Sharpie Marker Easter Plate

Do you remember me sharing on Instagram that I keep some designs that would normally be weeded out on transfer paper until I can use them in another project? Well, that is what I did with this bunny.

It is time to try the hot trend of a Sharpie Marker on a dollar store dish...again. I have tried this over and over again and all those claims of the dishes being dishwasher safe and the marker is permanent ~ well, that has never been the case for me. Just using dish soap and water has always taken the Sharpie marker off. Here goes another attempt.

I used the bunny silhouette saved from my Peter Cottontail burlap decor piece to create this plate. Originally I was going to use a couple different colors but ultimately decided to go with straight black on white. Remember, the dollar store dishes {or cheaper dishes from Wal-Mart and other stores} will work best because the glaze on them is thinner and will help in the baking process.

Use rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball, wipe down the dish to clean and remove any dust or oils.

Because this image used a pom-pom for the tail I had to improvise and find something to create a tail. Lady A loves stickers and we have a few of these sticker packets on hand for her. So I used one that  looked like it was the right size...and am pretty pleased with myself for my quick improvisation.

Now take the Sharpie marker and start dotting around the image.

Bake the dish in the oven by placing it on a cookie tray. With your dish in the oven set it to 425 degrees, once the temperature is reached bake it for 30 minutes. Let the oven cool and prop the oven door open with the dish still in it. 

Letting the dish warm up and cool down with the oven will help to keep the shock of the temperature changes from cracking the dishes. One of the perks is that the paper stickers on the bottom of the dishes were baked off so I didn't have to put any effort into removing them.

I love how this turned out! It will be fun to bring it out year after year and remind us of this time in our lives, as we wait for Lady #2 to join our family, as our lives change with Paul graduating and we get ready to move. We have a lot going on this Spring.

***MY IMAGE STAYED AFTER WASHING***

I attribute it mostly to the higher baking temperature, every tutorial I read said to bake at 350. It should also be noted by washing I mean with warm water, a washcloth and soap and no scrubbing ~ just lightly going over the surface to wash it off.

Tips from this project:

• Rubbing alcohol will help the marker make better contact to the dish.
• I called Sharpie and they do not recommend using dishes with this Sharpie technique for food or drink. The markers are not food safe according to the USDA.
• An acrylic spray can be used to cover the dish and will help keep the images from fading or washing away {remember not to use the dish for food with an acrylic coating}.

Check out my Peter Cottontail  post for the Silhouette Studio file where you can find this bunny.

Some Bunny Loves You ~ Easter Thank Yous

It has been some time since I last posted. While I have still been working on projects it is blogging about them and sharing with all of you that has suffered. I am telling you, this little girl needs to get here quick, these last few weeks have not been enjoyable at all....and I would really like to get back to sleeping in my bed instead of the recliner.

That is enough about that ~ onto the fun Easter Projects I have been working on.

This one is a little 'Thank  You' for Lady A's nursery teachers. They have been so great! She loves showing us her pictures and getting us to sing the songs she has learned, I think it is because she mostly likes the hand actions that go along with them. Her teachers were also very patient with her as we went through potty training. I would not say she was difficult but she did have one or two accidents and it was hard to get her to sit up on those monster sized toilets at the church.

These were super cheap to make and even if you made more of them, say for the moms in a reading group, they would still be very reasonable.

Supplies:

Glass Jars $1 at Target

Two PDF downloads from here

Hot glue

Buttons from my stash {optional}

Pom-Pom {two sizes} from my stash

Jelly Beans {$2}

Twine/ribbon

I found the easiest way to clean the labels of of these jars is to let them soak in hot water. Give it about ten minutes then the label will just rub right off. Make sure they have time to dry before placing the candy inside and assembling the bunnies.

Cut out the ears and tag {I used an EKSuccess punch to give a little style to the tag}. If you have a scrap piece of white felt on hand you could also use the print out as a pattern and cut the ears out of the felt to make them soft and fuzzy. I tried having Lady A color some pink inside the ears but that turned in to a disaster so we just went with white.

Hot glue the small pom-pom to the front neck of the jar for the nose and the large on to the bottom back for the tail. Hot glue the eyes above the nose on the neck of the jar {optional}.

If you do paper ears, fill the jar with treats first, then hold the base of the ears down into the jar a bit and place the cork. This will keep the ears in place and won't require any gluing. 

Now take some ribbon or twine and tie the 'Some Bunny Loves You' tag around the jar. 

TaDa!!! Cute and simple. 

I like to reuse cute little jars like this and so that is why I choose to use hot glue. If the ladies wanted to they could easily remove the pom-poms and eyes and save the jar. 

If you leave the bunnies out you might come to find that the jelly beans will start to disappear so be sure to stash them away until it's time to give them away.

I did one with eyes and one without so you could see how they both look. Myself, I think I like without.

Star Burst Crochet Stitch Blankie

Lady A has a blankie that she absolutely loves. This thing has been all over with us and the white yarn is more of a gray color now. I made her a new one but it was the wrong type of yarn, she used it a couple times but doesn't really cuddle with it like she does the original.

I found this Star Burst pattern on pinterest, loved it and so I wanted to give it a try. The stitch came from the 'Handbook of Crochet Stitches' by Betty Barnden. A very reasonable price for a book of 200 stitches. To make the stitches a bit more loose I used a hook one size larger than the suggested hook on the yarn packaging. I simply repeated the stitch until it was the width I wanted and just kept going, row after row, until it was done. Because I wanted the scallop to frame the entire blankie, once I finished the last row, I continued doing the same stitch pattern around the entire piece.

As I was going along with the stitch I noticed how similar this stitch was looking to one I had designed. I will share my stitch with you but you will have to get the handbook if you want the Star Burst stitch that I used for Lady A's blankie.

I got the yarn type right this time but it is super thick compared to her favorite one. Great for cuddling and keeping warm. Now I think I will move onto making one for the summer, a simple one that she can wrap around her like a shall or scarf, the same way she uses the one she has now.

Items needed for this project:
'Handbook of Crochet Stitches' by Betty Barnden
Hook I/9-5.50MM
Scissors
Colors used for this blanket.
White
Sunshine
Pistachio
Grey Heather
{I used one 6oz. skein of each}

Half Shell Stitch

Key:

CH ~ chain

ST ~ stitch

SC ~ single crochet

DC ~ double crochet

TOG ~ together (this is done like a decrease stitch but with more than just two stitches)

{} ~ from precious row

* ~ repeat

Foundation: ch st in multiples of 4, +1

Row 1: Skip 2 CH, *5 DC in next CH, skip 1 CH, 1 SC in next CH, skip 1 CH* end with 1 SC in last st, turn.

Row 2: 3 CH, skip SC, 2 DC TOG, * 2 CH, 1 SC in next DC {center of 5 dc}, 1 CH, 5 DC TOG {over 2 dc, 1 sc, 2 dc}* end 3 DC TOG {2 dc, 1 ch}, turn.

Row 3: 4 CH, 2 DC {in top of 3 dc tog}, *skip 1 CH, 1 SC {in sc}, 5 DC {top of 5 dc tog},* end 3 DC {top of 2 dc tog}.

Row 4: 2 CH, skip DC, *5 DC TOG {2 dc, 1 sc, 2 dc}, 2 CH, 1 DC {center of 5 dc}, 1 CH,* end 1 SC {in 4th of 4 ch}, turn.

Row 5: 1 CH, skip SC *skip 2 CH, 5 DC {top of 5 dc tog}, skip 1 CH, 1 SC {in sc},* end SC {first of 2 ch}.

Repeat row 2-5

Hunter's Fight

Digital Download Fundraiser!

My husbands cousin, Hunter, is a young man {14 years old} who loves his family and being a brother to an older and younger sister and one younger brother. He is very spirited and enjoys to play games and play jokes on people. At eighteen months old his Dr.'s diagnosed him with Cystic Fibrosis Pancreatitis, that causes him daily pain. He had to have a Total Pancreatectomy with Auto Islet Transplant, in short, that means a full day of surgeries. Check out his page on FaceBook to read more about his story.

Hunter and his mom have been in Minnesota for over a month while Hunter had surgery and has been recovering. It has been a long road to recover, others have come and gone for the same surgery, meanwhile, he has had multiple other surgeries do to complications. The surgery takes a year to recover and the family needs to raise money for medical expenses.

Hunters' family is at home in Utah doing what they can to help lift some of the financial burden for Hunters parents. Because we are in Connecticut we haven't been able to participate in the fundraiser dinners, benefit concerts or other activities so I have come up with another way for us to help. For St. Patrick's Day I have designed cupcake toppers that you can purchase, and the money from this will go toward Hunters medical bills. I love these little tags because they can be used for so many different things: cupcakes, party favors, cards, scrapbook/memory albums, etc, the list goes on.

Just go to my Donations tab, choose which set of tags you want, enter your donation amount then checkout. You will be emailed the tags as an instant download. Come back to check out the Easter tags that will be available for Hunters fight.

Baby Birth Frame

When our little girl was born I wanted to be sure to have something with her little feet prints.

I took the first verse of a favorite primary song 'I am a Child of God' and added Lady A's info. The Nurses were great and able to get some wonderful foot prints for me. Look at all those creases in her feet.

When she was first born this is the song I would sing as the two of us were figuring each other out. We now sing 'I am a Child of God,' at least once a night, before bedtime.

Download here. There are tick marks to cut the pdf to an 8" x 10". I would suggest filling in the blanks {the ones that you can} and then with a pencil draw a very soft line {that can be erased} along the bottom using the tick marks so that the nurses will know where the foot prints need to fit into. I printed out 4 {four}: one for me, one for each grandma and one to make a mistake on, with those little squirmy feet sometimes it takes more than one try. They did so great that all four turned out and so now Lady A has one for her book.

*This frame was given to us as a wedding present and I absolutely love it. When I put the footprints in I found out that with the extra detail molding in the frame it is more 7.5" x 9.5" but I haven't been able to find a new frame for it that I like so I will keep it in here until I do. On the PDF download I also tightened everything up a bit so if your frame is the same, you won't have the same problem.

I love how it turned out and hope that when Lady A is old enough, she will love it too.

There are seven different color schemes with editable fields to enter your childs' name, birth date, city and state, and Parents. If you don't see the colors you want shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment. I would be happy to help you out.

***UPDATE***

{4 June 2013}

Oh my goodness is my face red. I have been looking at the one I did for Lady A over the past year and half. I finally found the perfect frame for it and as I went to swap frames....I saw a typo. AHH! On the third line it is supposed to say 'an' not 'and'. I have fixed the typo and attached the new file to links above.

Get Creating!

~Mindy

Weathering the Storm ~ Checklist

Since living in Connecticut we have gone without power more here, in 1 ½ years, than we have living anywhere else. I’m not sure I could call myself an expert just yet but we are getting pretty good at weathering the storm.

When we first moved to CT, before we even had a place to live, we were crashing in a friends basement and lost power that weekend. When Abigail was two weeks old we lost power for nine days from Hurricane Irene. Last fall we went without power again and this time, I would say, was the hardest. We were on well water so when the power went out the water stopped as well, the stove was electric as well and Abigail was a rambunctious one {1} year old.

Paul and I love to camp so we had a number of items already that could help in a power outage situation. So, now I am going to share with you my list of things to have ready and other things to prepare right before the storm. I have also included other tips, some that we thought up and acted on before the storm and some that we figured out the hard way. I'm sharing my list but I think I will keep to myself which ones were added after the storm. Wink, Wink!

Click here and download the files for yourself. I will be printing off my list and put it in my Moving Binder, that has now become our home binder since we have moved.

This is her third {3rd} once-in-a-lifetime/record breaking storm. She had no idea what to do with so much snow. The older kids in the neighborhood were in heaven ... once they could go outside and play in.

Here are some of my other binder printables

Our Budget Binder

Start a Yearly Savings Plan with this printable

Check out our Moving Binder

Valentine Chalkboard Printable

Here is my second attempt at making a chalkboard printable. I downloaded the chalkboard backgrounds from here. I put mine together in Photoshop but you can create it in Picasa just as well.

Simply open the chalkboard background in the color of your choice, then add your text on top. For Christmas I got a Samsung Note and absolutely love it. I wanted to have a bit of a hand drawn element to this one so I used the note to draw the heart. After a little bit of photoshop magic I was able to remove all the background and change the color to pink. If you would rather, you can download mine and print so you can add it to your own Valentine decor.

This is a 8.5"x11" so you can 'shrink to fit' if you are printing it to a smaller size. Enjoy!!

~Mindy

Our Moving Binder

After first getting married Paul and I stayed in the same place for 4 1/2 years. It was just a little Town Home but it was perfect for us. After Paul graduated we started moving and haven't stopped. We are moving again at the end of the month, this will be our 5th move in 2 years. Our biggest move was in my third trimester, from Utah to Connecticut, and the last three moves have been with our baby.

I have come up with a couple of tools to help me stay organized during my moves. Here is my moving binder and box labeling tabs.

Here are the sections for my binder:

Home 4 Sale {Out with the Old...}

Home 2 Buy {In with the New...}

Moving Costs

Moving Checklist {Out with the Old...}

Moving Checklist {In with the New...}

New Area Info

Contact List

Receipts

 

Every section has a opening page and a few more blank pages for all my notes. I have filled in a few spots for the basics but left plenty of room for you to fill in your own list of "To Do." The Moving Checklist has one page of suggestions and a completely blank one, this way you can print off as many as you need and fill it in with your own list.

For the receipts section I included a pencil pouch to hold my receipts.

There are a few things that are necessities when moving into a new place and having to search through a bunch of boxes looking for those few items can get a little frustrating. So I have developed a list of things that we need to have 'First on the Scene' when we get to our new place. There are also box labels included. These can simply be printed out on a sheet and cut out using the trim marks or printed onto label sheets. They have an assigned room and space to include a description of what is in the box. We all have different spaces and places so there is a blank sheet of labels as well so you can print out as many as you need for what ever the size of your move. If you choose to print and cut out the labels you can place them in the pencil pouch to hold them until you are ready to tape them to the boxes.

If you want to download my pdf's simply click here. In short there are 9 binder pages with 2 blank 'To Do' lists, 5 box labels sheets with rooms listed and 1 blank box labels sheet.

UPDATE: The moving binder and pages worked out great!! Everything was kept together and right where I needed them. I must say my favorite part was the boxing labels. For every box I put a label on top of the box, back left corner and another on the front of the box, top right corner. This way, however the box was packed in the truck, one of the corners would be visible so we could now what was in it and where it needed to be put in the new place. LOVED IT!!! This will be used every time we move from now on.

***UPDATE***

{4 June 2013}

I am really feeling the love. This has been my most popular post and a huge number of you have downloaded my Moving Binder pages. {I didn't think it would be this big of a hit.} 

I went back over the box labels and added some color, so now your boxes will be color coded as well. YEA!! There are even separate colors for three different bedrooms and bathrooms and two blank colors. Here is the link for the new labels and pages. If you want the original, click on the link further up the page.

Happy Move!!

Here are some of my other binder printables

Our Budget Binder

Start a Yearly Savings Plan with this printable

Here is my Checklist for Weathering the Storms 

Christmas Chalkboard Art

Lately I have seen some really cute chalkboard art. Baby announcements, quotes, kid art etc.

I thought I would give it a try and love how it turned out. You can make your own too. I downloaded the chalkboard backgrounds from here. I put mine together in Photoshop but you can create it in Picasa just as well.

Simply open the chalkboard background in the color of your choice, then add your text on top. If you would rather, you can download mine and print so you can add it to your own Christmas decorations.