas lights treat. Very easy to make, and of course the kids are not going to turn down candy.

LAMB – (1) My little boys made lambs from their handprints (idea here). I traced their hands, little G cut out his hand (I cut out my 1.5 year olds) and then they added the glue & cotton balls. Cute little lambs! (2) I printed & laminated the L nursery rhyme HERE. He circled & counted all the L’s in the nursery rhyme ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’. (3) With a lamb stamp (from this Melissa & Doug set) little G stamped lambs in each square of a chart. My intention was to make patterns, but he had more fun mixing colors on the stamp pad and making cool looking lambs. (4) Read (or sing) Mary Had a Little Lamb. I love this book of Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose by Scott Gustafson, my boys made me read all of them after we read Mary Had a Little Lamb. (5) I made up these lamb pages. They include counting lambs, matching uppercase & lowercase lambs, coloring lambs, & coloring by size.

LETTERS – This wasn’t much of a preschool day. There is A LOT I could have done for ‘letters’ (like these) but we were leaving the next morning on a trip to my little brother’s wedding. I had little G help me with our Christmas cards/Letters and gave him some newly painted ABC magnets.

Magnet letters makeover {pinterest project}

This is a very simple DIY project and makes for quite the upgrade. You can get a pack of ABC magnets for about a dollar (I got mine at Wal-Mart for $.97) and a can of spray paint for $2-5 depending (I like Rust-Oleum 2X spray paint, for under $4 at Home Depot).

It’s pretty self explanatory, just lay the letters out and spray!

I also put a top coat of Rust-Oleum 2X Gloss Clear spray paint, to give them a little protection from the havoc my little boys are sure to bring upon them through!

Now I have ABC magnets that match my kitchen (not that you can tell from this picture, but my kitchen has a lot of turquoise & red!)

(This project was inspired by THIS PIN.)

Vista Computer Group – custom business logo sign

 

This is a custom business logo sign, with two paint colors (black & deep sea blue) and white vinyl. Measures about 6” x 14” x 1”.

DIY Vintage Christmas Shirts

This was a total last minute Christmas idea I had (the morning of Christmas eve!). But with a Silhouette machine, anything is possible ;-) To make these DIY vintage Christmas shirts, I started by googling ‘vintage Christmas sweaters’ to get some ideas -

Then I looked for ‘vintage Christmas silhouette’ images or just plain ol’ ‘Chrismas silhouette’ images. I found a few good ones and saved those in the Silhouette studio, traced them, and started designing my shirts, ie:

Luckily I only had to make four for all of us…they did take a while to design. After that, the silhouette cut them and I peeled (the worst part of all of it!). After the worst, came the best part – putting them on the shirts.

They turned out so stinkin’ fun!

 

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Grammy & Pop’s house–custom sign

Last sign out for Christmas delivery – “Grammy & Pop’s house”. 6.5” x 17” x 1”, White with medium grey vinyl. Made by Remembories.

Personalized Love Note home décor {wedding/anniversary gift}

My little brother recently got married and I decided to make them something really personalized. I snooped for some love notes they wrote each other while dating (okay, I asked him for them!). Something short & sweet. Really mushy sweet. These are what he sent me, perfect!

 

I started by importing them into the Silhouette Studio. Then I traced them and adjusted the layout, but only enough to fit them on an 8” x 8” board. I also used the “offset” function to make the letters a little thicker. I cut the love notes out of ’middle grey’ vinyl.

Then it was a matter of the boards for the signs. I cut 8” x 8” boards, sanded them, routered the edges, put keyholes in the back (for hanging) & painted them white. Once they were prepped and ready, I applied the vinyl. (There is also a third 8” x 8” block, reserved for a picture of the Bountiful temple in white vinyl with their anniversary date. My brother is still working on drawing the temple for me!)

I gave them to my newest sister-in-law at her bridal shower. They were a hit & unique to all the other gifts she received that night!

Plates for Santa’s cookies {family tradition}

This is a family tradition (started last year!) and I love it. When little G was 2 1/2 he made his first plate for Santa’s cookies, so there are lots of scribbles and cute little things to remember him by. We set the plate out with homemade Christmas cookies and in the morning, little G was impressed to see Santa came and ate his cookies!

Then the plates from previous years can be used as Christmas decorations, ours go on display on top of the cupboards. Adorable & extremely personalized decorations. Just my style!

(never mind the dead plant!!)
Also pictured-->family silhouette cut-out

{HOW TO}

First you need a plate (or more if you like to be prepared!). I bought our plates at the dollar store!

You’ll also need some ceramic paint pens &/or sharpies (the ones I used are actually just paint pens, “ideal for wood, glass, plastic, & metal”). I tried the “sharpie technique” but it wasn’t working…at all. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough for it to dry, or bake, or cool. Whatever it was, the sharpies washed off pretty easy. But, since we are just using them for decoration after the one night of cookies for Santa, I decided it didn’t really matter if they wash off easy or not!

Let the kiddos have at it! With our first plate (2012), my boys were too little to write, but now that little G is learning how to write, he can write ‘Santa’ and ‘Thanks’ along with some crazy, creative drawings by him and his brother.

 

Bake it if you want to try that. I haven’t had success with it, so I just leave it as is. Again, they are only used one night and then become decorations year after year. Pretty fun tradition!