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Dress up mylar balloons with vinyl designs (Silhouette CAMEO) - Choose To Thrive

Graduation. End of the year.

It’s almost here.

Time for teacher appreciation gifts, commencement bouquets and graduation parties.

** Cue dollar store décor–that blessedly cheap haven of all things seasonal.**

Well, seasonal and completely generic.

Or not ….

I figured if I only had a few bucks to throw towards celebrating I might as well jazz it up using vinyl scraps and my Silhouette CAMEO.

Didn’t know you could dress up balloons?

Yup. You totally can.

And if you’re going to bust out the Silhouette, how cool would it look to have those balloons decked out in your grad’s mascot? Or name? Or both?

Graduation could look like this:

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Or this:

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Or this:

Dress up mylar balloons with vinyl designs (Silhouette CAMEO) - Choose To Thrive

And celebrating that college acceptance letter could look like this:

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Lots and lots of possibilities. Lots.

Add vinyl to mylar balloons.7

Two words, people: mass rad.

You can import the school mascot/logo into your Silhouette library and trace the design or use a shape from the Silhouette store. Wording is simple using the free download font Collegiate Bold.

Application is straight forward, but here’s a quick video on how not to pop the dang things.

And while you’ve got the CAMEO out, why not use up a few more scraps to customize some snazzy dollar store gifts to match?

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Cute, customized and crazy cheap.

Me likey.

Congrats class of 2013!

As I mentioned in my last post, me and my kiddos are excited to share what we’re going to BAKE, MAKE, DECORATE and also SHOP this holiday season. This week we’re in DECORATE Land and, true to my word, I’m letting the kids call the shots. 

And I gotta admit … it’s tough.

Why?

Is it because I’ve got some awesome ideas on my Pinterest boards?

Sure.

And because I’m pretty crafty and I’ve been planning for months to make stuff?

Yup.

But when I’m really honest I’ll tell you that I want my house to look awesome-wonderful-color coordinated-festive-wow-she’s-amazing-even-though-they’re poor when my friends come over because it helps my self esteem. Letting go of that part of my vanity in favor of letting my kids find their own magic was harder than I thought.

But this ‘kids in charge’ thing has been awesome.


I drug out the Christmas bins over Thanksgiving weekend and sat the kids down to make a plan.

Plan? What’s a plan, mom?

They just wanted to go nuts and start throwing things up. And I almost ruined the whole dang thing by insisting on them planning their spontaneous holiday decorating. When I finally got out of the way and let them welcome Christmas on their own terms, I had the funnest night in a long time.

And so the kids claimed my for-the-entry-way-only mini trees and hauled them down to their rooms. And decorated the heck out of them. And added gobbs and gobbs of extra colored lights. And they were so stinkin’ proud of how they turned out.

See?

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And they insisted on using every ornament – every.single.one —on the tree in the living room. I think some potted poinsettias, candy cane pens, a glitter tree headband and wooden power lines from my son’s model railroad also made it on there, too.

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Even the old-metal-hanger-tinsel-star that Mr. Thrive and I made after we got back from our honeymoon wound up on the tree, too.

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Haven’t seen that thing in forever. Does seem oddly appropriate, though.

And after a solid hour of Christmas music, the kids were in the mood for something a little more upbeat from mom’s playlist. Done. And man did these kids have a blast rocking out and decorating away to 2012’s newest holiday anthem: Gangnam Style.

When they were all done, our Christmas tree looked like this:

Christmas Decorating Gangnam Style - choosetothrive.blogspot.com

A department store “Holiday Dream Tree” this is not.

And my kids’ lovely décor will never, ever make the rounds on Pinterest. As a blogger, that should be a big no-no.

But six kiddos giggled and laughed and rode air horses late into the night while this happy momma snapped pics and finally let go again of that reoccurring feeling of sadness for what I can’t give them. What we can create together as a family is more than enough and I’ve got the pictures and video to remind me when I forget again.

There’s been lots of glue gun action and sewing over the weekend as my kids had fun bossing mom around.

Christmas Decorating Gangnam Style - choosetothrive.blogspot.com

We’ve even got a new holiday playlist on iTunes that we’ve been rocking out to … more Gangnam Style, The Piano Guys, Justin Bieber, the Gummy Bear song and even some Jingle Bell Rock. The rest of this week I’ll be posting the fun projects that we made together to decorate our entryway, faux mantel, tree and walls. Bring on the cardboard, hangers, and repurposed old t-shirt goodness … Gangnam style, of course.

Hey everyone! The Christmas season officially starts in t-minus 48 hours. Christmas is only a few weeks away.

Holy cow. Time to get chopping.

I’m sharing the quick and dirty version our Christmas game plan below for everyone who’s making the most of their holiday budgets this year.

I’m also excited to announce that the THRIVE shop is now open for those of you looking for holiday vinyl, including last year’s Christmas subway art that was crazy popular.

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(Christmas subway art is on pg. 2 of the shop listings)

Shipping is F-R-E-E on everything!

If you order by Monday, November 26th, your order should arrive by December 1st.

To celebrate, I’m giving away THREE ITEMS from the THRIVE shop!

Check out the shop and leave a comment below with what you’d like. That’s it. Drawing closes Monday, November 26th at 8 pm MST.

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Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!

Remember that girls’ tights tutorial from last year?

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Well I’ve had several questions from viewers about trying variations of this project and had a chance to film a video how-to with Megan from Brassy Apple over at MyCraftChannel.com.

I hope you’ll stop by and check out the video version as well as the other great episodes on MyCraftChannel.com.

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If you like this project, please take a minute and share it on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest! Thank you!