ELF ON THE SHELF - THE FIRST 18 DAYS!

I am a bit late posting these to my blog this year - I will do the first 18 days now and then on Christmas Day I will post the remaining 6 days.  Here are the adventures of 'Rudy' 2014!

Day 1 'Elf on the Shelf' 2014 'Rudy' is baaccck! 

 Day 2 Elf on the Shelf - 'Rudy' decides to 'hang-out' in my car today. Better make sure I park in the shade and crack a window for him!

 Day 3 Elf on the Shelf - well, well, well, what have we here? 'Rudy' has 'scootered' in this morning and it looks like he 'picked up' on the way in! 

 Day 4 Elf on the Shelf 'Rudy' taking a group pic of his friends under the Christmas Tree - I dont think this morning's 3.2 earthquake affected this little photoshoot - lol

 Day 5 Elf on the Shelf 'Rudy' decided to hang out in the Tracey's HandCrafts studio when he returned this morning and it looks like he got a bit carried away using MY equipment and MY supplies to immortalise himself on a cushion!!!!

 Day 6 Elf on the Shelf - 'Rudy' is going for a climb up my kitchen blind this morning! 

 Day 7 Elf on the Shelf 7 December 2014 'Rudy' has got himself in a little 'situation' - how on earth did you get stuck in there?

 Day 8 Elf on the Shelf 8 December 2014 - 'Rudy' wanted to be a part of our Nativity Scene giving Baby Jesus a cuddle!

 Day 9 - Elf on the Shelf - 9 December 2014 'Rudy' is hanging out on the vertical

blind track above the sliding door in the kitchen today!

 Day 10 Elf on the Shelf 10 December 2014 'Rudy' is hanging out in our Advent Calendar today - he better not take any of Melissa's treats!

 Day 11 Elf on the Shelf 11 December 2014 'Rudy' is all set for Pizza and a movie!

 Day 12 Elf on the Shelf 12 December 2014 'Rudy' doing some colouring in!

 Day 13 Elf on the Shelf 13 December 2014 'Rudy' used empty wrapping paper tubes as stilts to reach his favourite bauble on the tree!

 Day 14 Elf on the Shelf - 14 December 2014 'Rudy' must be missing the snow at the North Pole!

 Day 15 Elf on the Shelf 15 December 2014 - 'Rudy' is having a try of the rainbow loom!

 Day 16 Elf on the Shelf - 16 December 2014 - 'Rudy' is overseeing a 'foozeball game' - he likes hanging out in Ian's Man Cave! 

 Day 17 Elf on the Shelf - 17 December 2014 - 'Rudy' hanging out on the ceiling fan!

Day 18 Elf on the Shelf - 18 December 2014 - 'Rudy' is trying to blend in with our Christmas Babushka Nesting Dolls! 

Hope you enjoyed the first 18 days of our 'Elf on the Shelf'!

AMMO BOX FOR MY DAD

I saw an Ammo Box on Pinterest and I thought it would make a great personalised gift for my dad for Christmas. So I wanted to have a go at doing my own version of what I saw.

I used silver vinyl and a stencil font and put his name on it and his army number.  My dad is a Vietnam Veteran and the box would make a great place for him to store his army papers and also his medals if he wishes.  I have blurred his army number for this pic in the interests of his privacy.

Took me a couple of goes to get it right but I am so pleased with the result.  I did the vinyl on both sides of the box. Whilst the photo makes it look crooked it most definately is NOT - just the angle of the pic playing tricks on the eyes!

It is all wrapped up now ready to give to dad on Christmas Day!

TEACHERS GIFTS - VINYL ON TUMBLERS

I've been so busy with my cushions that I have not made my christmas cards this year and had to resort to (gasp, horror) store bought xmas cards - but never mind I will pick up the ball next year and be more organised - hopefully, fingers crossed.
The teachers at school nearly missed out on gifts this year as well but I decided to get something done for them.  I have about 30 of those acrylic tumblers in my craft room and I wanted to get rid of them as they take up a bit of room so I thought that they would make great teacher's gifts. I put the apple from SVGCuts 'Miss Baker's Classroom' kit on the tumblers and the teacher's names. They turned out pretty good - for a rush job! Then I looked at the tumblers and thought something should go in them and I thought the teachers would be getting enough chocolate so I decided to do a 'Teacher's Survival Kit' to go inside the tumblers for a bit of a laugh. Each of the teachers in Primary got a tumbler survival kit. 22 of them!

This is the poem of sorts that went into the tumblers with all the little bits and pieces.

and now the picture of the tumblers - sorry not a very good pic at all but you get the idea

bring on Grade 5 2015!!!

CUSTOM CUSHION ORDERS

I really enjoy coming up with some custom designs for the cushions. For the rocket cushion the rocket and the flames came from WPClipArt.com which is a great place to download graphics for free (as long as you mention where they are from) and the Moon and Saturn elements are from the 'Out of this World' kit from SVGCuts.com. The stars are from within the Basic Shapes in Make the Cut.  The cool thing that I did with this cushion was use 'Glow in the Dark' Heat Transfer Vinyl for the stars and Saturn's ring and it came up awesome!

Part of this order was another cushion and I used the owl element from 'Acorn Autumn' from SVGCuts perched on the corner of the M and this looks soooo very cute too!

If you havent already, check out my Facebook page Tracey's HandCrafts here

SANTA SACKS HEAT TRANSFER VINYL

I wanted something special just for Christmas for my cushion gig that I have on my Tracey's HandCrafts page on Facebook so I came up with an idea that stemmed from childhood. I got some red pillowcases from IKEA and used white Heat Transfer Vinyl with my own design and voila - personalised Santa Sacks! - this one is for my daughter Melissa and I know she will love it. If you live in Australia and would like one of my Santa Sacks please visit my Facebook page here to order one.

Turned out pretty good!

VINYL ON WINE GLASSES

I had someone ask me if I could put names on wine glasses for a wedding and I said I could so using a wedding design that came from Fred at Skat Katz and using the colour purple as requested I am pretty happy with the end result.

I would have liked to have done this as an 'etch' but was trying to keep the cost down for the person that wanted them and doing an 'etch' would have been out of her budget range.

TRACEY'S HANDCRAFTS

Just a little post to let you all know that I am still here! Just not doing as much papercrafting but I still will when I can.  ( I have my christmas cards to get on to and I am very late with that this year!) My cushion gig that I have over on Facebook Tracey's HandCrafts is keeping me very busy and I am loving every minute of it!

I decided to post about two cushions here today that I 'assisted' with this week instead of putting them on my business page as they were not my design. I helped out a friend that had done the designs for her granddaughters and wanted the designs applied to cushions with Heat Transfer Vinyl. I supplied the White Heat Transfer Vinyl for her and cut her design with my 'Zigby' Zing. I showed her how to weed the vinyl and then we pressed them with my 'Harvey' Heat Press (yes, the machines in my craft room all have 'male' names hee hee!).

My friend has the Make the Cut (but a different cutting machine) and she did a great job with the design that she had downloaded and 'tweaked to her liking'.

She supplied the cushion covers and they came up sooo nice!

STENCILGRAM

I read on the Make the Cut Forum recently a member had found a free online service called 'Stencilgram' to convert photo to a stencil for vinyl work and I desparately wanted to have a go and incorporated into a cushion somehow with Heat Transfer Vinyl.
I got to thinking the other night and came up with the perfect idea.  My best friend's dog had passed many years ago and she still misses her greatly as she was a childhood pet and I asked her to send me the photo that she has and I used 'Stencilgram' and was very pleased with the result.  It even converts the file to SVG format which makes it easy to import into Make the Cut.  I have never had any success myself trying to pixel trace photos and getting the look that I wanted and I fail dismally every time I try to do it in Photoshop and Stencilgram was very easy to use.
I gave the cushion to my friend today and she lovvvesss it!!! I am very pleased with the way this turned out.

Here is the finished cushion!

here is the original photograph used

and here is the svg file that 'Stencilgram' created after I tweaked it a little in Make the Cut

MUM'S BIRTHDAY CARD

Really struggled making mum a card this year - I mean I got the present down pat but the card was almost beyond me - I have not done much papercrafting since taking up the cushions and I kinda fell out of the groove a little.
So, I came up with the inside out lattice card from Susan Blue Robot and used flowers and leaves from SVGCuts 'Mom's Garden Gifts' kit and I am glad that this card is going to my mum coz she wont care that it is not perfect as I dont feel that it is up to my usual standard!

MY MUM'S BIRTHDAY

Well, it's my mum's birthday tomorrow and sometimes it's a real struggle trying to decide what to get her but not this year!  I thought my mum would love one of my cushions so I got together with my dad and we nutted out a design.  Mum and Dad have a favourite spot that they like to go with their caravan and Mum has taken to calling their caravan 'My Spot'. So dad drew the shape of their caravan for me and I tweaked it a little and I used a modified version of a 'tree' that was in the Make the Cut gallery from user no 10392 (I trimmed the bottom of the tree a little) and then added some 'grass' from user no 20713 and I am really happy with how this came out.  The cushion is off white/cream and I used black heat transfer vinyl.

Now I better get cracking and make her a card as well!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!!

CUSHIONS GALORE!

I have been having a lot of fun with my cushion gig that I have going on over at Tracey's HandCrafts (you can click here if you would like to order) on Facebook. Black with silver Heat Transfer Vinyl is proving to be popular and here are some pics of cushion orders that I have been doing the last couple of weeks.

SOCCER BALL THANK YOU CARDS

I was asked by a friend to make some Soccer Ball Coach Thank You cards like the basketball cards that I did and using the soccer ball from the 'Sports Lovers Collection' kit from SVGCuts I was able to fulfill this request - love how striking these cards look!

BASKETBALL CARDS TO GO WITH THE CLIPBOARDS AND THE CUSHION

About a week or so ago I posted clipboards and a cushion that I made that are going to be presents for the two basketball coaches of my daughter's basketball team and one of the managers of the basketball academy at the school.  I wanted to make cards too and these are what I came up with using the basketball from SVGCuts 'Sports Lovers Collection' kit. I also used vinyl for the words and the white border - it adds a nice interest and with the basketball I embossed it with the bubbles folder from Cuttlebug. I am really happy with how these came out!

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SVGCUTS CAROUSEL

Well, it took me awhile to get back to some sort of papercrafting as I am on a heat transfer cushion kick at the moment but the last day or so saw me tackle the beautiful carousel from SVGCuts' kit 'Carousel Ride'.  Such a beautiful carousel and I could not resist making it for myself.
As usual, I struggled with paper choice and I decided not complicate things and went with silver and red glitter with white.  The actual top of the carouse and the stem is a really light blue but you cant really tell in the photo.  Also the red glitter card that I used was an absolute PITA to cut with my Zigby Zing and I guess I should have gone to the deep cut blade but I didnt and I ended up cutting that card BY HAND - uggh!!!
I also did not want to do a cupcake version and wanted to put the horses on poles and I used paper straws that were wrapped with red ribbon.

Really pleased with how this came out!

It glitters and sparkles like anything! I love it!

SPORTS CUSHION

My daughter's basketball team finished up their Winter season and the school basketball academy will be having their family fun day soon. I wanted to make one of the managers a thank you gift from my daughter and I as he works tirelessly for the kids basketball and the school's newly formed basketball academy. I decided to make a cushion for him with Heat Transfer Vinyl.

I used the basketball from SVGCuts's 'Sports Lovers SVG Colletion' kit. I drew the net myself in Make The Cut. 

I am really pleased with how it came out and will make a matching card to go with it.

FAMILY TREE CUSHION

Using a tree file from My Vinyl Designer and a little tweaking I came up with this family tree for a cushion order.

Obviously I have blurred the surname for privacy reasons.

CRIB BOX CARD & SUBWAY ART CUSHION

Here is my take on the Crib Box Card from SVGCuts kit 'Tiny Miracle' that I made for people that I know that had a little baby girl in August.

I also made a cushion in my own Subway Art style for her nursery using a pink shimmery Heat Transfer Vinyl.  The photo doesnt do it justice AT ALL.

COACH CLIPBOARDS

Inspired by some 'clear acrylic clipboards' that I had seen decorated with vinyl on Pinterest (I wanted to make something a little more 'sporty looking' the ones I had seen on Pinterest were more 'girly looking') I came up with gifts for the two basketball coaches of my daughter's basketball team.  I used the basketball from SVGCuts 'Sports Lovers SVG Collection' and personalised the boards with their names using the 'SPORTSWORLD' font from DAFONT.

They turned out pretty cool and they make a great 'end of season' gift.

BFF CUSHIONS

This week's efforts in my craftroom involved cushions as part of my Tracey's HandCrafts gig I have going on over on Facebook.

These two cushions were done as an order from a friend of ours for their daughter and her BFF (Best Friend Forever) that they could give to each other for Christmas.

The idea actually came from one of the young girls and I think it is a really cute idea!

These cushions have print on both sides and makes them very unique to who they going to which I am sure these girls will treasure them forever.

So cute - I cant wait for pics of the girls with these cushions!