Well I came in today and realized I hadnt been here in a very long time. Well I have completely changed directions in my crafting environment I am now doing sublimation. It is mainly all I do. I still do custom t shirts and some vinyl but I LOVE SUBLIMATION. The opportunities are endless from t shirts to place mats to coffee mugs. I sell a lot of memorial tiles and I just love this new hobby. Although it is costly to get into. That is what I am into these days.

A Challenge

My Husband owns a body repair shop... Well he has a customer that wanted to change a ford emblem to a U OF L  Cardinal emblem. He asked my husband if he had any idea of where he could find something like that to which my husband said. "I am sure my wife can do it." So he brought me this Ford Emblem

off of his truck and I changed it to this.He was so excited he brought me another one the next night.

Tiles, Tiles, Tiles...

I am making tiles like crazy... I post my finished products on facebook and many people ask about the process. Well I thought I would post it here and not clutter up facebook. :-) These tiles are 13 inch ceramic tiles from Lowes. I buy them by the box. The process for making one starts here. I use a program called Make the cut. If you havent used it and you own a cutting machine it is awesome.. Anyway you design your tile in Make the cut first. Here is the pattern I am cutting today.

After I create my pattern ( I usually do this while my husband is watching some zombie movie at night) :-) I hate zombie movies... Anyway I create the patterns at night and when I am ready to cut them I go and hook to my 24 inch silver bullett it is an amazing machine and here it is.

I feed vinyl into the silver bullet on the blue mat you see sticking out of the back. I then set the depth and speed and tell it to cut and watch it do its magic.

This is the vinyl as it comes out the front as it cuts. You really cant see the cuts very well on the vinyl at all.
Then when it is all done the machine will stop and you can remove your vinyl from the machine. I leave it on the mat so that I can cut around the pieces without cutting my table.

If you look reall close you can see the cuts. Now to weed the project this is the hardest part because it is hard to see and hard to know what stays and what goes. I use a dentist pick for this. Its the best tool I have ever owned. :-) Weeding means take out all the little bits you dont need leaving only what you need on the backing paper. 

As you can see I have started to weed this piece. Below is a picture of it further along. But not finished.

 

next when it is completely weeded I have to take and cover it with transfer tape and squeegee it down so that the transfer tape pulls it from the backing .

Now I have my design sticky side up and I can place it on my tile. This is kind of tricky if you mess it up you have to start all over because it will stick to the tile and ruin it.

Here I have placed it on my tile and once again squeegeed it down and am peeling the transfer tape off this is a slow process because some of the little bits stick to the transfer tape and you have to squeegee it more until it sticks to the tile. When you get the transfer tape off successfully your tile is finished. Put it in a stand and display it. :-) i did 3 today I can't show you two because they are presents. :-) But here is this one completed.

Wow I havent been here in a while.

Christmas has come and gone along with a lot of hustle and bustle. I love christmas and what it stands for the but the commercialization has killed it for me. I am glad it is over. We had a good Christmas we are all healthy and alive so that is good. :-) I got bad news January 1 my mom is thought to have dimentia. She has steadily gone down hill for years and it seems that her outbursts I will call them have gotten worse and worse lately. We are probably going to have to force her to move in with one of us kids and that is going to break her heart. As well as ours. It is so hard when someone has a disease you cant see but it effects their mind. :( The second week of January my sons house pipes burst and flooded from the third floor to the basement they have upgraded it to a catastrophe. He and his family of 2 kids and his wife are living in a hotel. The house has been gutted and all drywall and floors removed. Furniture ruined it is a mess. He and his wife are handling it all well. I have had asthmatic bronchitis so I have not been over there in fear of getting sicker than I already am. I guess you could say January came in and slapped us in the face and said I AM HERE! I still feel fortunate i have a wonderful job, a loving husband who would do anything for me even after all these years , two fantastic grown adult children I am proud of and 4 magnificent grandchildren. :-) As always thanks for stopping in. Lesa

Gifts I made for a shower this week I love how these turned out , even though my husband didnt get the bib one. He said I dont get it I thought that was a bib.. Hmmmm I said I am not going to explain this to you. LOL

My Nephews bucket and mug I made him for halloween he was an elephant. :-)

Tubs , Tubs , Buckets and Tubs

Well it has been a while since I checked in I am sorry life has been Hectic. I am getting older and working harder I think. I have started to do some crafting for profit. (Not a lot) because then it becomes a job. I have started selling Origami Owl jewelry which I LOVE. Plus I am still working 40 hours a week. Plus we spent every weekend this summer at the lake... sigh. I miss summer already. Speaking of the lake I will show you the sign I made for the lake.

I also made these tubs and buckets for the lake.

 

Love these they were so fun! I changed the ribbon on the trash can but must not have taken another picture. It was a much fatter ribbon. :-)

I made a fun tub for a photographer to use in photo shoots here

I made a cute one for a friend for a shower present

The parents loved it but I did change the ribbon on it to..

I made halloween tubs and buckets

so as you can see I have been busy just not typing. :-) I will post some other things I have been working on later.

Vinyl , Vinyl, Vinyl..

I think my scrapbooking habit has turned into a vinyl habit somehow. I have done tons of vinyl lately. I just did this for a wedding gift and I love it. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. I started with the vinyl and a frame I purchased at Hobby Lobby when it was on sale for 50% off. Then I took a white piece of 12 x 12 cardstock and laid a stencil over it and dabbed it with tan chalk. I then took some glue and put a few dots on the cardstock to add a little sparkle and put glitter on that and let it dry. I put the vinyl on top of the glass and i really like the finished project.

Wow time flies..

I am sorry I kind of disappeared lately. I have been crafting and doing lots of shirts. Rhinestones and vinyl. I thought I should log in and post some of the things I have been working on. I have done quite a few things lately. I went to a meeting with several of the women from the silver bullet forum and we had a great time. I pushed out several shirts and cups and i thought I would share some of them here.

A family Tree

Well I have been working on a large wall art project for the last few weeks. I have done a family tree on my wall. I have enjoyed this project immensely. I did tiling of vinyl with Make the Cut for the first time. I made my own acrylic frames for the first time. It turned out beautifully. Just like my vision. :-) first I made the tree with vinyl and tiling in Make the Cut software and placed it on the wall. It was quite the ordeal. I love Make the Cut software. If you havent used it your missing out. Then I ordered acrylic from online to make frames. I followed this tutorial from Lowes to make my frames. (Loosely) I kind of did my own thing but they are based off of this tutorial. http://www.lowescreativeideas.com/idea-library/projects/Floating_Photo_Frame_0112.aspx

I substituted Nuts for the spacers because the spacers were 2 bucks each and I needed 4 per frame and didnt want to pay that for them. I got a box of nuts and washers for 5 dollars and there was 100 in there. I put 3 on each bolt to hold the acrylic out from the wood. Here is a close up of the frame. Next I put all of the frames on the tree. I put hubby and me at the bottom and then our daughter and her boyfriend on the next level as well as my son and his wife (their frame is empty they are trying to find a good picture that is wall worthy) and then our grandchildren are at the top. I love the way it turned out.

Where do I start? January 2013

 A valentine box from the Make the Cut forum above it turned out cute..

 This card was a challenge in the black cat us forum a lady needed some ladies for a card and I created these out of basic shapes. They were a blast and I have since made many more and each one looks better.

I love how the above glass block turned out. :-) the text at the top that says established july 3 1976 is less than 1/4 inch tall cut with my silver bullet cutter. I love that cutter it is the bees knees!

 On Martin Luther King day I was off work and I was tired of watching trash tv so I created the above word art for my living room wall. I love it.

I created the above tile for Relay for Life for an auction.

 These t shirts were created for 3 of my grandkids Madison is 5 and love princesses, Sierra is 10 and loved pigs and aaron is 3 and loves dinosaurs..

Wow , January 2013 has been a crafting paper piecing, vinyl creating experience for me. I have done more in January than I have done all of 2012 I believe.. I am spending tons of time in there and loving every minute of it. I have been making signs, tiles, t shirts, wall art.. You name it I have delved into it this month. I am enjoying my time in there.  I thought since it has been a few weeks since I posted I would just post a long post with lots of pics. If you see something you have questions about please ask because this post is going to be picture heavy and not explanation heavy. :-)
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.