So, you want an ostrich?

Hey friends!  I've spent the last few days in blogger heaven while attending Haven in Atlanta.  I was thrilled to meet and spend time with many of my favorite DIY/Home bloggers!  I had a fabulous time and can't wait to share with you all!  I have to finish downloading (?uploading) some photos, but will tell you all about it then!

In the mean time, I had my most unusual craft related request yet.  "Can you do an ostrich?"  Hmmm, well, I've never done an ostrich, but I guess there is a first time for everything, right?

Isn't she the cutest, ugly ostrich you've ever seen?

Even though I wasn't too sure about it in the beginning, I think it turned out pretty well!  So, if any of you are in the market for an ostrich, let me know! HAHA!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

I haven't been slacking, I've been working!

Hey friends!  Long time, no talk too!

Yeah, so I only manged to get in one itty-bitty blog post last week.  So much for the whole "trying to better thing", right?  Oh well, hopefully y'all are still here, supporting all my laziness.  Thank you to all of you who have stood by me through my random postings!

Baseball/T-ball season is in full swing around here and that means everyone wants t-shirts! So, I've been working on orders like crazy, trying to finish everything on my list so I can have a clean slate going into baseball shirt season.  LOL  Here are a few things I've been working on:

This is for a wedding gift:

These two shirts are for a dear old friend (not in age, but in years we've known each other...lol) and her daughter.  I think they turned out really cute.

Split letter monogram on gold cardstock.  The gold is SO pretty! I definitely want to use this again!

These next two monograms are for a precious lady from California who saw these here on the blog!  Lacy has been awesome to work with and I am so happy with how these came together!

I just had to make something for myself.  I think this is hysterical!  Who doesn't love Grumpy Kitty?

And to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Jameson just HAD to design his own shirt.  So, here we go.  Si, a leprechaun hat, gold, and a Duck Dynasty logo.  What more do you need?

 

Oh yeah, there had to be a Si saying on the back:

Jameson said the shirt was "exactly like he saw it in his mind."  Well alrighty then.  LOL

I also have another monogram that I absolutely love, but it's for a special couple who are having a wedding shower this weekend.  The groom's mother asked me to make one for them as a surprise!

If anybody would like to order anything you've seen me make here on the blog, send me an e-mail at AlabamaSlackerMama@yahoo.com or robinandmarty1@yahoo.com and I'll try my best to get back to you as soon as I can.  Right now, orders are taking about 2-3 weeks because of the baseball shirts.  After I'm finished with those, I should be back to a quicker turn-around.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Our week consists of THREE DAYS of field trips!  Pray for us.  LOL

A few more finished orders!

Hey friends!

Thank you all for being so patient with me over the past few weeks! My computer issues continue from my last post.  You know the new-ish computer I bought to replace my old faithful?  Well that little beauty only lasted 24 HOURS before it completely died! I'm telling you, for those few days, every electronic device I touched flaked out on me!  It has been really frustrating, especially since I have orders to finish and blog posts to write!  Fortunately, I have a band-aid on my old faithful, and thankfully, it's made it through the weekend (except when I started trying to upload the final picture to this blog post....2 hours and multiple reboots later, the blog post is finally finished. So much for getting to bed at a decent time) 

I have managed to finish a few orders and it's working well enough to actually upload and edit some pictures.  I have a lot of cell phone pictures of the past several days I want to share with you, but am impatiently waiting for them to make it from my phone to my computer.  Another blog post for another day, I guess.  Since I can't get those photos to upload, I'll share a few projects I've finished over the past couple of days.

I love this super-cool reflective vinyl!  I tested it out on this last-minute shirt and am in LOVE with how shiny it is!

These are quickly becoming my favorite thing to make. They are shadow boxes with sequins inside.  I made these for the craft show I did back in November and have made several more since then.  They are SO fun to play with!

These are monthly onesie stickers.  I didn't have any way to package them, so I cut these cool holders to put them in.

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Another one of my split-letter monograms. This is a different style than I usually do.  It just has the last name with no other names/dates on it. I really liked the way it turned out.

These are shirts the 4th grade teachers asked me to make.  The pictures don't do the pink color justice.  The color is a super-bright neon pink.

When I saw this, I knew a certain young man would HAVE to have one.

We just love that Duck Dynasty family!

Well, since this blog post almost killed my computer (and my sanity), I think I will call it a night!  I hope you all have a wonderful week!

It's the busiest time of year!

Hey friends!  I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season, so far!

I am still around...peeking in here and there, whenever I can.  Things have been incredibly busy around here. This time last week, I had more than FIFTY items to make for customers.  I was stressing out in a major kind of way!  However, I buckled down and as of Sunday night, I only have THREE shirts left to finish!  The vinyl is cut, I'm just waiting on the shirts to get here so I can press them.  My poor machine has steam coming off of it!  HAHA! 

I wanted to post pictures of all of them, but I realized most of them are for Christmas gifts, so I can't show them yet! ;)  Here are a few that I can share, however:

And here is a little something I did for myself:

I'm not quite finished with him, yet.  I'm still thinking about how I want the finished product to look.

**phew**

It makes me tired just looking at these....and this isn't even a quarter of my finished projects!

So my friends, if I'm not around a lot before Christmas, you know what I'm doing!

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

No TRICKS, but lots of TREATS!

It's that time of year, where there is a lot of Trick-or-Treating going on.  I don't like a lot of tricks, so I thought I would make a lot of treats to share with my co-workers and Jameson's class mates.  The test-tubes I did last year were such a hit, I thought I would do something similar again this year.  Instead of test-tubes, I decided to go an easier and safer route, and use clear plastic baggies to hold the candy.  I think they turned out almost as cute! 

I hope everyone loves them!

(The graphics used on the tags are from the Silhouette Store.)

Are you looking forward to the Tricking or the Treating?

Mama's Mumblings

Hey y'all! 

It's another Monday.  Why do they always seem to come so fast?  I mean, I swear it was just Wednesday, and I blinked my eyes and it's Monday again.  Time, PLEASE SLOW DOWN!  Do you realize that Christmas is only a few weeks away?  How did that happen?  I think I'm just going to stick my head under my pillow and pretend Christmas is still a L-O-N-G way away!

(You think that will work?)

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I've been busy, busy with "the business" again this week.  I've managed to knock a TON of orders and gifts out this week!

 

The next 4 pictures are for an order for a very special friend.  Her son is graduating Army Boot Camp on Halloween and the onesies are for his precious baby girl to wear.

Mommy needed a special shirt, too!

 

I made a TON of these for friends, family and co-workers:

 

For my niece:

 

Also for my niece:

 

And these invitations for a very special little girl:

 

 I can't believe little Miss Mallory is almost TWO!  I am SO SAD!  She is growing up WAY too fast!

(There's that "flying time" thing again!)

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I'm pretty sure I'm going to participate in a local craft fair in a couple of weeks.  I am TERRIFIED!  I've been trying to come up with some cute ideas of things to make.  I will take orders for t-shirts and my monograms, but I'd like to have a lot of things that people can take with them.  I'd also like to see how much of my craft hoard I could use to make things.  If I only did frames I could fill up a whole table, I'm afraid.  LOL  I just don't want to make a bunch of stuff and not be able to sell it.  Do any of you have any great ideas of things that may sell well?  I'm open to suggestions!

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This year at Jameson's school, the library is having a pumpkin parade.  Kid's pick out their favorite characters from a book and make a pumpkin to match.  Well, being my kid, this is what Jameson decided to make:

 

That would be a vampire worm, in case you didn't know!

So, we worked ALLLL weekend making our own version of a vampire worm.

 

We had a lot of fun fixing him up. It was really neat for all of us to try to come up with ways to do each different part of the worm.  The "ears" are melted/painted baby spoons, stuck into styrofoam that is hot glued to the pumpkin.  The eyes are screw-top caps from Coke bottles, the skin is a painted garbage bag, and the teeth are made of fun foam.

  We just hope it survives until he makes it to school.  The first pumpkin we had ROTTED before we even had it a day, so we had to get another one.  We hope the coat of black paint will keep this pumpkin alive for a few days.  Then, the cat decided she wanted to use the "ears" as a chew toy...AND WOULD NOT STOP!  So, after some touch-up paint, we had to take it out to Marty's truck so she couldn't get to it!

Jameson is so excited to bring it to school!  I just hope he's not too disappointed if he doesn't win.  There are a lot of really awesome pumpkins in the parade!  I definitely think that he would win for "most unusual", however!  LOL

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I've got my yearly "I'm going to screw up your favorite time of year again" sinus/cold junk.  I felt the first little tickle Tuesday night and it's been all downhill from there.  My friend Julie has the same mess and she's taking off work today to go to the doctor. She is hoping to get a shot to get rid of it.  I asked her if it was wrong of me to be jealous of her for getting to take off work, even if it is to get a shot. She did invite me to come along and get shots together.  I'm seriously thinking it would be worth it.  LOL

I remember when I was a kid, I would have to miss Trick-or-Treating almost every, single year because I would be sick.  I would just love to be able to make it through October - December without feeling like my head and chest were going to explode.

 

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Chelsea's current crush, Scotty McCreery, has just released a new Christmas album.  So, in the past week, she's gotten an autographed copy from the Scotty McCreery fan club, an "exclusive edition" complete with booklet and calendar from Wal-Mart, and has downloaded the album on iTunes. 

Sorry for the bad cell phone picture.

I think she may be just a tad bit obessed, don't you?  

 

(She is also wearing a North Carolina State t-shirt because that's Scotty's favorite team.)

I guess it could be worse....she could be this obsessed with some hormone-ravaged teenage boy that lives locally.  We would be locking her in the house for sure!

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Well my friends, I hope you all have a wonderful and fantastic week!

I said I wasn't going to be creative.

After the crazy, busy rush of "the business" over the past couple of months, I decided to take a couple of days off for a mental break.  Also, I've been having some issues with my hand/wrist and I thought resting would help.

Well, that lasted all of about 3 hours and I just couldn't resist the creative urge.  I just had to make something.  So, with the Southern Bloggers Conference coming up next weekend (still tickets available!), I thought I would make something to enter in the Home Decor contest.  There will be many uber-creative women women there who can cook, decorate, tablescape, and paint with the best of them and I just know I can't compete with any of their talents.  But, I know vinyl and I thought that I would try my hand at creating a little something using that.  

 

After working on the trace for a while, I finally bit the bullet and started cutting.  My first attempt was a disaster!  I WISH I had taken a photo of the HUGE mess I made.  I ended up messing up my blade, my mat, and my vinyl.  I am lucky that I didn't screw up my machine!  I guess that will teach me to step away from the machine while it is still cutting.  I still have a tiny piece of vinyl stuck to my machine and have no way to get it out.  Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be messing with anything important.  

After changing my settings around, I took a deep breath and started cutting again.

Success!

I spent yesterday looking for frames, but ended up just using what I already had at home.  (you know, from my frame hoard).  I thought it would be difficult getting the vinyl to transfer, but it went on like a dream!  And here are the finished products:

This background is burlap.  I think it looks much better in person, however I am thinking about changing the background to something darker.

 

This background is black embossed cardstock.  I think it helps the vinyl "POP".

 

Close-up of the detail.

 

I am really pleased how well these turned out!  So much for not being creative, huh?

This week's creations!

I know I have been scarce around blogville lately and I am REALLY sorry!  I've just been so busy with everything, I just haven't had any time to visit my favorite blogs like I want too.  I hope you all know I still love you to death and I hope to get to catching up with all of you SOON!

Here are some things I've been working on for the past several days:

Back of Soccer Mom shirt

Several weeks ago, I made 15 similar shirts to the one above.  This week I was asked to make a very similar shirt for another young man who is graduating Air Force basic training in a few days.

 

All the above monograms/frames are Christmas presents ordered by a co-worker.  (I'm pretty sure none of her family read here.  LOL)

 

Again, this frame is still my favorite!  I love it more every time I make one!

I'm working on a few other things too, but have just ran out of time to finish them.

I hope you all are having a fantastic week!  I hope to "talk" to you soon!