My mind is almost always filled with some kind of project I want to get done, or a wish that I could sit down and scrapbook more often. Unfortunately, I'm either too lazy/busy/chasing kids around to do anything but push those thoughts to the back of my mind for an unknown period of time. Luckily, the last few weekends I've been keeping up with the house chores better and I've (maybe) had a bit more gumption than normal, and I decided to turn two of those put-off projects into reality.
The first project came into my mind after driving around town. I saw a lot of cars with decals on the back windows of stick figure families, and I really thought they would be cute. I had seen similar stickers at craft stores, but they ranged anywhere from $5 to $10 a piece, depending on the size. I knew that if I could find some designs I wanted, I could cut similar shapes out with my cricut and save money. Ebay is my absolute favorite place to buy cricut cartridges because they are so cheap. I've never spent more than $25 for a cricut cartridge on Ebay, when they are normally priced at $80 in a craft store. GREAT DEAL! Amazingly enough, cricut actually has a cartridge called "Car Decals", so I snatched it up really fast and then it sat in a desk drawer for months and months. I kept telling myself that winter wouldn't be the best time to put a decal on my car, that the weather needed to be warmer. So spring came and went, and summer came and went, and then last week I decided that I'd better get it done before the cold weather excuse came back again.
The cricut book was so full of stick figures and designs that I had to go through it a few times and choose the right figures to represent our family. Then I cut them out in paper to make sure they were the right size. I think the kid figures are about 1/2 or full inch different in size from the parents, but that's how it should be, right? (^_^) I only had some beige vinyl and I wasn't going to go buy a roll of white, so that's what I used. I think it looks great, and you really can't tell it's not white unless you're right next to it. As you can see, we have a daddy with a book, because Jared is working hard studying for school. Then there's a pregnant mommy, no explanation needed there. Next, we have our little boy on his bike, because he loves to be outside, and then we have our little girl with pigtails, who is just too cute. I was very pleased with how those turned out (and how they look on my car!)
I have to admit though, I have a love-hate relationship with vinyl. You can do the coolest things with it, but sometimes it sure is hard to get it off the cricut mat, especially if it's a new mat.
I decided that our pets needed to be represented on the car too (I've seen lots of cars with dogs and cats). Since we only have a fish tank, I felt this was the best picture to choose to represent the animal part of our family. This was hard to pull off the mat and put on the car because of how thin the lines were, but I sure like looking at it!
Project #2 came to me when I was visiting my friend's house. She had decided on a couple of phrases to put up on the walls of her house with vinyl. She was a stay-at-home mom and had lots of time to plan these kinds of things, and I would often find myself wishing I had as much time as she did. One night, I watched her put "Happiness is Homemade" on her kitchen wall, and I decided that I would find a phrase that I liked best to put somewhere in my house. Another visit to her house a while later revealed that she had put "We may not have it all together, but together, we have it all" on another wall in her house. I decided it was time for me to find a phrase and get to work. So, once I found my phrase, I again sat on it and kept making up excuses as to why I just couldn't get it done. Two weekends ago I decided to at least sit down and cut out the words on paper and put them up on the wall to get an idea of how it would look. Then, last weekend, I went and bought the vinyl I needed and finished this:
My hubby helped me measure stuff out and gave me a straight edge so that the words weren't crooked. The tough part was standing on my couch and reaching up to put the letters on the wall. After I was finished, I tried erasing all the pencil markings off my wall, but the wall is a bumpy texture and was eating up my eraser and making a mess, so I tried to use a wet cloth. That was even more tiring. After it was all said and done, I was very happy with my work, and even happier that I finally had another project done and that I had accomplished something fun.
I don't have any big projects like this left in my head, but I'm hoping I can do at least a small crafty thing every week. Here's to putting things on the back burner and hoping!
