The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I created the red, white and blue All American digital scrapbook kit to celebrate Independence Day.
Although this is a digital kit, this kit is full of fun textures like lace, mesh and glitter paper. I used this kit with one of my More Stars and Stripes Templates to scrapbook this photo of my kids.
You can pick up my All American kit in my Etsy store. Happy scrapbooking until next time.
My son has a friend “J” who loves super heroes. Whenever I see J, he is always wearing super hero gear. We are headed to his birthday party this weekend so I made him a Captain America birthday card. And like all great cards, I made sure the Captain America card would stand up for fun display value. This project was perfect for the June Silhouette Challenge “party” theme. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of this post for more party ideas using the Silhouette.
{ Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post }Supplies:
Instructions:
1. I designed my card and cut it using the Silhouette. For the card base, I made a small portion of the bottom of the back of the card flat so it would stand up. The Silhouette cut shapes for the Captain America card were made using textured red, white and blue card stock. Different shapes of the same color were cut at the same time. There were two white circles so I could have one for the inside of the card.
2. Run the white circles, small red circle, blue circle and white star through the Xyron 510 with the permanent adhesive. Load all the papers into the Xyron with the textured side facing up except one of the white circles. The adhesive is applied on the bottom of paper so this allows for the non-textured side of the white circle to be placed on the inside of the card so that it is easier to write on. I use Xyron adhesive on all my cards because it adds adhesive to the entire shape.
3. Lift the shiny layer off the Xyron adhesive sheet. Then layer the card stock to assemble the card.
Voila! J’s card is ready for his birthday party this weekend.
1. Two Purple Couches // 2. Practically Functional // 3. Crafty Bonds // 4. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 5. From Whine to Whine // 6. Simply Kelly Designs // 7. unOriginal Mom // 8. MamaSonshine // 9. Get Silvered // 10. Made in a Day // 11. Weekend Craft // 12. Little Blue’s Room // 13. The Stamp Doc // 14. The Thinking Closet // 15. Cupcakes&Crowbars // 16. Where The Smiles Have Been // 17. DIYJustCuz // 18. My Paper Craze
Love all these party themed Silhouette projects. My son can’t wait to give J his Captain America card at his birthday party. I am sure I will be making more cards for all of my son’s super hero loving friends soon!
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The 4th of July is coming up in the United States and my kids love dressing up in their red white and blue for the holiday. They are both currently obsessed with temporary tattoos so I decided to try making my own DIY temporary tattoos.
{Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post}This post is for the June “Patriotic” Silhouette challenge but you do not need a Silhouette machine to make temporary tattoos. You do need the Silhouette Printable Temporary Tattoo Paper. The package comes with supplies to create two 8.5 x 11 inch sheets of temporary tattoos.
Supplies:
You can download my free set of patriotic temporary tattoos in Silhouette Studio format here or PDF here. These files are only for your PERSONAL USE. Please note that that since I made these temporary tattoos for my kids, they are sized smaller for kids.
Non-Silhouette Instructions:
1. Use the image creating software of your choice to create the graphics for your temporary tattoos on an 8.5 x 11 inch document (or use the free file above). Tip: Printers do not print “white” so any white portions of your graphics will be clear.
2. Flip the images horizontally so they are mirrored from how the final temporary tattoo will look.
3. Print the document out onto the glossy side of the white temporary tattoo paper.
4. Skip down to Apply Adhesive And Tattoo.
Silhouette Instructions:
1. Create an 8.5×11 sized document, go to Page window and select Letter Size under Use Printer Setting.
2. Turn on registration marks by going to the Registration Marks window and select Show Reg Marks at the top of the window.
The registration marks are key for the Print and Cut feature that will be used later.
3. Create the graphics for the tattoos. I created my images in Photoshop and imported them into the Silhouette Studio document. Be careful not to place any designs in the registration mark areas.
4. Next, you have to flip your images horizontally so that they are the mirrored images of the final images that you want. Just select image(s) you want to flip, right click and select Flip Horizontally. You can select one image to flip or all your images at the same time to flip.
6. Load the inkjet printer so it will print on the glossy side of the white temporary tattoo paper. Go to File->Print in the menu to send the file to the printer.
7. Skip down to Apply Adhesive And Tattoo.
Apply Adhesive And Tattoo
1. Remove the small green strip on one end of the adhesive sheet. Line up the exposed adhesive with the corner of the printed temporary tattoo paper and smooth it down.
2. Carefully pull back the green backing a little bit at a time and smooth the adhesive sheet as you go. I used my bone folder from my Martha Stewart Crafts Scoring Board to smooth out the sheet. Make sure there are no air bubbles.
3. If not using the Silhouette, use scissors to cut out the temporary tattoos with a thin border around each image. If using Silhouette, Go to File->Cut Settings in the Silhouette Studio menu. Then select Temporary Tattoo Paper in the Silhouette Cut Settings Window. Next, Select File->Send to Silhouette in the menu. Select Click here to skip printing. Follow the directions to load the cutting mat and then press Continue. Select Detect automatically for the registration marks. Once the machine detects the registration marks, select Cut. Tip: The tattoo paper is expensive so before I use the cut feature on it, I printed the design out on regular paper first. Then I used the cut feature to make sure my machine was correctly calibrated. If the designs are not cut like they are in the document, calibrate your machine. You can find out how here.
4. The temporary tattoos application is the same as for any temporary tattoo. Peel the clear adhesive off the tattoo and place it with the image face down on the skin. Place a damp washcloth on the tattoo for 20 seconds. Peel off the white backing and that’s it!
I just love my fun kids!
My Silhouette Challenge friends and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so check out the projects below for more inspiration! The collage is clickable so click on any project you want to see and you will be taken there.
1. Our Rosey Life // 2. My Mom Made That // 3. The Kim Six Fix // 4. Create & Babble // 5. The Frill of Life // 6. My Paper Craze // 7. Kate’s Paper Creations // 8. Simply Kelly Designs // 9. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 10. Mama Sonshine // 11. Lil Mrs. Tori // 12. Tried & True // 13. It Happens in a Blink // 14. McCall Manor // 15. The Thinking Closet // 16. unOriginal Mom // 17. Sowdering About // 18. Weekend Craft // 19. The Outlandish Momma // 20. Adventures in All Things Food // 21. Practically Functional // 22. Silhouette School // 23. Please Excuse My Craftermath… // 24. Ginger Snap Craft // 25. Pineapples And Pinecones // 26. Black and White Obsession // 27. TitiCrafty // 28. Architecture of a Mom //
Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post. If you make a purchase through one of those links, I receive a small commission at no cost to you.
My friend showed me a picture of a Captain America tie dye shirt she found online and I thought it would be fun to make those with my kids for the 4th of July. This project is time consuming but I think you’ll agree that the finished product is worth it!
{ Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post}
The kids and I set out on our first ever tie dye adventure by following the directions for the shirt from I Love To Create. My son’s shirt is boy’s size 4/5 and my daughter’s shirt is girl’s size 6/6x.
Supplies for 1 shirt:
Instructions:
1. Wash the shirt first. We started the project later in the evening and we had to rush the dye job before bed time because I forgot that I had to wash the shirts first.
2. The color pattern for the shirt from the inside of the design is blue, red, white, red, blue so there are 4 different regions. I am a former engineer so I like things to be as exact as possible. Instead of eye balling it, I found 4 circular objects that could be traced on the shirt.
I used a CD, a 6 inch plate, an 8 inch plate and a 10 inch plate. For an adult sized shirt you would need larger plates. We traced the circular items from largest to smallest onto the shirt. Doing it in that order makes it easier to keep all the circles centered. The kids liked the tracing part and I let each child trace their own shirt.
3. Next I started in the middle of the circle and gathered it upwards. My cute assistants tied the zip ties along the bottom of the pencil lines. (The dye comes with rubber bands but I thought that zip ties would hold tighter.) Do this 4 times – once for each circle.
Next, wet the shirt with water from the sink and wring it out. At this point I snipped off the excess portion of the ties. In retrospect I think I should have left them the way they were because it would have helped in the dying process.
Going into this project I fully intended to have my kids put the dye on the shirt but after reading all the warnings on the boxes I decided that it was safer for me to do this step. I filled the dye bottles with water as directed. I did the red dye first and then the blue dye. Remember to keep the shirt as level as possible so the dye doesn’t run in between the different tied off sections of the shirt.
This is what my shirts looked like after the dye was applied. I placed them on plastic wrap on my counter. At this point I was really worried about how dark the blue color was and about how my dye was running together but it all turned out okay. I covered the shirts with plastic wrap so they wouldn’t dry out.
4. In the morning I ran the shirts under water in the sink until the water ran clear. I squeezed each section gently as I did this. This caused the dye to run together a little more and I was afraid that I was going to fail at my first attempt at these shirts. I was pleasantly surprised when I cut off the ties and the shirts looked pretty good!
5. I washed both shirts in hot water with a little detergent and dried them in the dryer. Next I measured the diameter of the blue circle in the middle. The points of the star are just touch the outside of the blue circle. The measurement was 3.75 inches. I used my Cricut to cut a star (Stand and Salute cartridge) from the middle of a 12×12 piece of thin cardboard. My settings for the Cricut was slow speed, high pressure, blackout and real dial size. (In the original directions, freezer paper was used but I didn’t have any so this was my work around.)
Before painting, I put plastic wrap inside the shirt so the paint would not leak through to the backside of the shirt. I placed the star where I wanted it in the middle of my shirt and then positioned the cardboard mask so that the star cutout fit. The cardboard is held in place by non-permanent adhesive.
I then removed the cutout and we painted. With Kara’s shirt I used the spray texture paint and it came out really thick. With Colin’s shirt, we used white acrylic paint and I liked that much better. I used two coats of acrylic paint with one hour of drying in between. Update: All the white acrylic paint washed off the shirt so I am going to redo it with the spray texture paint that I used on Kara’s shirt. The kids love our finished shirts and so do I!
I think I might make myself one of these Captain America tie dye shirts when the next Captain America movie comes out.