Free Chalkboard Photo Christmas cards

I hope you have all been enjoying my Free Lego Star Wars labels available on my Facebook page! They are still there, but for Christmas my sister suggested it would be fun to offer some photo Christmas cards. I spent the last few days designing these options to offer you.

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I decided to go with the chalkboard trend, I hope you like them. I created 6 fronts and 6 backs. 3 vertical and 3 horizontal. and we’re giving half of them away for free if you like MY facebook page, Topsy Turvy.

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And the other half away if you like my SISTERS facebook page, Chelsea Peterson Photography!

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you can mix and match. There are PNG’s for those with photo editing software and basic JPG for those who don’t. Of course it’s easier to add the images with the PNG’s, but it can be done with the JPG’s.

Marriage and Birth certificate family wooden puzzle

The Theme for the Point of View this month is “Family

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I bought this wooden “Family” puzzle from Oh My Crafts at their warehouse sale last month.  so when this month’s theme came up it was PERFECT! I debated painting it, or mod podging scrapbook paper on it, then I decided to try ink jet transfer using my marriage certificate and children’s birth certificates (inspired by this)!

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I started by spray painting the letters white, you can see the Y unpainted here so you can see what color it was before.

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Then I scanned in all the certificates and made them smaller, I sized them all at 6 inches across, flipped them horizontally (mirrored writing now) and printed them on my ink jet printer.

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I decided where I wanted the letter to be, making sure that the first names (in this case BOTH mine and my husbands first names) were fitting on the letter, after I made sure I got the names on I also tried to get other important information, dates, times, weights (obviously the weight of the babies, not our marriage)

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I found half a dozen different instructions for this technique out there.  I decided to try the simplest one, just paint mod podge over the image

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spread a smooth even layer of the mod podge over your image, in this case my wedding certificate.  BTW this new wide brush from Mod Podge is AWESOME!  I just bought mod podge the first time a year ago and I’m SOLD, their new products are AWESOME!

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then place the letter down where you previously decided, get it as smooth as you can when you lay it down, once it’s touching the letter you don’t want to move it, you’ll just smudge the detail.

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I debated just leaving it on the front, but decided to wrap the certificate around the letter, carrying parts of the image around the sides.

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Repeate with ALL the letters.  Because of the various sizes some certificates fit better than others, some have more information than others, but overall I was really happy with how they all fit!

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I cut off the excess so it wouldn’t be in the way over night.  You want it to dry COMPLETELY, so don’t touch it until the next day!

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Okay it’s the next morning (you can see the difference in the lighting…).  Now get the paper soaking wet.  I did this by soaking the letters in a 9×13 glasss pan.

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Once the paper is completely soaked, like seriously soaked, start peeling back the paper, once you’ve peeled what you can carefully RUB the paper off.  But be careful cause if you rub too hard you’l start to rub up the mod podge, and that’s whats holding the ink from your image, so you’ll end up rubbing it right off (like in the center of my F)

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Repeat on all the letters…

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I made the mistake of sanding the edges after painting and they ended up soaking in some of the water and expanding, so I ended up sanding a bit more than I planned on once the paper was gone.  But I ended up liking the way it looked.  So sand as much or as little as you want for aging!

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You can see I sanded some areas (the swollen wood) more than others, but the unevenness actually looks better (although the OCD side of me is driven nuts by it while I’m working on it!)

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Now for distressing the edges.  I used a distress ink stamp pad, but you can use chalk, wax, etc… anything you want.

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I didn’t want it to be too dark, so I used a brush and did a little at a time, continuing to distress until I was happy with it.  I not only did the edges, but also the top to age the overall look a bit.

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Here’s a side by side of the distressed F and the un-distressed A

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And once again the entire word distressed…

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Now to finish it off by sealing it, again use anything you prefer, a spray, mod podge, paint…  This new antique matte mod podge, PERFECT for this project I thought! I ended up just doing one layer, but I MIGHT go back next week and add a second one, each layer will “age” (yellow) the project a bit!

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Let it dry (this silicone mat is seriously awesome, nothing sticks to it, the glue peels right up when it’s dry- I need one about 4 times the size to sit constantly on my table when crafting!)

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And DONE!  I LOVE it… I wish you could see the details better (but then you’d see my kids names, birth dates, etc… so you’ll have to just trust me, it’s lovely!) From far away it’s nicely textured and a fun pieces, it isn’t unless you look closely that you notice the personal details from their birth certificates.

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The Marriage certificate on the F is the most detailed, and you can see it better here.  the kids all love that they each have a letter, and that it all fits together. Even my husband (not the biggest decor fan) likes it! WIN!

disclosure- Last month I was sent a box of the some of the new Mod Podge line products to try, with no expectation of a blog post, or advertising, I’m linking back to them and talking about the ones I liked because I think you might like them too

Neon Paper Dahlia

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Astrobrights Papers by Neenah Paper for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

So how bright can AstroBrights papers really be????  BRIGHT!  I figured the paper would be thin, like printer paper, but it was a nice thick paper!  Not cardstock thick, but a great weight that held it’s shape!  Hello Lovely!  The paper is so lovely, and was so much fun to work with.

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Right now Astrobright has two campaigns on the Astrobright Facebook page right now.  The first one is Give a Brighter Year sweepstakes, fill it out for a chance to win $30,000 in school supplies for the school of your choice (spectrum academy). The second one is Make Something Astrobright Design Contest!  YOU can submit projects, pictures and video for a chance to win a cash Visa!

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Going back to school marks the end of summer.  Now my kids love school, but who wants summer to end?  So I thought it would be nice when the kids came home from their first day of school to have a bright cheery welcome home wreath keep the bright summer months going…(Inspired by this black dahlia wreath going around pinterest, I can’t find the original source- watermark people)!  The Girls LOVED it, the boys didn’t even notice- oh well…

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I started with 8.5″ x 11″ size sheets of Astrobright paper and I wanted squares, so I decided to cut the paper down to 4.25″ x4.25″ squares.  First I marked my paper cutter at the 4.25″ mark (mine is from Japan so it doesn’t have inches marked on it…)

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First I cut 4.25″ rows…

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Then I cut the rows into square!

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I cut a full rainbow of bright colors!  Red to Purple…

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I added glue to one side and let it dry a bit to get tacky, I found it sticks better that way.

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Roll it into a cone and hold it for a second so it sticks, do this with all the colors.

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I did one color at a time, starting with the bright green…

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I used a 6 inch cake circle for the base, and I added glue all around the edges.

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I started with green all the way around,

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yellow in between…

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Orange in a bit…

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Then orange/red between the orange…

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Red…

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pink (this is where I started thinning it down a bit, I wish I’d started with a few more of the green and yellow, but no biggie)

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A few less purple

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Even less blue

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And finally filling in with three turquoise…  I LOVE it!  My girls loved it so much I think I’ll make even SMALLER versions for my girls bedroom in these same bright colors! GORGEOUS!

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This paper is GORGEOUS, and would be PERFECT for flyers, notes from teachers, PTA flyers, etc…  Anything you don’t want to get missed by parents/teachers/anyone else your sending something on paper too.  AND what kid wouldn’t want to play with this paper?  My kids LOVED playing with the paper I didn’t use.  It’s eco friendly, and it’s partially made with recycled materials.

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Airplane Baby Shower

Now for the full Airplane Baby Shower Reveal!  It was SUCH a fun party to plan and throw, and so much fun for my sweet cousin to come into town so we could all love on her and be happy for her upcoming baby!

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Again- we went with the Airplane shower because her Dad worked as an air traffic controller and her husband works for Delta, so lots and lots of flying are in this kid future!  We designed the table to look like grass on either side of a runway…  and I love how the table turned out!  I wrapped a few of my puzzle boxes in green wrapping paper to add height without sticking out.

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The control tower cake, AND the biggest hit were these cloud cake balls!!!  (a 6 petal cookie cutter, press the cake inside, freeze, cut in half, add to a stick and dip!)

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What kinds of food do you think of when you think Airplane?  I created these labels for Pretzels…

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and peanuts!  This way people could snack at the party, or take some home as well!

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I found these great clam-shell plastic food containers at Gygi’s here in SLC, but I’m sure a local food/restaurant supply store would have them, or of course ordering online!  We made chicken salad sandwiches on croissants and I love the addition of my stickers too them.  I’m still tickled how it all came together!

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And of course my airplane color flow cookies

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And you can’t have any party, let along an airplane party without bottled water!!!

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I also found these plastic cups, the same ones from the airplanes, for the Orange juice (my favorite airline drink, AND the perfect color for our party).  BUT I couldn’t find the right size lids… NEXT time, right?  And with Easter the next weekend I found an abundance of blue cotton candy, so I made these orange planes with a mold and added them to the bags!

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I used my silhouette machine to cut out all the clouds and the planes, you can’t see it but I created a mobile that’s hanging from the chandelier to add more clouds and a plane into the sky above the table.  The cartoon plane was an image I found that I changed up to match the other plane, the silhouette of a  plane, that I designed…

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Since so many people were coming from different parts of the Mother to be’s life we included name tags.  On top of the wings is a cloud shape space for names…  Another missed picture (I always have those don’t I?) and the gift table (with a maternity pictures from a photoshoot with my sister, Chelsea Peterson Photography)

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The prizes for our games were simple, but delicious!  The sad thing is the first time around I actually miss-spelled chocolate…

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We threw a maternity Jeopardy game, that was a HUGE hit!  Everyone was laughing pretty hard, and the team that won didn’t have any new or young mothers on it…

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And the baby food game, the winner of this one was my 17 year old cousin, she babysits alot!!!  Way to go!

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And finally a reminder of the invitations I created for the party!  It was a wonderful evening and I hope my sweet cousin had a great time, cause in the end that’s the whole point of throwing a party!

Airplane Baby Shower
Airplane Color Flow Cookies
Airport Traffic Control Cake Tower
Airplane Boarding Pass Invitations