Category

Vinyl

Category

(This is part 3 of Thrive’s DECORATE series. Click here for the previous posts of our Christmas tree – Gangnam Style and tree skirt from a girls dress.)

Kids Christmas Refrigerator Advent - choose-to-thrive.com

How many of you grew up with Christmas advent calendars?

I did. This was mine.

Refrigerator Advent.9

My mom made this when I was little and it is such a special part of my Christmas memories. After 30+ years it’s starting to show it’s age, though, so my sister has started extensive felt renovations. 🙂 When my kids saw the pictures of her progress, my kids immediately wanted one of their own. Sewing something like this isn’t hard—in fact my dear friend Becky just made the cutest one for her kiddos here.

But I’m waist deep in other sewing projects … and I already had the Silhouette out … and I just happened to have some scrap vinyl laying around … so we compromised.

SONY DSC

It only took a few minutes to cut out a mix of designs from the Silhouette store and tracings from my mom’s calendar.

(I love that my Silhouette can trace any shape! And no, this isn’t a sponsored post.)

And then my kids went nuts putting up “stickers” all over the frig marking out the way to Bethlehem.

SONY DSC

All the shapes were applied straight to the frig, but I wanted Mary and Joseph to be moveable.

I ended up cutting two different shapes: one for the journey and one for the manger.

Kids Christmas Refrigerator Advent - choose-to-thrive.com

I applied them to some white craft foam, but cardstock would work fine, too.

Add some dollar store magnetic strips and voila! …

Kids Christmas Refrigerator Advent - choose-to-thrive.com

… Mary, Joseph and the donkey to move along the path each day …

Kids Christmas Refrigerator Advent - choose-to-thrive.com

… and the holy family for the manger.

Kids Christmas Refrigerator Advent - choose-to-thrive.com

No Silhouette machine?

No problem!

You could easily make something like this using contact paper, cardstock, whatever. Just add some magnets and go to town. Rock what ya got!

So …

Give it a shot – you’re kids will love this!

And if you make one, I’d love to see it! Shoot me an email, leave a comment below, tag me on Facebook or share it on twitter.

We’re off to move our Mary & Joseph out of Nazareth and on the road to Bethlehem … good night!

SONY DSC

door.2

And…. we’re back.

It’s so nice to dust off the ‘ol blog and get back to crafting, creating and remodeling. Or rather, it’s nice to attempt to do that.


Sheesh. Where do I even start?

In the midst of taking a break from blogging to deal with an interesting start to the year, work on the house has been plodding along slowly.

Our entry way is miserably small and has always bugged me. So coming up with a punch list of projects was easy: 1) repaint the front door; 2) fix the giant hole in the drywall from the kids’ infamous sledding-down-the-stairs-in-sleeping bags-and-crashing-into-the-wall-repeatedly stunt; and 3) do something with the floor.

The first step seemed easy enough – repaint the door.

Here’s what we started with before we started painting the upstairs grey—boring, scuffed up white.

100_3425

But then I was stupid.

Somewhere, someplace, someone told me that spray painting a door was much easier than using a roller. So I primed the door with spray-on primer and made a huge mess everywhere.

100_3743

Oh, and it stunk like crazy since spray painting inside—even with good ventilation—is always a bad idea. At the time I didn’t care since I had big, big plans for the floor and thankfully the kids weren’t home to be around the fumes.  But man was it a mess … and my trigger control was a little iffy so the primer ran in places … and it left a weird grainy texture which meant extra sanding to even everything out. Yup-much easier.

For the actual color, I had seen this grey/red combo on the paint swatch card we had for the living room wall paint and loved it. Plus, I think I was still missing my red walls a little.

DSC03418

I watched the local paint recycling center for a few weeks hoping red paint would show up, but no deal. So when I found the perfect color in a spray can …

DSC03405

… I was stupid again …  and rationalized that spending money on spray paint wasn’t as bad as buying a gallon of house paint … and told myself that I would just be ‘more careful’ with the trigger control this time … and drastically underestimated just how far spray paint can travel in a confined space … and made an even bigger mess. Plus the irony of using a paint+primer or a primer nightmare did not escape me.

Stupid woman.

I loved the color, but it never looked great.  The coverage was splotchy and after four coats and three full cans, I gave up. I’m sure you spray paint ninjas out there could have nailed this, but the door looked terrible—so terrible that I apparently never took pictures. Oops. Let’s just pretend it looked like this, okay?

100_7542-2

Actually, that’s fairly close.

At this point I could have just admitted that I’d screwed up,  gone back to the store, figured out a way to buy some red paint to roll over top and everything would have been fine. But I realized that I really didn’t like the red after all … and worse still, I didn’t have a clue what color I did want instead. And there was no way that I was going to cheat and spend/waste money on paint again until I knew exactly what I was doing.

And so I just left my hot mess of a front door like that for six months. Mr. Thrive was so happy.

I finally decided that brown was the winner after looking at pictures of curtains for the living room. Come February, we set aside a little tax money for repairs around the house  and I was so excited to actually be able to go buy paint that was in a color I got to choose and finally finish the front door. So I marched down to Lowe’s and grabbed some brown paint and couldn’t roller the new color on fast enough.  It was sad people, but I did an honest-to-goodness fist pump at the register as the clerk rang up more than just tape and glue.

Two coats later + lots of sanding/taping/painting the trim …

100_7542-1

… I have a front door that I LOVE + plenty of left over paint for some other projects in the kitchen.

DSC03445

(I’m thinking I need to get rid of those ugly brass nobs like I did here. Maybe in a brushed nickel or platinum finish …?)

And because I’m a Silhouette nerd with an affinity for vinyl, I couldn’t wait to put one of my favorite sayings on the inside of the door, too.

DSC03421

Ahhhhh. Much better.

So, what have we learned?

Do not – I repeat – do not use spray paint for interior doors that are still hanging.

Unless you’re a spray paint ninja.

But then only a really high, top-level spray paint ninja at that.

Smooth, foam rollers are much, much easier to use and will save you a ton of headaches and time.

Anyway, one entry way project down, two to go.

And do you see that little bit of check board goodness on the floor peeking through?

Yeah … that’s been a peach of a project. Stay tuned.

So here you go … the final entry in my front door choices.

c.hearts

Super simple vinyl hearts + lettering to match my favorite Valentine’s Candy.


And since I liked the minimalist candy look, I skipped adding any kind of wreath or other embellishment.

100_7422

Simple candy heart goodness.

I simply cut four 5×5.5” hearts in different colors on my Silhouette and then added the lipstick pink letters over top.

No Silhouette?

No problem. This design would be a cinch to hand cut  out of vinyl or contact paper and add scrapbook or crafting stickers for the text.

100_7419

This would also be fun on a board for inside the house so you could reuse it.

100_7417

So, now it’s your turn.

Let me know which of my four designs should be on the door through Valentine’s Day: 1 – Neutral; 2 – Red; 3 – Primitive; or 4 – Conversation Hearts.

I’ll randomly pick on of the commenters to receive a Valentine’s day good pack from THRIVE. Voting closed tomorrow, January 31st at 8 pm MST so that I can hurry and get the prize in the mail.  Edited to add:

Congratulations Nydia!

RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service - Mozilla Firefox 212012 15541 PM

(Leave a comment with your email if you’d like a free copy of the Silhouette file.)

You asked and now it’s here – Christmas subway art submitted with words chosen by you awesome THRIVE readers! 

Several of you who emailed me about the Thanksgiving design were disappointed when it sold out so quickly. I’m not a professional vinyl lady and am limited by the amount of time and materials I can cut. So when I got emails asking for a Christmas design, I asked my awesome neighbor Heidi to handle the cutting and shipping for me. That way I can work on more no-cost holiday projects to share with all of you – deal?

Here’s what we came up with using the suggestions submitted on THRIVE’s facebook page.

christmas subway art on canvas

I love it! You guys picked the best, most fitting words to describe the season!

The picture above is vinyl on red painted canvas, but you can apply it to a board or wall. And to accommodate the reader requests for different sizes/colors, here’s what’s available: 8”x10” – $8.00, 12” x 14” – $10.00, 16”x20” – $14.00. You can pick the color when ordering HERE.

And as always, I’m all about the freebies and rockin-what-ya-got, too.

You can download a free printable 5”x7” of either version below.

November 2011 BLOG-13

Red background with white text HERE –or- White with red letters HERE 

So there you go!

Have fun picking the perfect vinyl design color for your home or enjoying the awesome free version in a frame.

I hope this helps bring a little bit of the magic of the season to your home!

 

100_5473

Where were we?

Oh that’s right … the naked wall under my Chevron wreath.

100_5381

My favorite, favorite quote/phrase/scripture for Thanksgiving is the 100 Psalm and I knew I wanted to have that displayed somewhere in my home. The words are so beautiful:

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves;

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise:

be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

I thought about making a plaque with wording, but decided to apply the vinyl right to the wall since it won’t damage the paint and can easily be changed for Christmas. I planned on using all white vinyl, but my awesome neighbor had this beautiful copper/bronzy vinyl that she hooked me up with that I am smitten with.

Here’s how it turned out:

100_5464

I love how the colors work together with the Chevron Wreath and the way the copper vinyl glows as the sun streams into the room.

100_5462

(Love the still unfinished trim work in the living room, eh?)

Have you ever tried using two shades of vinyl on your projects?

I hadn’t.

I cut the whole scripture in white vinyl first and then removed the letters I wanted to display in copper.

100_5387

The I recut a few of the words from the copper scrap …

100_5384

… and carefully applied them to the wall.

100_5477

100_5474

100_5480

And just like that, one of my favorite scriptures came to life on my wall.

And as I sit here typing this, I can’t help smile at my view:

100_5392

Now I realize that a lot of you don’t have Silhouettes so having a bunch of these projects can get frustrating. So … to make this project assessable to everyone and keep a Rock What Ya Got vibe, I’ve created several versions of this scripture in different formats so you can pick the one that works for you.

Option A: FREE COPIES

(yeah FREE!)

Silhouette users: email me at choosetothriveblog at gmail dot com and I’ll send you the file to cut your own. This should save you a couple hours of formatting and/or paying for a designs for the Silhouette store. A little tip here: weed slowly.

Silhouette Studio thanksgiving.studio 1142011 102619 AM.bmp

Non-Silhouette users: below are printable 8”x10” and 5”x7” versions that you can easily print out and pop into a frame you already have for a similar look.

8” x 10” Printable: Download HERE

thanksgiving.printable.pdf - Adobe Reader 1142011 114211 AM.bmp

5”x7” version: download HERE

5x7.thanksgiving.printable.pdf - Adobe Reader 1142011 114203 AM.bmp

Option B: Order Choices – SOLD OUT

1) If you need vinyl, my neighbor has kits for enough white and copper vinyl for this 12”x24” design for dirt cheap: $5. That way you don’t have to order a full role for a color like copper that you may only want a little piece of.

2) If you’d like to purchase a ready-made 12” x 24” version, I will cut a small number of these for $15 since they take quite awhile to feed and prep for application on a wall or board.

Again, email me if you’re interested.

100_5418

So there you go …

lots of options for a beautiful reminder of this season of thanksgiving.

Linking up to:

Skip To My LouCraft-O-ManiacC.R.A.F.T. *  Stories of AtoZ, Tip JunkieSugar BeeToday’s Creative BlogSassy SitesMy Uncommon Slice of Suburbia * Someday CraftsLil LunaWe Are That FamilyBlue Cricket DesignsThe Thrifty Home, * House of Hepworths, *Tidy MomWhipperberryKojo DesignsChic On A Shoestring, Momma’s Kinda Crafty, *Tatertots & Jello, Be Different Act NormalFunky Junk Interiors * I Heart NaptimeUnder The Table and Dreaming