Baby Ramsey will be 1 of 5 for the Nelms Family!!

It's a baby kinda year in our family.  There's 5 babies that are due to be here within the next few months.  I'm expecting our second, who is due September 30.  We're letting the gender be a surprise at the birth.  This from the woman who's been decorating and cleaning anything she can get her hands on, and NO, I won't be coming to clean your house.  Mine, alone, will take me until this baby gets here!

Anyway, my sister is also expecting.  She's due 1 week after me.  How awesome is that.  Cousins so close in age!  YAY.  She's having a boy.  This is the second for them as well.  I've got some HTV in the mail for the boys as well.  Everyone needs a personalized t-shirt!

The other babies due are my cousins.  She's having TRIPLETS!  All girls.  Her and her husband have 2 boys now.  They will most certainly have their hands full.  God has a lot of faith in them!  Could you imagine?  I'd be worried I'd forget who is who!  HAHA.  Well, with that fear in mind, I made the girls a little personalized something.  Check it out!

HTV (glitter)... finally figured it out!

The frustration of getting one little phrase to cut on my silhouette cameo!

I was so excited.  I had picked up some glitter HTV at my local Joann's.  It wasn't Silhouette cameo brand, but I figured they were all the same.  I had seen a pack of little tanks in a 2T at my moms, and asked if I could borrow them to spruce them up a little bit.  I had the phrase "if found please return to Nanny" all set up on the silhouette and ready to cut.  That's when things went south for me.  The machine didn't seem to be putting a mark on the HTV.  I did test cut after test cut and NOTHING!  I thought something was wrong with my machine, or at least the blade.  I was using the "heat transfer material- smooth" and just manipulating the settings.

Finally, about ready to give up, I stumbled on the setting for "Glitter/Flocked Patterned Paper (Medium weight- 65lb)".  This was the golden ticket for me.  It cut the glitter heat transfer without cutting the clear backing.  I was able to get my shirt done!

Yep... wasted about 1/2 of my gold glitter on that tiny bit of print!  LESSON LEARNED!

Today, while the kid slept and the hubby golfed, I tried another little shirt for Gwendolyn.  I'm still torn on whether or not to put her name above the butterfly, but I LOVE how it came out.

 

This was done by google searching "butterfly" and finding an image that I liked and that would work well when converting it to a cut file.

 

1. I saved the file as a jpg.

2. In the Silhouette software, I opened the file

3. Once the image was there, I clicked on the trace tool.  I had to increase the High Pass Filter to make the lines a little more smooth.  (When doing this, be sure not to enlarge the image until you have it in a cut format- the lines get a bit rough) Once it's in the cut format, you can resize it to your liking!

4. I didn't need to flip this, since it's not lettering.  So I just sent it to cut!  Don't forget to use the Glitter/Flocked Patterned Paper if you have trouble with another setting.

 

Hopefully this will help anyone else who is new to the Silhouette and ran into the same problems I did!

 

Pastry Cloth and Fabric Dyeing with Freezer Paper

Sooooo... I did sewing project 3 before completing project 2.  I needed to step away from the maternity skirt, and I really need to do a little research on heming. 

Anyway, today I decided to make the pastry cloth from the Pinterest pin on my "sewing" board. I'm super stoked about how it turned out!  Hopefully it'll be as awesome when I actually use it!!!

So here are the tutorials I used to complete this project.

Pastry Cloth tutorial

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2014/04/how-to-make-a-pastry-cloth-and-why-you-need-one.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MakeItAndLoveIt+(Make+It+and+Love+It)

Freezer Paper Fabric Dyeing tutorial

http://www.thinkingcloset.com/2013/08/12/keep-calm-onesie-with-freezer-paper-stenciling-silhouette-winner/

Mother's Day Gift Bag

With Mother's Day around the corner.  I decided to, yet again, have a little fun with my Silhouette Cameo and some vinyl!

Go to unoriginalmom.com for the Cut File I used.  I had to edit it a little since neither of Gwen's grandparents goes by "Grandma". 
Check out her blog while you're there.  I found a bunch of great ideas!

This machine was going to town on making those cuts, while I got to sit back and wait for it to finish.  Then I had the joy of removing all the unnecessary vinyl.  UGH!  I actually had to recut one.  You really have to be carefully how small you go with text if you are using vinyl.

Anyway.  Here is the finished "Gift Bag"

I think they came out pretty nice!