Etching glass

Etching glass is something that's new to me...I love it! I bought this etching cream at Michael's (with a 40% off coupon) 

I use vinyl from Joann's to make a stencil with my Cricut. (Be sure to cut it out as a mirror image so that it looks backwards to you for the bottom of the baking pans. For mirrors or other items you can skip this step) I use transfer tape to pick up all the pieces of the stencil at once. 

I placed my stencil on the bottom of the glass baking pan. 

I peeled off the transfer tape and pushed out all the air bubbles in the vinyl. 

                                      

Then I put the etching cream on. (Using gloves is recommended when using etching cream) It takes a healthy amount of cream. I left it on for about 30 seconds and then scraped the excess cream of and put it back into the jar. 

Next rinse the cream off with warm water.

After I rinsed the cream off my daughter peeled off the vinyl.

Voila! You have a personalized gift! 

The great thing about these is that people will know who these pans belong too. 

The wedding card was a file I got from The Cutting Cafe. If you'd like to see more on that you can click here.

There is so many possibilities with glass etching. Here is a few more projects I have done following the steps above.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Crafting!

Lovers tree wedding gift and card

I am loving making all these wedding gifts! Here's one I made for one of my husbands co-workers. 

I bought the tile at Lowes. It was on clearance...I love a bargain! The tree is cut out of Cricut brand vinyl which I bought at Joann's with a coupon.

This gift was inspired by a post on Cricut Design Space on Facebook. If you are not already a member of this group, check it out. It is a great group of very talented people. If you have questions there is always people willing to help in anyway they can.

The bride absolutely loved it =) You can't go wrong with a personalized homemade gift!

The total cost for this gift is about $10.00.

Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting!

The Cutting Cafe Wedding Card

It's time to post my project from the The Cutting Cafe. When Regina said we could choose any file we wanted for our assignment, I decided to go for the wedding word shaped card. It is the perfect card for any wedding.

I dressed the card up with a set of rings

and the awesome  3D Paper Flowers, also from The Cutting Cafe. I love these flowers! They are so pretty. The video that is posted with the flowers is very helpful. It's easy to put them together once you see how its done.

Make sure you check out The Cutting Cafe on the 7th and the 21st of every month to see what the awesome design team has come up with for inspiration. 

Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting!

Pinterest inspired shelves

I have been trying to figure out how I wanted to display pictures on my living room wall for almost a year. I saw these shelves from Shanty2chic on Pinterest and knew they would be perfect! There won't be a bunch of holes in the wall, I can change the pictures out from time to time and they won't fall crooked.

My husband is pretty awesome...whenever I come to him with a project in mind he says "just tell me what you need and I'll do it." He's a keeper! Anyways...this time I showed him the shelves and told him I wanted him to teach me how to make them.  He gave me step by step instructions and helped me with my project instead of me helping him with my project =)

I decided I wanted 5 shelves...one 5' and four 3'. I cut the 1"x4"x10' boards to size, pulled out the staples

 and then we sanded them.

(Note: if you are using a belt sander and have a helper holding the board, make sure she does not let go to adjust her grip. The board will go flying! Not that I did that or anything) I ripped one of the boards down the middle for the front of the shelves.

Once all the cutting and sanding was done we glued the pieces together, clamped and then nailed them for extra strength.

We scraped any glue that snuck out off with a putty knife and then we let them sit over night to dry. The next day we sanded the dried glue spots and I stained the shelves with this stain we got at Lowes. 

Here the shelves are sitting on their back, drying. I absolutely love how they turned out! I only had to put one coat on. After I stained them I let them sit for about 4 hours.

Here's my boys hanging them up! I was so excited!

It looks even better than I had imagined! These shelves were sooooo easy to make and they only cost about $10 a shelf and that's Alaska prices! You people in the lower 48 could probably make them for a little cheaper.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!

Echo's Spongebob Birthday Invitaions

There's a birthday coming up in the Goodwin house! Our baby girl is turning 3! 3! I just can't believe it. Echo is such a fun, loving, head strong, sassy little girl who know exactly what she wants. She definitely keeps us all on our toes and laughing. I thank God for this little person and all the joy she has brought to us.

 Miss Echo LOVES Spongebob. So we are going to have a small Spongebob party. I can't wait until her party...we are going to have Krabby Patties! 
I am so happy with how the invitations turned out. It was the first time I have "welded" in Cricut Design Space. 

I got the Spongebob character SVGs from http://www.frontiernet.net/~mardenz/...

they have a bunch of great files for free. 

Thanks for stopping in! Happy crafting!

Hearts for Healing

On one of the Facebook groups I am a member of, this article was shared... Hearts for Healing. This story scares the crap out of me! (I have a 12 year old)  Her "friends" stabbed her. I just don't understand the things that go on now days...
This gave me the opportunity to do two things I love...crafting and service. My 7 year old also made a heart for her. Kylah has always loved doing crafts with me =)
Here are the hearts we made...

I got to teach Kylah how to use my Cricut Explore for this project. She loves it, of course. 

If you would like to make and send purple hearts, you can mail them to:

Hearts for Healing

P.O. Box 407

Waukesha WI 53187-0407

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved in this.
Thank you for stopping by Toadally Love To Craft! Have an awesome Sunday!

A wedding gift for a special couple

One of my favorite cousins is getting married on June 20th! I won't be able to attend her wedding because I live thousands of miles away, but I was able to make her a special gift =) 

Cameo (my cousin) is doing her wedding in Realtree camo and orange. I just love that! 

The saying on the banner is "May we always follow in your footsteps" The pictures are of the bride and grooms parents on their wedding days. 

 I could not find any Realtree scrapbook paper so my husband, my kids and I gathered some items from the woods on our property to use instead. The leaves, are made of paper that I cut with my Explore. I chalked the edges of them with brown and curled the edges just a bit to make them look real.  

 My loving sister is going to buy a shadow box to put the 12x12 page in for me. (I didn't want to buy a frame and ship it because the last time I did that the glass ended up shattered) 

Image sets used...

Doodlecharms

Mothers Day 2010

Wild Card

I am entering this into

Emergency Crafter "Not a card" 

Thanks for stopping by! 

First project for The Cutting Cafe'

My first project for The Cutting Cafe' is a card in a box.  I absolutely love these! They are 3D, but they fold flat so you can still send them in the mail=) 

The balloons are from the card in a box embellishments that come with the Card in a Box Template. There are sizes and instructions listed on The Cutting Cafe's site if you need a little extra help putting it together.

I used the Cricut Explore (my favorite crafting tool) To cut the card and embellishments. I sized the card to 11.5x11.5 inches so that it would be taller and look more like a pineapple. (Once you have the box sized the way you want make sure you select all, right click and attach so your cut and score lines are on the same mat as your paper) After the box was cut I folded the paper along the lines to make a box. I inked the edges and then taped it into box form. Then I cut out a bunch of little hexagons (sized at aprox 1in) and glued them onto the 3 flaps. That didn't look "real" enough to me so I decided to cut (by hand) tiny, skinny triangles, curled them with my scissors so they would stick out from the hexagons, glued them on and then put green chalk around the hexagons. After chalking I used an ink pad and pom pom to add shading around the hexagons. For the pineapple leaves I cut them out, separated them from their base (as shown below), scored them down the center, chalked the edges, and curled them with my scissors. 

To attach the embellishments inside the box I use hot glue and  floral wire (you can also use paper or scraps of plastic) I really like the wire because I can bend it and move the balloons around a bit. After I had everything attached I added glitter glue to a few spots to make it sparkle...because everything is better with sparkles! 

Where the embellishments for this card are from...

Banner - Formal Occasions Cartridge 

Happy Birthday - Birthday Cakes Cartridge

Hexagon - My Quiet Book Cartridge

Pineapple leaves - Preserves Cartridge 

Spongebob - svg from http://www.frontiernet.net/~mardenz/ 

Hope you enjoy this project as much as I did! Happy Crafting!