Craftaholics Anonymous's 2013 Summer Gift Exchange

Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, July 11, 2013. Filed under: ,
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I love making crafty projects, but after awhile I run out of people to give them to.  Or, I just don't have anyone to give something to.  And while I love decorating my own home, since many of my rooms are "in a transitional phase" right now, I don't want to spend a lot of money creating something that I'll just have to re-do and/or donate once I finally get around to decorating that room.

Enter Linda, the fabulous mind behind Craftaholics Anonymous.  Twice a year, she totally rocks it out and sponsors a handmade gift exchange.  I wanted to participate during the one last winter, but I kind of lost track of time and missed the sign-up date.  Shame shame on me.  So, I've been (im)patiently waiting for the past 7 months for the summer exchange to roll around.  As soon as I got the e-mail in my inbox, I bounced on over to Elfster to sign up for this summer's exchange!


I was paired up with Melissa from California, and I immediately got excited when one of the items on her wishlist was a large vinyl wall decal of song lyrics.  I've had my Silhouette for about a year now (you can read about the search for it here, here, and here) and while I've used it for small basic tests and to cut out things from the Silhouette store, I'd yet to really create anything of my own.  I'm a member of a Silhouette group on Facebook and seeing all of the awesome projects that those ladies and gentlemen create really gave me a kick in the pants to start experimenting with the capabilities of this machine even more.  After all, that IS why I bought it, right?

So to start off, I opened up my Silhouette Studio software and kept an open Safari window next to it, so I could reference back to the original vinyl decal Melissa had included on her wishlist.  Then, it was just a matter of picking a font and re-creating what I saw!

It didn't occur to me until much later that a screenshot would have been much more effective than taking a picture of my computer monitor - sorry :(

I designed it using one consistent font since that's how the original was and despite my love of unique fonts, I actually used one of the stock Apple fonts on my computer.  I sized it to 12" x 36", loaded my vinyl in to my Cameo, and clicked cut.


Not gonna lie, while it was cutting I was freaking out a little bit since I'd only ever done vinyl designs that were about 4" x 6".  But hey, computers know what they're doing, right?  Most of the time?


But hey, any day you can see the cut lines is a good day, right?

Here's where I'm going to share the most common sense advice ever with you.  Do not attempt to weed black vinyl at 11:30 pm when you are tired in a poorly lit room.  You will lose letters and apostrophes, then go to bed feeling flustered.  Admission:  this photo from above is from the second time I cut the design, when I got smart and worked on this project around 10:30 am.  You know.  When it's light out.

So after my duh moment and using the second piece of vinyl that I was smart enough to buy in the length I needed (hope for success, plan for failure?) and about an hour of weeding, my decal was looking pretty awesome if I do say so myself!


So then I just popped some transfer tape over the top - I chose to put the transfer tape on right away to help prevent the letters from shifting during shipping.  I had to layer two pieces of transfer tape since I only had sheets that were 12" x 24", so I hope it worked out okay.

After that, still making use of my awesome Cameo, I decided to play around with the print and cut feature.  Using some sticker paper I had, I created a cute little shipping label.

Sorry for the blurring, but I'm pretty sure Melissa wouldn't appreciate me plastering her name and address all over the internet

And then I also used the print and cut feature to make up a little note.  You know, hey, hope you like your gift, how to attach vinyl to a wall, if you hate it or there's a problem e-mail me.  That kind of thing.  Nothing too special, but I thought they were cute and it was feature of the Cameo that I hadn't ever played with before.  Turns out I'm completely in love with it and want to make all sorts of stuff using it now.

It also turns out that I desperately need a pedicure.  Poor little toes.  

Anyway, thanks Linda for hosting the exchange!  And Melissa, I hope you like your gift!



If you'd like to see what some of the other "exchangers" made/received, check out the Handmade Gift Exchange Linky party here or go here for info about the exchanges and to sign up for an e-mail reminder for the next gift exchange!





Sarah vs. The Command Strips

Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, June 30, 2013. Filed under:
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Today, I'm going to talk about that one time that I was nearly bested by some of the most simple technology known to man: what is essentially double sided tape.  That's right - I nearly lost a battle with the infamous Command Strips.  And friends, this would not have been the first battle with the foamy strips of awesomeness that I lost, nor the second, but in fact, the third time that I would have been beaten down by 3M.  I couldn't let that happen.


I'm a smart girl folks!  I've got a college degree and everything.  Yet these evil little strips, which many in the blogging world seem to adore, apparently bring out the stupid in me.

Case Study #1:  They remove with no damage!  Christmas of 2011, I used Command hooks to hang our Christmas stockings on the wall (yes, the dogs have Christmas stockings!).  January 1 rolls around, and I go to gently pull down on the little tab to remove the strip from the wall, and proceed to take a half-dollar coin sized piece of paint and wall texture with me (that I still haven't repainted to this day, I might add.)  Fail #1.

Case Study #2:  As we saw in my pantry, I hang reusable shopping bags on the back of the pantry door.  They are hung using the Command hooks.  Not 100% paying attention, when I went to hang the back piece of the hook, I accidentally stuck it to the door upside down.  Obviously my fault, I can't blame the strips for that.  When I went to pull down on the tab to pull the plastic piece off, the tab ripped off!  So now there is a plastic backing for an upside down Command hook perma-stuck to the back of my pantry door.  Which will come in handy if I ever decide to hang a wreath on that door...  Fail #2.

So, that brings us to the current date, and my current dilemma, which is this:


This is the view under my work desk in my home office.  I work from home in a customer service job, so I have the computer plugged in, along with my phone and amplifier, my lamp, and I also had my Silhouette plugged in over there at the time.  I like to stretch my legs out all the way under my desk which was causing me to kick the cords and unplug stuff from time to time.  While at my local Menard's, I happened to be in front of a display that had a pack of Command strips while thinking about the cord issue and I figured they would be a good solution to my dilemma.


So I picked them up, and my nemesis and I were face-to-face again.  My plan was to use the Command strips to stick the power strip to the underside of my desk, thus removing any cord clutter from around my feet.  Genius, no?  I was pretty proud of myself. 


I cut the strips in half since the power strip I use for my work stuff isn't that large or heavy.  Really, I just wanted to include this picture because I was really darn proud of myself for getting the scissors to balance like that all on their own while I snapped this photo.


I read the directions super carefully, and cleaned the power strip and the bottom of my desk and waited for them to dry before adhering the Command strips to the power strip, then attached everything to the bottom of my desk.  I laid under my desk and held it up there pretty tight for about 15 minutes.  When I let go, everything stuck - so I walked away feeling pretty proud of myself.  (I did unplug everything from the strip as well, so there was no excess weight pulling it down.)  Success, right?!?!

WRONG!!!

When I walked in the next morning, the power strip was back on the ground, where it started.  I may have possibly overreacted at this point, since my solution was to cut four more Command strips in half and stick them on to the back of the power strip then secure the whole thing on to the underside of my desk with clamps.  I then left the clamps there for about a week.

But...this all happened about 6 weeks ago, and this is what I've had ever since.

Sorry for the horribly blurry iPhone photo

Success tastes so sweet.  And now I can stretch my feet out without worrying about hanging up on people or disconnecting my entire computer system, which is always a good thing.

So, that's my saga with the Command strips.  Any one have any good tips for me so I can get along better with these foamy sticky strips?  Or is there a product that you constantly have to do battle with?  Am I all alone in that respect??







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