Mother’s Cap – FUNDRAISING OPPORTUNITY

Hey guys!

Quick post. I can’t make a Mother’s Ring, but I can make a Mother’s Cap commemorating the birth of my children 😀

I’m doing these as a Fundraiser for Paws 4 Autism and JJ and Bandit 😀

If you’re interested in purchasing one (or some) for yourself, or as gifts, the cost is $23, all of which will be going to Paws, because I’m matching the supplies cost, so together, we’re nearly doubling the fundraising impact.

You also have your choice of cap color and style. You’re not locked into this color or style of hat 🙂

To order:

Got to JJ’s Store, you can find it here: paws4autism.org/jj.html

As always, sharing is very encouraged and much appreciated.

Links of Interest:

Paws 4 Autism general info

JJ’s direct fundraising page

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Boys Get Cute Vinyl, Too

Right now, the 2yo is like this really adorable octopus when we’re trying to get him dressed. We have cute little suits for church, but some Sunday mornings they just aren’t worth the hassle. I used my Cameo and my heat press to create an easy option for those busy mornings.

My 6yo had an exciting summer so far. He got to go to camp! It was his reward for having some good days after a 4 week long power struggle and I wanted it to be extra special. So I made him a personalized camp bag. I was hoping for a draw string bag, but found a $2.00 back pack that worked just fine 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

I Vinyled Some Things…Again

I never thought I’d decorate my Silhouette Cameo, but then I saw this vinyl, found this Sagittarius design, and then a little bit of mental instability hit.

I decorated my machine.

Here’s the outcome.

I may have gone a little Sagittarius crazy and decorated my cell phone case, too…

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Autism Awareness Shirts

So, in the few months since our 2yo’s autism diagnosis, I’ve had a *little* bit of time to create. I’ve even been able to take a few pics. But having time to put them on the blog wasn’t so easy. So now, I’m playing catch up 🙂

First up are some shirts I made for my little guy. When we’re out, if we’re dealing with melt downs, or just out of the ordinary behavior, I want people to know what’s going on. I believe that when people understand something, they’re much less judgmental, and sometimes more likely to help. I don’t mind talking to people about what’s going on, but sometimes, there’s just not time.

But here’s the other thing. My kiddo has lot of REALLY GOOD days. Most of the time people don’t know he’s on the spectrum unless we tell them. And I want people to see *that* side of autism, too.  Most people think they know what it looks like, but they’d be wrong. If you’re not familiar with my son, you’re not likely to see it. And that’s one of the reasons it’s called a spectrum 🙂

So, here are his shirts.

Thanks for stopping by

xoxo

 

Signs That Adoption is Close

During the last 21 months or so, the baby has been visiting his bio mom twice a week.

In the beginning, there’s always a parent aid involved. When parents make enough progress toward reunification, the parent aid role diminishes until parents finally get unsupervised visits which lead to over nights and even whole weekends with their child.

Our parent aid was involved until the very last visit. This woman, who was a stranger in the beginning, now feels kind of like family. She’s a woman who has been part of my son’s life since the beginning. A woman who made a tough, scary situation for me so much easier. A woman who likes hummingbirds.

So when I decided I wanted to make her a thank you gift for our last visit, I knew I wanted it to have hummingbirds 🙂

Because I still want to vinyl all the things, I knew vinyl would be part of it.

Here’s what I came up with.

I liked the tile, but it’s big and bulky. Also, I wanted to color. So I took the image I put together for the tile and made it work for a card, too. My Silhouette cut out the vinyl for the tile then I tried really hard not to cuss (I was successful) while I tried to get the transfer tape to work for me. It finally did- mostly.

For the card, I printed the images and card design. I then had my Silhouette cut all the pieces out. I love dimension and knew I wanted it in this card. I used my markers and pencils to color bird and flowers then affixed the images on to the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

Why I Love My Pixscan Mat!

For years, I didn’t get what the big deal about the pixscan mat was. Then I got one and now, I understand 😉

I had a scrap of vinyl to use – who wants to waste perfectly good vinyl?

My daughter needed something to decorate the case for her glasses – it was pretty plain.

My pixscan mat was perfect for this job!

First, I stuck her case onto my pixscan mat and went through the steps of loading it into my work space.

Next, I found the image she wanted and modified it to fit her case.

Once I had my design, I put my vinyl scrap on my pixscan mat and loaded this into my workspace.

Then I copied my design and pasted it over the top of the new image I had.

From here, I cut out the vinyl and applied it to my daughter’s case. She was a happy camper 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!
Xoxo

Of Storms and Father’s Day

We had some strong storms come through this past weekend. We lost power for a few hours. This always scares me. We have a couple of salt water aquariums that together equal over 200 gallons, then there’s the sump which has even more water (filtration and heating the water happen here). Without power, we can’t heat or circulate the water, and our small oceans may die. But after the power came back on, we were still without internet for a few more days. I’m finally getting some things back on track 🙂

So. Father’s Day. Even with the storms, it was nice to celebrate with my daddy and also thank my husband for the awesome men they are.

My daddy’s card: my parents RV. I’m a little jealous. I want to trade places with them sometimes, but I don’t think they’d let me 😉 Since a lot of us were together this weekend, I took advantage of that and secretly had everyone sign his card before giving it to him 🙂

For my husband: We went with the baseball theme 🙂 I used vinyl on this cute…I’m not sure what to call this, but I found it at Hobby Lobby 🙂 and then, a box card (I kind of really love box cards).

A little background: the last few years have been kind of tough. We seem to be in reactionary mode most of the time. I’m so over reactionary mode. This quote reminded me I don’t necessarily need to be passive. I don’t have to wait for something to happen. I can take steps to stop or limit some of these things and I can come out swinging when I need to.

It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the baseball has some 3D action going on. And the box card has a family picture on it. I wanted something he could easily take to work if he wanted.

RV Card, Swing saying, Baseball Border, Camera box card, Baseball, Father’s Day Saying