Glittery Christmas Pillows

Christmas decorating is in full effect at our house.

I whipped up a few pillows today to help spruce up my living room.

A few weeks ago, I got an AH-mazing package of goodies from Tulip.

Check out my very first haul video.

You can see all the goodies that I received.

{do it quick or my eyes will probably stay like this!}

The one product I was most excited about was the fashion glitter shimmer transfer sheets.

I immediately thought I would make a vintage glittery Santa pillow

I noticed on the Tulip Shimmer Sheet directions that they could be used with most die cutters.

Challenge accepted!

{if you don't have a die cut machine, keep reading!  I have a tutorial for you too!}

I found an image I liked and made it into an image that I could cut in my Silhouette SD software.

I placed my tulip shimmer sheet on my silhouette cutting mat and started cutting.

Even setting the sheet on a slower double cut, the image didn't cut out completely.

BUT, it did make an easier image for me to use to cut on my own.

I cut my image out with small scissors and weeded out the parts that would leave me with the best silhouette image of my vintage Santa.

After I was done with that, I made a simple envelope pillow case.

I had a 16x16 pillow form that I picked up at a garage sale this summer for 50 cents.

With that in mind, I cut a long rectangle about 28x18.

I folded over the short ends and hemmed them down.

Once the ends were hemmed, I folded the pillow case to the measurements of the pillow, overlapping by about 3 inches.  Make sure your sewed end seems are on the outside.

I finished sewing the case by sewing both of the side seems together.

There you have it!

The inside of the envelope slip cover pillow.

Flip your pillow case inside out {or outside in...} and iron flat.

Place your cut image on the front of your pillow case and position it where you want it to stay forever and ever.

Cover with a thin cloth 

Heat dry iron to cotton setting and iron design in place for about 40 seconds.

There you have it!

A beautiful vintage looking glittery Santa pillow.

I realize that not everyone has a die cut machine so I also made a tutorial for how to make a design without a fancy machine.

I used a font that I liked and mirrored that image and then printed it out.

I used spray adhesive on the back of my printed page and adhered the printed page to the back slick side of the Tulip shimmer sheet.

I cut the image out with my small scissors

Once my image was cut, I peeled off the paper backing.

I followed the above envelope pillowcase tutorial using the measurements of a pillow form I bought at Goodwill for $1.

I placed my design on the pillow case, put a thin cloth over the top and ironed it in place for about a minute.

Viola!

A beautiful hand cut glittered Christmas pillow!

Aren't the tulip shimmer transfer sheets amazing?!

The possibilities are endless for not only amazing Christmas decor, but beautiful fabric gifts year round.

Much more Tulip inspiration can be found in Tulip's social media resources here:

Tulip

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

And if you need even more inspiration, go visit these amazing bloggers to see their projects!

I wrote this post as part of a paid campaign with Tulip and Blueprint social.  As always, the opinions in this post are 100% mine.  

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Sheet music Christmas tree tutorial {from cereal boxes!}

A few weeks ago, I participated in a craft bazaar.

These sheet music trees are one of the things that I brought with me that I got the most comments on.

These trees are the ultimate in recycling.

I used old cereal boxes for the base, and some vintage sheet music that I bought for next to nothing at an estate sale.  My favorite part about the sheet music is that it still had gold stars from good practicing!

You can make several different types of trees using this cone base.  

I made feather trees from an old boa, I made bead wrapped trees from silver tree trimmings, and I made paper wrapped trees.

Today, I'm going to show you how I used the cereal box cone to make my sheet music trees.

But first, a little tutorial on how to make the cone.

1. save old cereal boxes

2. cut the box open down one side

3. trim the box top and bottom

4. roll a cone (printed side on the inside) and tape with masking tape

5. trim the bottom to make sure the cone sits flat

Once you have your cone made, take out your sheet music.

Cut each piece into 3x2 rectangles.

I used about 4 sheets for each tree.

Once your sheet music is cut, roll each piece on a pencil.

Starting at the bottom of your cone, hot glue the curled paper on the bottom, making sure all of the cardboard is covered up as much as possible.

Make your second layer about a half an inch above your first layer and continue to glue the papers on making sure each paper is covering the cardboard cone.

Continue each layer until you are at the top.

That's it!

Make several and prop them on candlesticks, put them on your piano, or arrange them together to make your own sheet music forest.

Stay tuned on Wednesday to see what else I made with my sheet music.

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Do you shop Black Friday?

I don't know about you, but I have noticed this year that more and more households are decorating for Christmas early, stores were lining the shelves with Christmas decor in October and there was a huge hype over Black Friday sales, or in some cases, even being open for shopping on Thanksgiving day. As I was buying some bread at our local bread store the day before Thanksgiving, the woman at the register wished me a Happy Thanksgiving as a three foot tall Christmas tree glimmered behind her.  At least she hadn't totally forgotten about the one day a year that we set aside to take a moment and be thankful. But have you forgotten? Is our country forgetting? In the mad rush to get {not so great} Christmas deals on Black Friday please remember this image. Share the true spirit of Christmas and consider sponsoring a child through world vision, or fund a micro loan for a man or woman living in poverty who wants the opportunity to support their family. Believe me, your toddler won't remember the plastic toy that you got a screaming deal on as much as the child on the other side of the world will remember the warm meal in his belly. Think about it. Don't forget.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

From my home to yours! Happy Thanksgiving!

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Random Stuff Lately

I am starting to fall behind and sometimes I feel like I don't have anything to show for it.  

Mostly because I have been trying to build stock for the one craft bazaar a year that I do.

You can see what I brought with me to the craft bazaar here.

But alas, all it takes is a stroll through my current pictures to see that why yes, I have been doing a few things here and there.

I made this big sister shirt for one of my Sunday School students who was having a baby brother.

These 12 months of onesies went to the baby brother.
I am currently selling a limited amount of the onesie kits (just iron them on-no onesies included) for $25.
Let me know if you are interested.

Inspired by pinterest, a friend received a box of sunshine to brighten her day.

I happened to comment on a college friends facebook post about Hello Kitty birthday invitations, and was quickly wrangled in to make custom invitations for not just one friend....

but two!

Hello Kitty is a popular gal now!

It was really fun getting to see how far I have come with my Silhouette skills.

Remember my $115 each birthday invitations?

I learned a thing of two.

In keeping with tradition, the second annual Teodoro Turkey Trot is happening tomorrow!

What's a race without custom t-shirts?!

I made over two dozen shirts this year for the event.

And last but not least, I have made several amazing pinterest recipes.

This cucumber tomato feta salad is amazing!

You can find the recipe on the local kitchen blog.

I added olives and left out the basil.

So yummy!

My kids favorite after school snack are these pumpkin muffins. Two ingredients: a can of pumpkin and a box of yellow cake batter is all it takes. You can find the recipe on Sweet Verbena. So what have you been up to lately?

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Reindeer subway wall art

I know it's not even Christmas yet, but with craft bazaar's starting this month, I needed to amp up my holiday spirit and start making some Christmas crafts.

This Reindeer subway art is probably my favorite!

Remember the knock off Restoration Hardware subway art I made this summer using an old 70's canvas?

Well, I found another canvas in the garbage pile for FREE, and immediately knew I was going to make this reindeer names subway art.

I started off painting it.

It looks sort of black, but it's not.

It's a really cool steel grey.

Once the paint dried, I cut the names out of vinyl on my silhouette machine.

If you are looking to save money on vinyl {or other cheap Silhouette materials}, check out this post I did to find out what I use.

When I placed my recent vinyl order I didn't know I would have to buy transfer paper 

{you can see the last of my transfer paper pieced together for Prancer}, 

so I scrambled trying to find an alternative.

I read a few message boards and found that people have good luck with clear contact paper.

Guess where I got mine at?

The Dollar Store.

You can read about my love of the Dollar Store {and what not to buy} here.

I had my engineer husband do some math for me and he helped me lay out the names with the proper spacing between them.

Helps to have someone around who likes to do math.

Once I transferred the names over, this is what we had.

I didn't have red vinyl, but I did have red cardstock.

I cut out the "O" for Rudolph out of my red paper and used spray adhesive to stick it to the board.

I'm sure there is a better way, that's my easy lazy way.

It worked.

It got lots of "oohs" and "ahhs" at the craft fair but no buyers.

I wouldn't be sad if I had to keep it.

I kind of love it myself.

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