October 9th, 2010
I have been wanting to do a quick and cute Halloween craft, and I thought a banner would be fun. I love the subtle Halloween feel of Robyn Meierotto’s Not So Freaky Digital Mini Kit at DHD:
So I started out by printing a few of her papers in the banner shape that I wanted.
You can print and hand-cut these shapes, but I cut mine out with my Cricut using Sure Cuts A lot and my laptop.
Then using black cardstock, I cut out a ghost, and BOO! If you have a program that allows you to cut SVG Files, I have a free download link at the end of this post.
I inked all the pieces with some gold pigment ink to just make it look a little more antiqued and slightly finished.
Next, I made “lollipops” (what do you call them?) out of tracing paper. You could use crepe paper, tissue paper, or just regular paper. I really liked how the tracing paper was a little bit see-through, but still really stiff.
To get a pointy lollipop, once you fold your paper strip, you’ll want to cut one edge diagonal like this:
Then glue them in a circle and add a little ink to dirty them up a bit.
Then I just glued everything together with a hot glue gun, and for the finishing touches, tied all the panels together with some cute orange ribbon.Voila! A quick and cute Halloween banner, that isn’t too scary to hang in your house.
Banner .SVG Download
Boo .SVG Download
September 6th, 2009
I finished this project forever ago, but It was in my entry and the light-bulb had burnt out! This week Mr. Project replaced it so I was able to take pictures!
I love this chicken wire board. It keeps me super organized. I keep my bills, out-going mail, reminder, notes, calendar etc. all up here next to my doorway so I don’t miss a thing.
I especially love the calender, its super simple and easy to get a lot of writing in each of the days. Read the rest of this entry »
June 8th, 2009
With summer approaching, its harder to stay on schedule. I have been wanting to really organize all the chores around here so that it doesn’t feel like “catch-up” on saturday. A little bit everyday goes a long way, right? So I put together a simple weekly chore schedule that has a space for every day Monday through Saturday, as well as notes on the bottom for you to fill in all your chores and errands. Don’t forget to put things like “backup computer.” If you have kids, you could print one for each kid and hang them on the fridge.
For my personal chore chart I typed in all the small daily chores. I also as scheduled out all the weekly chores so that every day is pretty balanced between, chores, projects & errands. I found the cutest clipboard at Target so I made my design green to match – it’s so cute it makes me want to actually DO the chores!
If you are computer savvy, you can type in notes inside of Acrobat (or Photoshop) an then print out a few master sheets that you can customize weekly. Or print one copy & hand-write all your consistent chores and then just photocopy several. Good luck organizing your summer!
Download my chore chart and enjoy (for personal use only ). Please tell your friends to come visit the site and download their own checklist. I would love a comment if you do download!
xoxo Jen Allyson
May 16th, 2009
I wanted to share my newest hybrid Project. Printable gift boxes! These are great because you always have them on hand! No running to the store to get favor boxes or gift-card boxes etc. Just print, cut and glue! I put together 5 great sets that I knew I would use. I printed one of each for these preview photos and they are sitting in my living room looking SO cute that I’m trying to find an excuse to use them. The little square boxes are especially handy if you want to put cupcakes in box for a favor. All of the files are set up for an 11×17 sheet but can easily be shrunk down to print on an 8.5×11 sheet (though they are smaller, they are still great for small favor boxes & gift cards).
These kits are available to purchase on Tuesday May 19th. They sell for $6.00/kit and each kit comes with 3 boxes and 1 tag (JPG) that you can print as many times as you like! If you’re looking for something a little different Carina and I worked on this project together, and she’s releasing 6 additional kits on the same day.
These two kits are great for birthday parties and gifts:
Love this set for a formal wedding:
This is actually my favorite set right now. I just LOVE the tag!
And this set is just beautiful printed out. I had tons of fun adding ribbon and tags.
This is what the kit previews look like:
If you like hybrid projects, don’t forget about my recipe cards/kitchen designs. Be sure to check out all the great digital and hybrid projects at twopeasinabucket.com
March 5th, 2009
I have the cutest little pantry in my kitchen. It is about 4.5 feet tall and has a little glass door and a nice wide ledge. Ever since I moved here, I have been wanting some fabulous and large glass canisters to put on top. I was so happy a few weeks ago, when I found these beautiful 2.5 gallon canisters at Amazon:
My birthday just happened to be this week, and I asked for three of these puppies (I put a few more on my wedding registry because I love them so much. I want to do one for Rice and one for Bread Flour).
As soon as I got them, I filled them up with flour, sugar, and rolled oats. But what I really couldn’t wait to do, was to make labels for them! Here they are looking adorable on my pantry:
The glass on these jars is a little wavy and imperfect, and I love the dark lids – they definitely have an antique feel. So I made some cute distressed labels (available for download at the end of this post). I printed and cut them out and they were super cute…
… but I really wanted them to have an older feel than just flat printed paper. So I pulled out some supplies:
> a moist/wet paper towel
> distressing ink – Tim Holtz Antique Linen & vintage photo
> emry board – fine sand paper will do
> A flat clean work surface that can get wet/messy.
I printed my labels on regular bond paper. I recommend testing your distressing process on some test paper before going at the printed items. Also if you get water on an inkjet print, it will run, so if you want to get really down and dirty, print your labels with a laser printer. I didn’t worry about the ink running on the lighter parts of the design, but I did try and keep the paper away from the letters since they are so dark.
Step 1: Crinkle your labels. I recommend bigger, deeper folds and creases. As long as the paper is dry, you can be pretty rough with it. I bent and tore and creased quite a bit so that the ink would have a lot of fun detail to hold onto:
Step 2: Wet your labels. I used a wet paper towel to dab water around the edges. You definitely want the paper soaked, but not so much that it tears or bleeds into the center. You have to work fast at this point because it needs to be pretty wet for the next step. You may want to do step 2 & step 3 to one side at a time to keep your paper from drying too fast.
Step 3: Once you have a wet edge, go ahead and use the lighter ink on the wet parts. The ink should bleed as soon as it hits the water and create a “dying” effect as opposed to an “inking” effect. This will make it look aged and not just inked. After a little light inking, I applied just a tiny bit of dark inking on some of the edges:
At this point your paper will be pretty wet and your wrinkles will have disappeared, but they will come back. Just finish each label and set them aside to dry. I let mine dry about 30 minutes. Here is how they looked after I let them sit for a bit:
I love how aged they look and how stiff they feel after drying. I will definitely use this technique on more projects in the future.
If I had printed them on a laser printer, I would have made the entire label more “dyed” looking, but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out.
Attaching the labels was really easy, I used a large glue-dot in each corner. I don’t recommend this if you have a lot of people accessing your canisters, but I know its enough adhesive for my uses with the upside being that I can change them out pretty easy when I get bored of the look. You could use spray adhesive or run them through a larger xyron after they have dryed completely. If you printed on a laser printer, I imagine you could use Mod Podge, just test it on the glass first to see if it drys clear enough.
Here is a before & after shot. I really should have taken a before shot when the pantry was covered in half-empty flour and sugar bags, paper plates & food boxes.
I love how they look, how big the labels are, and just the overall vintage styling with the large black lids + the aged labels. So yummy.
You can really see the variety in the glass from this photo. I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!
As promised, here is the label file. I did have to make it just a smidge smaller than the one I used in order to fit all the labels on one 8.5×11.
Download this label file and enjoy (for personal use only ). Please tell your friends to come visit the site and download their own labels. I would love a comment if you do download!
Each of these files are a 8.5″x11″ PDF. Use Acrobat Reader to open the file and print as many as you like! Happy project-ing!
If you are another blog or crafting site and would like to link this project to your site, please contact me. Thanks!
xoxo Jen Allyson
