Summer Vacation

A Place to Be Happy is taking a Summer Vacation- after many years of blogging- it's time for a vacation!! Happy Summer!

More Father's Day Printables

Love the colors of these adorable Father's Day printables - don't miss these!
find them here:
http://blog.catchmyparty.com/2011/05/23/free-fathers-day-printables-from-love-party-printables/

Free Father's Day Printable

Need a cute Father's Day card? Check this out!
Find it here:
http://jannawilson.typepad.com/thewhimsyshoppe/2011/06/fathers-day-freebie-1.html

Donut Cookie Pops

Couldn't resist another too-cute idea here. Cookies shaped like donuts and on a stick - does it get better than this. These would be so cute for a party, shower or any occasion!
get the direction here:
http://blog.dollhousebakeshoppe.com/2011/06/donut-cookies.html

Bert and Ernie snacks

I'm way beyond the Bert and Ernie stage here, but these would be fun to make, for kids or kids-at-heart! And healthy too. Just had to share.
find it here:
http://kitchenfunwithmy3sons.blogspot.com/2011/06/ernie-and-bert-fruit-snack.html

DIY Sidewalk Chalk

I saw this great DIY recipe for sidewalk chalk and couldn't resisit sharing. Lots o summer fun here!
get it here:
http://smashedpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com/2009/09/liquid-sidewalk-chalk.html

Black and White

I've always wanted to know how to make these black and white cookies and here is the magic recipe from Family Circle:
http://www.familycircle.com/recipes/desserts/old-school-sweets/?page=2

Fathers Day Printable

I thought this was such a clever idea - a Father's Day Printable for soda (or ummm beer) bottles. Get it here:
http://www.theidearoom.net/2011/05/fathers-day-soda-bottle-covers.html

Cupcake Toppers

I'm thinking of summer and 4th of July already. Here is a set of cake toppers I made for a challenge on smartbuygal.com.

Guest Blogger!

Hi everyone. It's Denise from paperpastime.com.
I was thrilled when Leslie asked me to be a guest on her blog.
I have been married to my wonderful husband for almost 24 years, and we have 3 amazing children, as well as an awesome daughter-in-law. We live in western NY, and have been in the same house for 20 years
I have been crafting and creating most of my life, and love all kinds of crafts, and enjoy trying new ones. Paper crafts and vinyl are my favorites at the moment. Boxes are a strange addiction for me, and I love to design them. Just recently, after much encouragement, I started to sell some of my files. This high heel shoe favor box is one of them.

Guest Blogger!

Hello everyone! I am thrilled to be guest blogging for you today on A Place to Be Happy. My name is Sabrina and I hail from the South – Georgia to be specific. I have lived here for the past sixteen years and I love it. I have been crafting heavily for just over a year. My interest runs from scrapbooking to cards, to vinyl, to glass etching, back to scrapbooking, etc. I really like a bit of it all, and am thankful for the opportunity to try new things all the time. The project I am going to share with you today is one I have been working on for a while. It is a music/poetry journal that I put together a journal for Iesha. She is the daughter of a dear friend and she is turning nineteen in a few weeks. This is going to be one of her father’s gifts to her. A little bit about Iesha - She's a pretty talented young woman who likes to write poetry and she also has a fantastic voice. This girl can sing! She also loves the color pink, flowers, and leopard skin. Whenever I am making something like this for someone else I try to incorporate at least a few elements that I know they will particularly like.






I used Cinch book boards to make this journal. It's a 8 1/2 x 11 book. I covered it with pink paper and then Announce cardstock by 7gypsies, using gloss Modge Podge for paper. I really like the particular shimmer the gloss modge podge leaves on a page. Iesha's name is spelled out using chipboard letters that I've had in my stash. I used hot glue to adhere the letters because I imagine this journal is going to get a bit of wear and tear and I wanted to make sure they would stay on the cover. The girl is cut from the Cricut Forever Young cartridge and the flowers and white flourish are also from my stash.

The inside of the front panel are the lyrics from the song "Dance with my Father" by Luther Vandross. This is Iesha's favorite song so I wanted to include it.

The next page is made up of card stock covered by a clear cardstock with a flourish design. I stitched them together with my Sew Easy and then added a frame at the top of the page for her father to include a small picture of her, again stitched to adhere it to the page. I found the frame in the Make the Cut gallery and was able to find some scraps that were big enough to use to cut it out. I printed the sentiment "Portrait of the Artist as as a Young Woman" on my computer and just cut it out in rectangles.

The next side of the frame page is something my friend wrote for his daughter. He also dabbles in poetry, and I thought it was important that he include something of himself in this gift to her. I added a few peace sign stickers that I picked up at Michael's recently. After this page, there are about 40 blank pages of white paper for Iesha to write, draw, or do whatever she chooses to do. There are about 40-45 blank pages in-between each of the pocket pages.

I wanted to include dividers for the journal and I wanted them to be useful so I decided to include pockets for Iesha to stash notes in. I created the pocket by welding a wave and a rectangle image from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge with a treble clef I found on the Quarter Note cartridge. I used the treble clef's shadow image for welding, and cut out the regular image and in pink and placed it on top. I then stitched the pocket to the page and included three paper clips with cute sentiments on them. They are made by 7Gypsies and I love them.

The other side of the pocket divider is simple - just the word Create cut from the Home Decor cartridge, and another Jolee flower from my stash.

The next pocket page divider uses the same wave and rectangle but this one is welded to the shadow of a music note, also found on the Quarter Note cartridge. I placed a popsicle stick in the page so you could actually see the pocket. The paper clips are again made by 7gypsies.






Serendipity was cut from the Graphically Speaking cartridge. This is one of my all-time favorite cartridges. I almost always find something on that cartridge to use on a project this big.

This is the last pocket page divider. The microphone is also from Quarter Note. I welded the shadow to the pocket and cut the microphone out of white paper and then applied adhesive and Martha Stewart glitter. I think it looks pretty cute. One thing I forgot to mention is that I did include tabs on the side of the dividers - that way she can easily flip to the different section of the journal. There is more stitching around the pocket, and of course, more 7gypsies paper clips.

The other side of the pocket page is again something simple - "Explore" is cut from the Home Decor cartridge and accented by several different flowers from my stash.

The back of the journal uses the same paper from the first side, again with gloss Modge Podge. I cut the "journey" sentiment from Graphically Speaking out of chipboard three times, adhered them together with Modge Podge, and then adhered the same word cut in pink. I blinged it up a bit with some black gems. The mats are cut from the Storybook cartridge and the flourish is from Recollections.






Thanks so much for stopping by and I really hope you enjoyed this project. It was several weeks in the making and I am thrilled with the way it turned out. You can drop by to visit me anytime at www.sabrioletdesigns.blogspot.com. I want to thank Leslie again for giving me the opportunity to share my work with some new people. I hope you all have a fabulous day!



Sabrina

Guest Bloggers

This week I will have several guest bloggers showing off their projects. I am thrilled to be able to showcase so much talent here. ENJOY!

Guest Blogger!

Hi, my name is Michelle and I am guest blogging here on A Place to Be Happy. In my spare time I like to go to the lake and hang out friends and family. My craft of choice is cutting vinyl with my Expression and Sure Cuts A Lot. I love making files to share and inspire as I get so much inspiration from others, like Leslie!! Here is a project I recently did. I made a graduation banner for my niece. The font on “Congratulations Miranda” is LD Delightful and the rest of the words are Shelley Volante BT. You can download the graduation hat in SVG format here: http://www.box.net/shared/uv02xxehe6

You can find more projects and lots of SVGs if visit my blog at MichellesDigitalCreations.blogspot.com

Happy cutting!!

Courage, Honor, Remembrance

MEMORIAL DAY 2011

Best Tips, Tricks and FAQ #5

WHAT'S A GOOD PRICE FOR VINYL?
I've been asked a lot what is a good price for vinyl. You should not pay more than .50 a square foot for regular outdoor/craft vinyl (before shipping).

Rolls come in different sizes and widths, but calculate it per square foot so you can compare apples to apples.
To calculate:take width in inches x length in inches then divide by 144 to get the total square feet
so a 19" roll at 5 yards is 19 x 5 x 36(There are 5 yards and each yard is 36 inches) = 3420 divide by 144 this is 23.75 square feet - so you should pay $12.00 or less.

Also don't forget to add in shipping to get the real price, shipping prices vary and can add a lot.
Good luck and have fun!

Best Tips, Tricks and FAQ #4

GLASS ETCHING DIRECTIONS

So many people have asked how to do glass etching, so here are some basic instructions:

materials needed:

glass item ( plate, glass, tumbler, jar)

Armour Etch creme

vinyl or contact paper

**Armour Etch can be purchased at Michaels and other craft stores, it is pricey, so make sure to use a coupon.

**I find great glass items at thrift stores and dollar stores. You will want to start your first project on an inexpensive item, since you may make a mistake on it. You can even practive on a pickle jar or old wine bottle.

**The best and easiest items to etch are perfectly vertical, like a tumbler glass (or pickle jar). Bulbous wine glasses and vases take more practice, in my opinion.

Here is a cut file with instructions on how to use it. The cut file is in the right hand column

Piece A: rectangle

Piece B: ring

Piece C: inner circle
Pieces D: letters

Choose either negative or positive images. Below the black represents the vinyl pieces and the white is the glass.

The top image uses pieces A & D

The bottom image uses pieces A & C

You get different results from each method.

(These are cut in Plantin, but can easily be recreated in other fonts and shapes)

After cutting, place the vinyl on the glass, make sure it is on where you want it and then press hard on each piece of vinyl making sure you have no bubbles. This is an important step.

I use a foam brush and put the AE (Armour Etch) on with a dabbing motion. You so not want any brush strokes. Make sure you use plenty of the AE - glob it on!

Set a timer for 5 minutes.

When it is done, I use my same foam brush and wipe off the AE into a small bathroom type paper cup. (Put this excess back into your bottle, it is fine to use again!)

When most of it is off, rinse the glass under water washing the rest off. (Make sure you don't have other glass dishes in your sink)

remove your vinyl stencil (you can use it again) and dry your item

Best Tricks, Tips, and FAQ #3

SCAL2 Cut n Print


Thanks to all who participated in my Cut n Print tutorial. Here is the script and you can walk yourself through it if you want - have fun. Here are the images which were used with it...
You can just right click on the image and save it to your computer.

script here:

Best Tips, Tricks and FAQ #2

HOW TO RE-STICK YOUR CUTTING MAT...

This is what I use to make my Cricut mats sticky again....It works great.

This is "Best Tricks, Tips, and FAQ" week

I am going back through my almost 3 years of blogging to revive some of the best tricks, tips and sooo many of the frequently asked questions I get...

FAUX GLASS ETCHING

I've has the glass etching vinyl around and finally decided to work with it. it cuts just like regular vinyl and goes on with transfer tape just like normal. It looks like frosted glass, but it isn't - it's vinyl. It's faster, cheaper, and much easier. (and removable) - and dishwasher safe.

There is a certain charm to the glass etched item, and even though I've had lots of success with it, I always have a pit in my stomach when I wash the creme off wondering if I had any bleed through of the design and if the vinyl stencil held well.

Also, sometimes the etching just doesn't show up so well after all of that work. I've wanted to add an etch design to my front door storm window, but wouldn't dare try the real etching, I'll just use the glass etch vinyl.

Just like regular etching, the pics don't show very well - they look like silver vinyl, but the real item is a real white frosty look. My husband couldn't tell the difference between a real etched item and my glass etched vinyl item.

Gift Basket day 5

I had posted this bucket earlier, but here is the bucket all wrapped up.

Gift basket day 4

Made the shirt, waterbottle, and container.

Gift Basket day 3

I made the shirt, bottle and container

Vinyl Sale- Hooray

Love my projects and want to get some vinyl for yourself? H&H sign supply is having a one day sale on Friday, May 20th

On Friday, May 20 enter coupon code FBFRI to receive 10% off your order. "We are calling this facebook Friday. This is a small way to show our appreciation to our customers and fb fans. Your order must be placed online to receive the discount.

Use this LINK to get there.

Gift basket day 2

More gift baskets, I made the shirts, pails and waterbottles.

Gift Baskets

This week I will feature the gift baskets I have been feverishly helping to put together. I make the stuff and a friend of mine packages and sells it. I have spend so many hours on the stuff. Hope you enjoy a weeks worth of gifts.

Shrink Plastic...It's not just for kids anymore

Remember the Shrinky Dinks and how you used to put them in the oven and watch the magic happen. Now it's a full fledged craft! Check out this video - it is really cool.
http://rangerink.com/artaveapril2.htm

Beverage Dispenser

I'm so excited about my new beverage dispenser. It's a 2.2 gallon, BPA free plastic container with spout. I can't wait to use it at our next gathering. It's much bigger than it looks!

Summer Flip Flop Shirt

Have made quite a few t shirts for orders - here is one that will put you in a summery mood!

Peace.Love!

Here are a few Peace.Love shirts I made. Simple but cute.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day to all the Moms out there!!!

Another yellow tote

Yes, this yellow tote was just screaming for a Batman logo. It worked great as a Batman gift tote with lots of Batman goodies inside!

Just a baseball T

I made this for my nephew for his 3rd birthday. For those who don't know it is the Tampa Bay Rays logo and then I put his name and the number 3 on the back. All the pieces actually fit together I was amazed...

Who lives in a pineapple...

It's a Spongebob bucket. I made this for a gift and it got filled with lots of SPongebob goodies. I think the square yellow tote was just perfect! It was fun doing all of the vinyl layers!