The Reason for the Season

A week ago, last Sunday... I was feeling a little bit (OK, a lot) overwhelmed with 30 vinyl orders to do last week! Then with our church youth girls Christmas activity last Wednesday... I woke up last Monday (2 DAYS BEFORE THE ACTIVITY) with a "BRILLIANT IDEA" to make each girl (there are 30 girls) a plaque that went along with the theme of our activity... "Christ is the Reason for the Season." Oh boy... 60 orders to do this week! :-/ (30 of which had to be done in 48 hours!)
One of the people who had placed orders with me was one of my girls, Katie from church... she offered to help me... and I said the biggest help would be to watch DJ while I cut, routered and sanded wood! Since she is home schooled... this fit perfectly into her schedule! YEAY! I was able to cut, sand, router 65 pieces of wood for various projects...
Tuesday, I painted & varnished them...

then attached a white tile to the black Christ plaques... while another friend from church watched DJ most of the that day. THANKS LADIES! :)
Come Tuesday night after the church women's Christmas Dinner... I finished the first Christ plaque... and hated it! :( Being 11pm at night, I was exhausted and went to be sad!

I woke up the next morning... WEDNESDAY, the day of our activity... still not liking the design I made, and said... SELF, the activity is tonight, you do NOT have time to re-cut 30 vinyl designs, re-paint the wood (because after ripping the tile off, there would be residue and we didn't paint under the tile because we were putting a TILE ON IT! ...simply no time!!! I proceeded to complete about 10 of them with hope that it would grow on me... I sent a picture of this to a few people... all being very nice and saying it looked nice... but none said they LOVED it... and I certainly knew I didn't LOVE it.

Thank heaven DJ slept in until 9am that morning... I quickly began ripping the tiles off all those blocks with a screw driver...

Re-painting (2 coats), re-varnishing, re-designing and cutting a new vinyl design... (times 30). I had the infamous Madi T come over after school that day, along with one of my leaders to help tie bows on them while I applied the vinyl... this might not be the most amazing design ever... but I liked it a LOT more than the first attempt! :) And we got them done with a few hours to spare before the activity! YEAY!

I couldn't have done it with out your help Madi and Angela! THANK YOU! :)

Sometimes... simple is better!

Indiana Jones and Disney Land

I sold a vinyl sign to a nice lady back in California... and she asked me if I do custom work. Of course I said yes! :) Her family loves Disneyland... and asked me to do a quote from Indiana Jones. I thought it was clever and was excited to do the sign for her. Then I had to laugh when Don, my husband told me (a Disneyland Buff for sure) "This isn't a quote from Indiana Jones... it's on a plaque outside the ride for a 3rd party advertisement." (baffled at how in the World did Don know this, we Googled it... and sure enough...
here's the sign with the AT&T logo on it! teehee

It's still a great quote! :)

Vinyl Wall Art

I have recently done two wall vinyl designs... I can't say I came up with the Laundry Room one... I totally copied that one from a friend... but LOVE it! :) I did one for a friend here in my town... she says it helps her to be happier while doing the dreaded laundry for a household of 6! teehee
My mom liked it and came up with her own quote for her craft room in her home... darling!

Thanks Madi T... GO COUGS!

One of my girls from church has helped me a LOT with our recent church activities... which since they involve ME, they involve VINYL! :) Madi T... has been a HUGE help... this Little Miss Smarty Pants helped me to learn more about my vinyl software... which has SIMPLIFIED My Vinyl Life tremendously! THANKS MADI! To thank her, I told her that I'd make her a sign... and she could design it...
since she plans to attend BYU next year... this is what she came up with! ...DARLING! :)
This was the night she came to pick it up with Katie V! ...I LOVE that Katie and my little DJ have matching jeans on! :)
CUTE Picture! BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!

Name Plaques!

These are becoming very popular! :) I love doing them, they are fairly simple... and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE when I hear the kids say, "It matches my room!" (as if it magically happened without any hint from a mom or friend! teehee) Here are a few that I did recently... one with the soccerball on it was my first time doing a 2-layer (2-color) design... and it was FUN! :) The Gabby name plaque says "daughter of God" accross the front of it... she was one of my girls at church that moved away... we'll miss you Gabby!!!

Keeping busy this week!

I've made many of these 'Family Established' signs... and they've all been in black... a very popular color. I was asked this week to make one out of brown... and I chose a color very dark... "bittersweet chocolate" is the name of the brown paint color... but I think it looks great! :) I also made a few name plaques for a few girls... colors to match their bedrooms... then a glass block celebrating Grandmas!

Young Women in Excellence 2010

Toward the end of each year... we celebrate the accomplishments of the Young Women ages 12-18 at church... where they get to display and tell about all the things they've done through the year. This year, we made them each a glass jars with their names on them... with our theme: "Growing Strong in Courage"... with some flower-shaped sugar cookies. ADORABLE idea by one of my leaders! :) LOVE these girls! :)

Hubby Projects!

My husband found something super strange at his work when he started there about 2 years ago... they used this old, tape-wrapped 2x4 to hit a piece of their recycling machinery when it wouldn't work properly! A swift hit with this stick, made the machine return to do what it is supposed to! He found this to be strange and very disturbing! He said, if some thing's broken... we fix it! People told him... but this is how we've always done it! (they'd been using this stick to "fix" the machine for many years!) He had the machine repaired... then asked me to make this sign... WITH the stick attached! Pretty funny! :) The 2nd plaque is one I made for his office... they kinda go along with each other.

Tarver-Rendon Elementary School Fair

I participated in the 4th Grade Class fundraiser, their Holiday Fair at Tarver-Rendon Elementary School... and had a blast! Their school colors are royal blue and yellow... mascot - Roadrunners... Every Child a Winner! What a neat group of people... I had fun there! I made a few items in their school colors as well as some Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations...

Young Women Value Blocks

So being asked to be the Young Women President at church (for the girls ages 12-18)... was a big 'excuse' for getting a vinyl cutter... because there are soo many fun things you can do that would be super fun for the girls! (fun for me too! teehee) I've been wanting to do this Value Block project for a year... and with our big end of the year event coming up for Young Women, where they display all their accomplishments... what a PERFECT TIME to do this project! :)
In our Young Women's group, they have a Personal Progress program that is similar to the boy scouts getting their Eagle by the age of 18. The girls do service projects and other projects that have to do with each of our 8 values, which are: FAITH, DIVINE NATURE, INDIVIDUAL WORTH, KNOWLEDGE, CHOICE and ACCOUNTABILITY, GOOD WORKS, INTEGRITY and VIRTUE. Each value is assigned a color that they represent. I am super excited to have gotten these blocks done... so excited... they are stinkin' cute in my humble opinion! :)

BonBons and Lattes

I recently participated in a fair... where I had a booth displaying my vinyl items. The nice ladies in the booth next to me make darling pillow case dresses. I'll ask them for a picture of the dresses so I can post it on here... they are darling!

They ordered a custom vinyl sign for their business... fun story about them is that when they arrived at the fair, they had a different name for their business. Throughout that day, they decided to change their name to: "BonBons and Lattes Boutique". This came about from one of their husbands, teasing her (BonBon) about spending soo much time with her Latte... ADORABLE! :)

Psalms 144:1

A friend asked me to make this scripture into a sign for him. He used to serve in the military and this verse means a lot to him. I was super excited to do a sign in a color OTHER than black... since most everything I do is in black. Black looks great and is very popular, it was just nice to change things up a bit! I was worried about which color red to go with since there are a ga-zillion reds, but I'm excited at how this color red turned out.

A smile...

I wanted to make a sign for a friend... and asked her for a quote... she has this one in her high school yearbook... I LOVE THIS QUOTE! :)

BOLD Birth Fair in Ft Worth, Texas

I recently participated in the Bold Birth Fair in Ft Worth, Texas... these are some items I made for that show...
A 12" tile
A sign to hang the "most important things" on.
A Family Home Evening chart... this can also be made as a chore chart or whatever you'd like it to say.
Since this was a Birth Fair... here are several items relating to babies...

Princess in the making!

Dream, a wish your heart makes!

Here are some Halloweeny items...

Then, some random things...

Go away germs.... antibacterial gels!