DIY Window Leaf Cupcake Flags

So a while back (and by ‘while’ I mean in September, #shamerattles), a friend came to visit and we got into some serious Cricut action.

The result?

These super-sweet window leaf cupcake flags. Perfect for fall. Displayed on carrot cake and my-favorite-ever-cream cheese frosting.

Just cut out all the shapes, assemble with glue, and then attach the finished flags to toothpicks.

I like to use glue sticks for this type of work, hence the magazine laid out for scrap paper / workplace protector. I’ve tried rubber cement and liquid glue, but I remain a big fan of my first-grade glue stick method.

And seriously, get a Cricut. It’s awesome.

Because when you give a girl a Cricut, she’ll probably do a lot of crafts…like a lot a lot.

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Monster Mash Notecards

He did the mash…the monster mash!

Brings back memories of my first grade tap dance recital and green dyed leotards with matching tights…

But these monsters are much cooler.

They have glitter. And bats. Cool.

I finally got back into using my Cricut after a long hiatus, and I remember why I love it so much. It’s fast, easy, and you can make really unique stuff.

The die cut for these is on the Cricut “Wild Card” cartridge (appropriate name, right?) and I sliced them with the Cricut set to 3.5 inches. The bats are from the same Cricut cartridge and are at 2.5 inches.

For the background, I used pre-cut cardstock from one of the mat stack books. It’s easier more efficient than cutting from scratch. These cards are from a 4.5 x 6.5 inch mat stack.

I’m also back into making envelope liners.

Envelope liners are an easy DIY. I sacrificed an envelope to make an initial stencil, which is slightly narrower and shorter than the actual envelope. For the liner, I recommend using lightweight paper, not cardstock, as its easier to crease and doesn’t require extra postage. Glue in and you are set.

While I highly doubt anyone notices envelope liners…I like to think they give the cards something extra.

Card + envelope liner.

Ready to do the monster mash yet?

Clearly, I’m just a bit excited for Halloween.

Oh, and I have to dress up at my work…so if anyone has office appropriate Halloween costume ideas, please send them my way!

A’hoy Mate!

Yo ho, yo ho a pirate’s life for me…

But back to reality. My goddaughter came to visit a few weekends ago, and her mom mentioned that they are going to a pirate-themed party.

SAY NO MORE.

Not only is Pirates of the Carribean pretty much one of my favorite drinking games movies, I just so happened to have this sweet pirate ship shape for my Cricut.

(Okay, so yes, technically you could say it was just a regular ship like the Nina, Pinta, or Santa Maria…but I like to think it’s the Black Pearl.)

(And if you don’t mentally read “the Black Pearl” in a pirate voice…something is wrong with you.)

Use the outsides of the Cricut cutout for the stencil, and then use the Cricut shape for the notecard.

I had the Cricut set on 4.5 inches, and the onesie is size 6-12 months. This notecard is an A6 size.

Savvy?

If you want a full tutorial on painting baby onesies with stencils, here is a step-by-step overview.

DIY Roundup: Triple Crown Onesie and Notecard

Okay, I know the Triple Crown didn’t happen this year.

And yes, technically this baby onesie was a christening gift, so technically a more appropriate title would be something like gifts of the magi.

But after carefully considering the fact that earlier this year someone told me that he “couldn’t go out with me because I was too religious,” I’ve decided to go with Triple Crown.

(When you’re done laughing over the fact that someone would EVER describe me as “too religious,” continue reading.)

As per usual, I DIY’d the stencil for this bit of baby onesie glory on my Cricut. The crowns are from the wall art cartridge, sized at one point five inches. If you want full instructions for fabric paint projects and stencils, click here.

The fabric paint is a pink pearl, which means pink glitter. Because pink glitter totally screams “Jesus,” don’t you think?

Normally I feel super-guilty when I cut out stencils for DIY projects, because a) I drive a Prius and b) what do I do with all the insides?

I can’t throw them away because I’m a paper hoarder I might need them in the future…so now I have a drawer full of mismatched letters and cutouts in various shapes and sizes. I CAN QUIT ANYTIME. I SWEAR.

Luckily, this time I around I “got smart” as they say. Being that I needed a card for one of my fav coworkers, I used the crown center cut-outs as the decoration on the card. FREAKING BRILLIANT.

Not to mention eco-Prius-friendly. And efficient. It’s like craft multi-tasking.

Freaking brilliant.

Does anyone else have a favorite way to craft multi-task?

Miss Ewes

OCCUPY CAKERYPAPERY’S CRAFT ROOM is closely approaching its second month.

Which leaves me two choices. I can either evict the squatters (multiple pieces of trim, old medicine cabinet, shop vac, extra tiles, joint compound, paint cans), or I can find a way to work around them.

Given my level of laziness (high) on a Thursday evening, I went with the second option. Don’t judge.

Besides, the Cricut doesn’t need much room, right?

I started out with these cutouts.

Have an idea where this is going?

And I ended up with this.

The ‘Miss Ewes’ card was for one of my coworkers, who is leaving to attend medical school.

And since she always talks about how much she wants original stationary, I made her some celery rose cards. In blue, since she’s becoming a doctor.

I make the celery cards a lot—they are ending up as one of my signature projects. I really enjoy the speed at which I can make these, and each set is different than the one before. You can read the instructions on how to make these here.

To make the ‘Miss Ewes’ card, I started with a pre-cut piece of cardstock from a 4 x 6 stack for the background. Sure, you can cut your own, but using pre-cut is much more efficient. The sheep cutouts & ewe font are in the Just Because Cricut cartridge. The ‘ewe’ was cut at 4 inches and the sheep at 3.5 and 4 inches. The tag cut is from Plantain Schoolbook, sized at 1.5 inches. Cut, glue, assemble.

And the occupy craft room protest rages on…

Hand-Painted Onesies: Gifting on a Budget Part 2

My life is full of babies. No, not any baby of mine thank goodness…but I lead a baby-filled life. They are EVERYWHERE lately.

So I’m back to DIY-ing onesies. For other people’s babies.

These suckers beautiful items I made with fabric paint instead of felt–which is MUCH EASIER AND FASTER. Want to see my hand-crafted onesies with felt appliques? Check them out here. 

If you’ve never used fabric paint before, don’t be scared off. It’s easy to use and can be found at pretty much any craft store. Fabric paint comes in a lot of different colors and varieties–I bought pink”pearl” and silver “metallic.”

You’ll also need some paintbrushes. I like the foam-top kind, it makes distributing the paint easier than a traditional brush.

I made these stencils on the Cricut (yet another amazing use of the Cricut) but if you want to make your own sans Cricut/die-cutter, just be sure to make them out of cardstock. This way you have a good, clean edge when you paint. Alternatively, if you’d like to be even more lazy efficient than using a die-cutter like the Cricut, craft stores sell a variety of reuseable plastic stencils.

Place a piece of cardboard underneath the area to be painted and then tape the stencil on top. Then you’re ready to paint. I’m definitely not a pro at this–I use one hand to press the stencil down and then the other to paint. Which generally results in getting paint ALL OVER the not-brush hand. And in my case, a BRAND NEW MANICURE. You get three guesses as to what fabric paint doesn’t wash off of…and the first two don’t count.

One tip I can offer is to brush the paint in from the stencil edges–it helps keep the edges of the design crisper. And I should let you know that “pearl” apparently is code for with sparkley glitter and “metallic” just means…shiny.

I actually really enjoy the glitter-pearl paint. It has a nice sparkle but the glitter doesn’t rub off, so you don’t end up looking like you had a run in with Tinkerbell.

After you let the paint dry for a minute or two, remove the stencil and you’re done!

Hand-crafted, hand-painted onesie glory.

Peanut Butter, Now in Cupcake Form

Mmmmmm…peanut butter. One of my favorite food groups. And yes, I do consider it a food group. There’s like 80 flavors!

I made these peanut butter reese’s topped bites of deliciousness for a work luncheon. Nothing says “thanks for a job well done” like cupcakes. delicious, delicious, cupcakes.

To switch it up a bit, I wanted to make a cupcake that wouldn’t require frosting.

(Confession: I was being lazy and just didn’t feel like making frosting. So I got creative with the topping.)

The recipe for these is from the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes. If you are into cupcakes, BUY THIS BOOK. It has tons of creative ideas for decorating cupcakes, tasty recipes, and new flavor combinations. My favorite part about the book is that it has lots of “cupcake hacks” for lazy efficient people like myself. For example–it will tell you how to make the cake batter from scratch, or how to doctor up box mixes to get the same effect.

One batch of the recipe made 24 cupcakes, scooped out with my Oxo large cookie scoop. I made the topping by crushing Reese’s Pieces…into more pieces. LOLLLLLLL! Seriously, I crack myself up sometimes.

Also, it’s REALLY FUN to smash things. REALLY REALLY FUN.

These definitely do not need frosting. But…they did need something extra. Something more.

So, I made some cupcake flags on the Cricut. And then I got all 90’s and added stickers for more pizzaz. You know that saying about taking off one accessory before leaving the house? I soooo don’t follow that rule.

Before you all think I’m one of those crazy single people that has a secret horse obsession…our work lunch is celebrating some great work for one of my favorite clients, W. F. Young.

And I’m really looking forward to the Kentucky Derby this year.

Peanut Butter Cupcake Recipe:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 1/3 cup cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sale
• Reese’s Pieces

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter for 30 sec. Add the sugar in small increments and mix well. Mix in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla and peanut butter. Beat with mixer until well blended. Combine dry ingredients, and add to peanut butter mixture slowly. Add in the milk at the same time, alternating with the flour mix. Beat with mixer until combined. Top with Reese’s Pieces and it’s baking time. 25 quick minutes in the oven at 350F and you’re good to go.

Gifting on a Budget: Customized Onesies

For me, it’s not the Year of the Dragon. It’s the “year of the shower.” As in, wedding and baby showers.

Last year, I had seven bridal showers and this year, I’m already locked into two baby showers. And it’s just the beginning of March.

So, I’m focused on finding thoughtful gifts that don’t break the bank. Which is what spurred me to make these onesies. I originally saw the idea here on Finley & Oliver, which has a ton of great DIY ideas for kids.

You don’t need to be a master seamstress to make these, as long as your design isn’t too complex.

Here’s what you need:

• Felt
• Heat n’ Bond or a similar iron-on transfer paper
• Onesies (duh)
• Sewing machine

You can stitch these by hand, but given how much wear and tear baby clothes get, machine-sewing makes them much more durable.

I used my Cricut Expression to cut out some of the shapes, which made tracing them super fast. Else there are lots of free downloadable shape templates for things like polygons or chevrons and a quick google search will find whatever you need.

When you’ve selected a design, it’s five quick steps to handcrafted onesie gold.

1. Trace your design
2. Iron onto felt
3. Cut out the shapes and layout your design
4. Iron the shapes onto onesies
5. Stitch down for added durability

You could easily use this technique to make a custom tee or bag too.

Happy crafting!

I mustache you…

I know the mustache trend is a bit overused…but I can’t help it. I saw this easy DIY project on the Finley and Oliver blog and I couldn’t resist.

Plus, my Friday night consisted on running into not one, but TWO ex-boyfriends at the same bar.

With their new girlfriends.

Who I got to meet.

Because the new gfs “really wanted to meet me.” Which we all know means they wanted to check me out up close. Like I’m some sort of zoo animal. As I said: good luck chuck.

So, crafting fun and crazy-cute mustache items kept my mind off things (and my hands off the chardonnay and corkscrew). I cut out the letters for these on my Cricut Expression (chirp chirp!) using the Plantin Schoolbook font, with the “shadow” feature. The blue card letters were sliced at 2 inches and the green card letters at 2.5 inches. The glitter paper I purchased at Michaels–its pretty thick, so if you’re using a “slice and dice” machine like me, be sure to change the blade depth.

Now, the most important part. The mustache graphic. I downloaded an image of mustaches that I saw on the Cheddar Guppies blog. After some resizing, I traced this onto the back of the glitter paper and cut out VERY CAREFULLY. As we all know, because I am efficient (read: lazy), I use a stack of precut cardstock for the actual cards. It’s way easier than trying to cut out an exact rectangle and the paper comes in a rainbow of colors.

Arrange the letters how you like and glue onto the card stock. And then you’re set to mail out some mustache love.

For the love of the Cricut

cakerypapery got amped up this Christmas. My delightful sister and frequent cakerypaperite, got me a Cricut Expression. And, while she didn’t splurge for the pink version, it’s still pretty awesome. You pronounce it ‘cricket,’ like the chirp-chirp bug kind.

The first successful Cricut card from the papery.

If I’m completely honest…there were a few (aka many) unsuccessful Cricut cards before I got the hang of it.

If you’re into card making, I would definitely recommend a Cricut. It takes a little to get used to, and is definitely a machine that will enable a paper-rubber cement-craft supply buying habit…but it’s well worth it.