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Owl Invites

Typically we get requests for Jungle/Safari baby shower crafts.  This time we received a request for an Owl theme.  The new parents are expecting their first bundle of joy and will not know the gender until it's time!

Will it be a hheee or shhheeee?

D.I.Y Christmas

Hey everyone!!

Christmas is upon us, and we should have posted this blog sooner, since we think that a lot of these ideas are so much fun . . . and affordable!  Affordability during the holidays is so important . . . we come from a big family, so when we do anything, we have to budget right to make sure that we get the most bang for our buck... and to make sure that we get everything that everyone want . . . this also allows us to be creative.

Here are some things and activities that we did this year . . .

We put up our annual (fake) Christmas Tree . . . with typical ornaments and ornaments name made with card-stock paper. We used our stencils and Cricut machine to cut everyone's names and just backed it onto another card-stock to make the name pop! We also decorated our names with random stickers that we found at the dollar section at Target & Michaels . . . This is our third year and the names on the tree keeps growing as more family members and friends join us for our annual Christmas gathering. It's a nice way to keep adding to our "family tree" and a nice change from writing names on an ornament.

We also made our own wrapping paper this year.  We have been on a reusable kick, so reusing brown packing paper was perfect in saving money and it gave us a blank canvas to play with in creating something new and fun for our Christmas gifts.  We decided to emboss them with different colors and holiday stamps that we had.  Turned out cute and yay for going green!

We also emboss bags to give plain bags a little personality to them . . . if you have an embosser, you can also emboss bags for any occasions!

We had these tags as a  Christmas Special at our Etsy store . . . we LOVE these tags because it is so cute! We used them for all of our gifts this year because it was so easy to tie and attached.  What's best about the tags is that you can customize the size of the tag and decorate the tags in any way that you want . . .

Visit our Etsy Store and see what we have that can help you with your next project!  From tags to wrapping paper . . . to cards . . . we will try to help in any way that we can.

Mr. & Mrs. Vu

The middle of this month, we were honored to be part of our cousin's wedding.  After a year of planning and anticipations, the day came and we couldn't have asked for a better outcome.  Even with the rain!  Everything we envision was executed beautifully!  I'm sure my cousins wouldn't ask for a better day.  =)  The saying "save the best for last," is true because their wedding sums up our wedding season with a bang! We and along with all the guests had so much fun!

We would like to share a few photos of our items that added a little touch to the simply beautiful wedding.

Photo Credit: Steven Nguyen

  

Look at how nicely the banner hangs in front of their sweetheart table! We cut out hearts and strung them using the romance letters.

We also made photobooth props: mustaches, glasses, and bows that was a hit for the guests to pose with. 

Photo Credits:  Blankbooth

"We love M&R" sign was made for our friend's wedding the previous month and somehow found its way with S&N's props. =P

Be sure to check out our shop for your next project!

Pacman Halloween Costume

Hey all . . . as you know Halloween has come and gone! We wanted to share the costume that we made this year. This year . . . we went with a giant Pacman!

(Sorry in advance, the photos were taken on a phone, so it is a bit darker than the camera we usually use)

First we started with foam boards, and taped it together to get a large circle . . . We had a yard stick, so we just made the circles a yard tall/ wide . . . the easiest way that we found to do it was to make a cross and made a makeshift compass by getting a string and holding it down in the middle and getting a pen to connect the cross.

We used an exacto-knife to cut the circles because it cuts a lot cleaner than using a scissor . . . and using an exacto-knife gives your more control of your cuts . . . just remember slow & steady!! after u cut 1, you can trace the 2nd and just cut, no need to make a brand new circle . . .

For the mouth, you can cut it to be as big as you want, what we did was measured 4inches from the center and drew a line, and made the triangle mouth opening from that line.

Then after that was all cut and done, we got yellow fabric (you can always use paint, but we choose fabric because painting requires you to make sure it is evenly painted so that the colors are consistent.)

Before putting on the yellow fabric we did cut the circles were we wanted the arms to stick out, we just took something circular and traced it then used out trusty exact-knife. Its better to go small, then work from there . . . What happened with ours was that when put on, it was better to cut an oval than a huge circle. Since our arm circle was small to begin with, we just fixed it from there. It can be cut for the person's comfort.

We also used spray glue to put on the fabric because it was easy to stick on the foam boards and for the edges (cut and stretch over the circle edge). It'll be wise to have something that is a straight edge to help get rid of the bubbles that the fabric makes when lying over the board. 

We did 2 layers because our cloth was a tad bit thin (it was 30% off!) but we had more than enough for 2 layers for both sides of the body and to cover the backside.

We had extra foam lying around, so we used it to make the structure or the connecting pieces of both sides of the body. We taped it from the inside. Also, we randomly found a foam board that could go over the head (after cutting a hole) to be extra support at the shoulder level.

In hindsight, it would be smart to get VELCRO! And use that to connect the 2 pieces. So using the extra fabric, spray it on the connecting pieces and then velcro it on.

This is just how it looks when it is standing upright to make sure that everything is stable and won't fall apart. Or to see what needs fixing.

Trying it on to see if everything fits comfortably, This way we can still fix the sizing issues

This is what ours looked like after we covered the structural pieces with the back yellow fabric. Everything was sprayed glue on. But like we said before, in hindsight, velcro is the way to go! The spray glue is cool for getting the fabric on, but for structure velco is the best option . . . 

At this point, if you wanted to use a black fabric to cover the bottom part of the mouth so that it can be legit, you can, but since this was for work contest, we left the mouth open so that the arms can be taken out of the arm holes to type.

This is the final fitting with the yellow shirt and black bottom to complete the look. Don't forget to glue on your eyes!

In this battle of Pacman VS. Robot, Pacman won . . . a $50 giftcard to Michaels for many more crafting projects to come!!

We don't sell the costume on our Etsy Store, but feel free to visit our Etsy Store anyways! We have lots of great things for the upcoming holidays.

Mother's Day Crown

This is a long over due post and we are trying to catch up with our blog on letters that customer use for their project.  This is a very cute idea for future teacher to use!  Mrs. Haley of Huntington Beach, CA used our big block letters for students to decorate a crown for their mother or guardian.  This project turned out very nice especially with the shimmery paper that she requested.

Thank you Mrs. Haley for sharing these pictures with us.

Photobooth Fun

Some photobooth fun that we made for a friend! What do you think?!