What do you do on the fourth of July? Growing up we often went to a park with a blanket to watch the fireworks. Or, sometimes, went to see the Rockies play and watch the fireworks afterwards. More recently, we have done nothing. Yep. Nothing.
To be fair, we have three young children (ages 5, 4, and 0). Whenever I feel like we never do anything, I have to remind myself that the time will come where things will be easier, maybe?
If, unlike me, you throw a grand party, I have some great files for you. The one below is one I made last year. They would be great place cards for a more formal gathering, or labels for your buffet!
Additionally, I have a new 4th of July svg file for you to download.
Now, if I had one of the laser cutting machines that look so amazing, I would be making myself some cute little lanterns with this file. Can you blame me, doesn’t it look amazing?!
I mean, wouldn’t it look great on the side of a little lantern with an LED candle inside? I suppose I could make it into a paper lantern…
What machine or machines do you use? I currently use the Silhouette Cameo 3. It has served me well and handles everything I have needed thus far.
However, I have heard that the Cricut Maker is amazing! Anyone have it? If I upgrade though, it may be in the fall when the new Silhouette 4 is set to come out. It is supposed to match or surpass the Maker and be cheaper!
As a side note, the singular of ‘fireworks’ does not roll off the tongue easily. I looked it up. It is ‘firework’ but was noted as ‘rarely used’ in the singular. Languages were my thing in college. And math. I like words and I suppose that make me a nerd. I am okay with that.
Well, anyway, I have a beautiful fireworks SVG for you today.
Are you making lots of handmade Valentine’s Day cards this year? These free SVG hearts should make a wonderful addition to your projects whether you are making a new shirt with HTV, a super special handmade card for your sweetheart, or a card for everyone. Please enjoy and also check out my past Valentine’s Day freebies!
Free SVG Hearts for Valentine’s Day
Happy Valentine’s Day – a bit early!
I think these hearts would look great on a t-shirt with sparkly HTV! Sorry, I haven’t had time to try it out yet, but here is a mock up for you all the same. Please pardon my Photoshop skills, they are still in progress!
Also check out my other Valentine’s Day cutting files:
Thanksgiving is coming! What better way to celebrate than to give thanks with a nice free hand lettered SVG file!? Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday as gratitude can significantly improve your satisfaction and happiness levels! The more you appreciate what you have, the happier you will be. So, give thanks!
Personally, I have tons to be thankful for! Beautiful girls, wonderful husband, the opportunity to live in Colorado near my family again. I am sure it can be harder if you are going through a difficult time or situation in your life right now, but try to think of something, even something very small, to give thanks for. It could be the sun on your face, the warm cup of coffee, a smile on your child’s face, or even just a warm blanket. Give thanks.
So, without further ado, here is the freebie.
I think this file would look great on a sign, a plaque, or on a dishtowel! Sorry, I haven’t had time to try it out yet, but here is a mock up for you all the same:
And if you want to obey the command to “Give Thanks” directly, here is another free svg file you may want to check out. Make a nice thank you card and put it in the mail today. You will brighten someone’s day using these free svg files, I am sure of it!
Have you moved lately? Well, we just moved from Michigan to Colorado! It is lots and lots of work. And requires a lot of good organization. All of which is made better by these adorable bin labels!
If you missed me, that is where I have been. Packing. Unpacking. Packing. Unpacking. Repeat.
Having grown up in Colorado, I am happy to be back and near family again.
Unfortunately, since Colorado is so awesome and everyone else wants to be here too, housing prices are much steeper here. Not just a little steeper. I’m talking 7 or 8 times steeper! For example, coming from our lovely 6 bedroom house on 4 acres in Michigan, we will have trouble finding a condo for the same price!
Getting Organized with Bin Labels
Downsizing was actually some amount of fun, until we got to our apartment and realized that getting rid of half our stuff wasn’t enough! So, that is what I have been doing the past month or so. Organizing. Getting rid of stuff. Organizing is the fun part though.
Knowing this, you can see where this project came from. It was born of necessity and the desire to have my children put their toys away so that I can preserve my sanity in our new 2 bedroom living space! Thus, the idea for our new bin labels was born. Well, it was actually in my head for quite a while. It was going to be one of my finishing touches on the playroom I was working on in Michigan. Take a look at how awesome it was!
Alas, it was time to move on. Hopefully someone else will move in and enjoy the fun colors and the animal alphabet that I left on the wall!
Do you also have seemingly hundreds of toys underfoot? Are you constantly frustrated with different types and sets of toys getting jumbled into one big mess? Do your kids need help knowing where everything ought to go? Then you need some of these bins and these adorable bin labels!
Take Stock of Your Items
First, you need to take stock of what you are trying to organize. For me, this meant categorizing the toys in my girls’ room and putting them in different bins. Undoubtedly, they have too many toys. However, once in bins and labeled with these cute bin labels, it looks much more manageable. Also, remember to try to match the number of categories to the number of bins you have available.
Here are the bin label categories I came up with for the toys we have:
DOCTOR
DRESS UP
CALICO CRITTERS
PLAYMOBIL
BOOKS ON TAPE
LEGO
MUSIC
CARS
DOLLS
BLOCKS
LITTLE PEOPLE
DISHES
FOOD
TOOLS
In addition, I added each of my daughter’s names so that they could have a bin of their own. Next, I looked for a simple, cute design for each category. The idea was to have a cohesive looking set of images that helped my not yet literate daughters identify each bin on their own.
Most of the images I found doing a quick google image search. Some I had to work more on to get what I wanted. The font I used is called “Mail Ray Stuff”. I really like how the images turned out. I am especially fond of the cute baby on the “LITTLE PEOPLE” bin.
Create your Bin Labels
Feel free to use my labels and images for your own personal use. However, I do not recommend using them for commercial uses as I am not positive on the copyrights of each one.
REMEMBER TO CUT THESE OUT IN REVERSE ON YOUR HTV!
REMEMBER TO CUT THESE OUT IN REVERSE ON YOUR HTV!
Quality Materials
Since this was my very first Heat Transfer Vinyl project, I wanted to use the good stuff. And, from what I hear, Siser Easy Weed is where it is at. I found a roll at my local Michaels and it was on a great sale to boot! All in all, I was very impressed by the stuff. Also, it is actually much easier to weed than Oracle vinyl that I am used to working with.
So, back to the project.
Decide how large you want things and cut it out! This is on you. Then cut out each label and weed out the extra. Your image is reversed, right?
Finally, the fun part – ironing the bin labels on and seeing the results. I followed the directions on the packaging of my HTV and used a grill mat to place over the images while ironing.
Results – Bin material matters too!
If you look at my results, you can see that some of my bins turned out spectacular. Unfortunately, some have nice imprints of the iron. This was largely due to the bins themselves. My nice large fabric IKEA ones look great. No iron imprints, just clean and crisp.
My cheap polyester bins which came from who knows where, did not hold up well. Since I didn’t want to buy new bins, I just went with it. They still work. Some are just much prettier than others!
Now, sit back and admire your work. Wait, scratch that. Go get to organizing!
Can you believe that June is almost gone? It has gone by very quickly for our family!
Fourth of July
Well, here I am always thinking about the next holiday and what SVG files I should create. Feeling patriotic? Great! I have just the thing for you. These little name cards would be great for labeling food at your great big 4th of July party!
Do you have any family recipes that only come out on the 4th of July? Our family has one that we like to call the “Fourth of July Dip”. Really, it is just a delicious 7-layer dip that covers a huge serving platter. I’m sure that the recipe is no secret. However, the dip is delicious and is rarely seen in our family except on the 4th of July.
4th of July Name Cards
So, what do you think of these cute little cards? I am partial to them. Since I like my projects to be as simple as possible, these cards only have 3 pieces – one for each color.
Free 4th of July SVG file download
And now, of course, the download. Please enjoy! As always, this is for your personal use only and I love to see pictures if you end up using it!
Note that the download will give you an SVG file which you can import into your software and ungroup to get each color separately.
Also, be sure to check out my fun STARS SVG file. Let me know how this one cuts if you try it out!
Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Fourth of July!
Welcome to my website and today’s journey through my hand lettered artwork project! Have you tried hand lettering? With all the amazing hand lettering on Pinterest and Instagram, I just couldn’t stay away. Such pretty lettering ought to be admired by imitation, in my opinion!Â
Well, my hand lettering led to water brush pens and watercolors, which led in turn to watercolor doodles. Then, I saw this on Instagram. Watercolor hexagons! Perfect, I thought, I can usually make patterns and I love playing with the colors. Of course, I didn’t attempt the project free-handed, like the lady I saw as my inspiration. We’ll save that for a later date.
Instead, I drew nice little evenly spaced guidelines for myself. I used the materials listed below. These are Amazon affiliate links, but buy wherever you like! I generally buy new supplies at the craft stores with coupons. I love coupons.
Very, very relaxing, at least for me! Try to leave a little border between the hexagons. I found that it helped to put a dot where each corner ought to go and then connect the dots. You can also add a little extra color to the hexagon while it is still wet to get some fun variation!
Adding a Hand Lettered Word, Saying, or Sentiment
I don’t know if it is a craze right now or not, but hand lettering is highly addicting! For my piece of craft room artwork, I thought “Create” would be an apt word to add. I used my Pentel water brush again to letter this on another piece of watercolor paper with the plan to cut it out and put it on top of my hexagon masterpiece.
As a sidenote, I have also been playing with brush markers for hand lettering practice. Take a look at my Instagram feed if you want to see what I have been up to in my spare time. Â Here are the pens I have been playing with (there are many more that IÂ want to try as well!):
Hand Lettering Tools I have been playing with lately
After it dried, I cut the watercolor paper down a bit and stuck it on my PixScan mat for my Silhouette Cameo to cut out.
After several tries, it finally registered and cut. While it went through and cut smoothly, it was off a bit. I took it off and played around with it a bit on top of the hexagons.
It would have been okay, but I didn’t really like the look of it on top of the hexagons anyhow. So, I scrapped it, and kept just the outline.
When in doubt, use Glitter!
Glitter to the rescue! I found this lovely piece of VERY THICK glitter paper in a nice dark gray. It looked like it would go well, so I set about to cut out my lettering. Does anyone know if this particular glitter cardstock is thicker than normal?
I have not previously cut out glitter cardstock. Looking in the materials list on my silhouette, I found and choose the “glitter cardstock” settings. After running the file through the cutter, I pulled it out. Sadly, it was not cut all the way through.
So, I stuck it back in the Silhouette Cameo for another double-cut run through. Took it out, and it was still not cut through. This time I checked my blade to find it filled with glitter.
After cleaning it out, I upped the blade depth a bit and stuck it back in. Almost this time! Cleaned out the blade again. Fourth time was a charm and it looked great!
Persistence paid off and I was very thankful that it stayed aligned despite its many trips in and out of the machine. I then did a quick offset and cut a second one out of another piece of white cardstock. Isn’t it pretty?
Look at how pretty it looks on top of the hexagons! I am thrilled that the 4 times through the Silhouette Cameo paid off. Just in case you didn’t put this together, that is 8 cutting passes since it was set to double cut!
Now, it just needed a little extra depth. For this, I turn once again to my large supply of cork scraps. Use anything with a bit of thickness, I just have a lot of cork scraps lying around from making coasters!
In fact, if you need some coasters, please head over to my Etsy shop and take a look. I welcome custom orders if there is something in particular you are looking for!
Except, this time, I just sprayed the cork on both sides with spray adhesive. That seemed to do the trick nicely! Also, I didn’t get any photos of this, but I adhered the glitter cardstock to the offset white cardstock cut.
Almost Done! Now just position your lovely hand lettering on your lovely hand painted background
Beautiful! All set to frame.
A nice little glamour shot of my framed artwork next to my Silhouette Cameo.
And, if you were waiting for this, I’m sorry for the long post. Here is the FREE HAND LETTERED CUTTING FILE! Just click the link below and the free SVG file should download.
For now, I have lots of travertine stone coasters stocked in my new etsy shop. However, I plan to add more items as soon as I can write them up. Please take a look and admire the wondrous beauty that is travertine tile! Lemonade, sadly, not included.
These coasters look nice sitting on the table, on the shelf, or in the kitchen. Simply take a look at my etsy store for all your coaster needs. Plus, they are made from natural travertine tile and will protect your furniture well.
This DIY Pillowcase project was relatively simple and a great project for the licensed fabrics that we ended up with on our last outing to the craft store. Do you bring your husband along when you go to the craft store? Well, I end up bringing him because we are often out of town together when I have the opportunity to go.
Shopping with the whole Family
What happens when you bring your whole family to the craft store? This happens:
As you can see, we ended up with lot of licensed character fabrics. While the Star Wars fabric is still waiting to be made into pillows for the man cave, the girls’ Dory and Frozen fabrics made it into these cute DIY pillowcases. (Do you like my awesome table? It is a giant 4 foot by 8 foot piece of melamine board!)
Since I am a beginner at sewing, I followed this lovely tutorial on My Childhood Treasures Blog. While she said it only took her about 10 minutes for each pillow once the fabric was cut, mine took at least 30 minutes each. So, your timing may vary depending on your ability, but mine still came out quite adorable.
Tutorial at My Childhood Treasures
In this DIY pillowcase, the cuff is sewn on all at once while the body of the pillowcase is rolled up inside. Although envisioning how all the layers work is a little tricky, the sewing itself was straightforward. For my first ever pillow cases, I was very pleased with how they turned out.
Cutting the Fabric
Also, I used my new rotary cutting tools for this DIY pillowcase project. While I got them to cut squares from my rolls of cork, they made cutting the fabric out for this project super simple! If you give a girl several 60% off coupons, she will use them. So, while I recommend you get them with coupons from one of your local craft stores, here are the tools I used on Amazon. Actually, looking at the current prices on Amazon, I see that they really aren’t that much more than getting them 60% off at the craft store. While I love the craft stores, I do feel like they mark things up significantly!!
What do you think? Do you have different methods? How about customizing them with names or applique? For a long time now I have wanted to use the Silhouette Cameo for doing applique. However, I am intimidated by the sewing half!
My adorable girls enjoying the results. No hesitation here…
Story: “If you bring your family to the craft store, they will want to buy some fabric.”
Moral of the Story: “Don’t bring your family unless you are prepared to make pillows.”
Well, it has been a while since I made my first DIY bed buddy. You can take a look at that first attempt in this post. This time, I had already made a bunch of rectangular bean bags for my little girls. So, I already had the first step done. For the design, I kept it very similar to the one I originally came up with.
The only major change I made was how I made and attached the handles. Surveying my awesome dinosaur bed buddy, I decided that the handles were both overly complicated and a possible choke hazard! Take a look. See how long the handles are?
Change: New Straps
My mind can see some child deciding that this would make a good necklace and choking themselves. Hence, I keep this one put up and came up with a different method to use for the handles. First, I used a strap instead of a string. Second, I made it much shorter. Third, I didn’t make the extra little “strap holder” parts and sewed the handles directly into the seams.
DIY Bed Buddy – First Attempt
My girls love to have things that make them like Mommy or Papa. My daughter has been toting her new mini bed buddy all over and calling it her “buddy bean bag” instead of her bed buddy.
Microwave Your DIY Bed Buddy
Pop it in the microwave for 30 – 60 seconds and you or your children can cuddle up with it. For the large one, I like to microwave it for 2 and half minutes for my husband or a little longer for myself. It feels great on sore shoulders or a pounding head.
As a side note of sorts, I just last month got a subscription to the latest Adobe software. If you look at this tutorial that I made, you will see why I have been having so much fun with it! Mainly, I had wanted to be able to use Adobe Illustrator to work with SVG’s and thought Photoshop would be a nice bonus. However, it includes access to a large number of programs AND a large number of apps. Now, I can’t stop playing with images on my phone.
If you can manage to accumulate a large number of $1 no rush credits on Amazon and also happen to have academic status, you can get a year’s subscription without paying an arm and a leg. I really had no intention of plugging Adobe just now, but I really haven’t been able to stop playing with it since I signed up!
Well, that is certainly all I have for today. Please, share your projects with me if you make a version of this or something similar. I would love to see how your DIY Bed Buddy turns out!
A lot of my time lately has been absorbed in planning and executing a playroom design in one of our basement bedrooms. It is a small room, though not too tiny, and had really REALLY ugly purple trim when we moved in. Well, okay, so the purple itself wasn’t such a bad color, but it was a really bad color for trim!
The first chore was cleaning and painting the room, including the trim. My theme colors for the room were in part chosen by the three clearance paint cans I found at Target in green, pink, and yellow. I ran with it and now everything in the room needs to be one of these three colors (or white).
During Painting
Also, the outlets were a dark dark brown color and really clashed with the room, so of course I wanted those to be white too! Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the power back after the switch and had to have an electrician come out and help us, but now it is beautiful. This held me back for longer than I care to admit. I should have called the electrician in much sooner, but I kept thinking I would be able to solve it on my own. On the positive side of things, I did learn quite a bit about wiring in my attempts.
Paint Almost Complete!
I was also very glad to pull down the blue sheers and old purple cork board. The combination of new white trim and removing the old dusty curtains really lightened the room up! Sorry I took the picture at night – not much natural light coming in.
When the paint was dry, I really got moving. I was so excited to have the room in a usable state again after the electricity fiasco! Along the back wall I used the Kallax shelving from IKEA to create a lot of storage and a bench for adults to sit on. It is very handy to have somewhere to sit when your kids are playing, so don’t forget about yourself in the plans.
At last! It is coming together as I envisioned.
I splurged a bit on the bench fabric from JoAnn’s and used some foam I had left over from another project to upholster the top. I think it came out really nice and it was my first upholstery project. I will post more details in later posts for a lot of these projects. One project that is nearing completion is the vinyl animal alphabet I plan to add to the green wall on the right. I have it all cut out and ready to put up. I already posted the file HERE, but it will be much more fun to see an example of it all cut out.
Getting in on the Playtime
Labeling the bins with pictures is still on my to do list, but I really like how the “PLAY” and elephants from Hobby Lobby livened the room up.
Closet lights and Mirrors
Our girls did not hesitate to start using the space. The kitchen and kids table worked out really well with the color scheme too. In the closet, I made use of some super nifty wavy mirrors (from IKEA again) and lit the space up with some neat string lights. I was really quite excited to learn that they make light socket adapters with two outlets in them. This turned out to be the perfect place to plug in my string lights AND have them be on a switch to boot. I also have a curtain across the door (not in the picture) that I plan on lengthening. The closed still has some additions in the planning stage. These include IKEA spice rack book shelves and foam pillow rolls for the floor to make it a really cozy reading nook.
More pictures and project details to come! Let me know if you need details on anything.
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Welcome! Kabram Krafts is now selling premium SVG files at kabramkrafts.com as well as on Etsy. Dismiss
After it dried, I cut the watercolor paper down a bit and stuck it on my PixScan mat for my Silhouette Cameo to cut out.
