It’s hard to believe that Aubrey is one year old today. It’s hard enough to believe when it’s your own child that reaches the one year milestone, but somehow it’s both faster and slower watching other babies grow.
Also hard to believe that my Mom is …. today. It’s one of the birthdays that ends in “0”. Since she’s coming to visit next week and I don’t want to spoil her surprise, I’ll blog about that later. But Happy Birthday, Mom!
So I wanted to make something amazing and ground-breaking and oh-my-gosh-wow! for Aubrey. But… I decided that rather than set myself up for failure as I get back into the swing of crafting and blogging (now that my house is functional! hoooooray!) I’d set out to do something a little new to me and still manageable. And while there is the threat that her mom will check the blog before the party… I figure she’s busy doing last minute prep and won’t see this.
The “new” part is using my Silhouette. No, we’re not the bloggers that get these things for free, but it just so happens that Adrianna and I both got them for Christmas and are starting to figure them out. I’d thought about getting one back when it was a “Craft Robo” but knew I was about to move and wouldn’t have the time and space for a while. When Adrianna finally decided to get one that convinced me to go for it too, because once she started going crazy with it I knew I’d be overcome with jealousy admiration.
To create the appliques, I fused interfacing to the fabric and laid it on the carrier sheet for cardstock. It didn’t work. The paper backing didn’t stick (’cause really, it’s designed not to) and it wiggled all over the place. I did crazy Kermit arms while trying to figure out how to stop it before it imploded.
Then I removed the paper backing and stuck the fabric onto the carrier sheet so that the interfacing adhered to the sheet. Nice and sticky. No problem. I tried a “double cut” first and that turned out to be unnecessary. Just dug into my mat more. I used the deepest blade setting, lied to the machine and said it was cardstock, and made it cut super-slow.
On the yellow shirt I used a heavy embroidery thread in my sewing machine. Also not meant for the kind of machine I have. I don’t plan on doing a lot of either of these because I know they’ll wear out blades and motors, but it was fun to try it.
I hand cut little hearts for both shirts to put in the bottom corner. I love little details like that.
It wasn’t until I finished and photographed these that I realized they remind me of Adrianna’s market bags.
I’m still learning about and thinking about what to do with the Silhouette, but I’m pretty impressed with the variety of what it can do. And I like the R2D2 noises it makes while it’s cutting. I imagine it’s saying things like “C3PO is a pain in the ars, right?”
What I haven’t found yet is a source for an assortment of heat transfer vinyl. I found a great assortment of standard vinyl in a rainbow of colors. I love having a whole color array available since I’m not much of a project plan-ahead-er. Anybody know of one?
These are now wrapped up, along with something the birthday girl herself might find more exciting. Since the average one-year-old doesn’t get excited about something they can’t chew on easily.
Those are really cute! I was just thinking about the aprons with the #5 my mom made as party favors for my fifth b-day. I made my family reversible fleece vests this year and every got different apliques. (Is that the word?) My son got and M on both sides, my baby got a heart and an orchid (which was originally a failed attempt at a butterfly), I got big pockets for my MP3 player and cell phone…
Expressions vinyl has multiple colors of heat transfer. Not nearly as many as the regular vinyl though. I’ve had good luck with the Silhouette flocked iron on colors, but the black/silver glitter roll didn’t work at all.
How adorable! I am super-impressed by the stitching.
Those are super cute! But I have to admit, my favorite part was the R2D2 comment! Haha!
Tank-you, tank-you, tank-you! SO more awesome in real life than the pics even show. I might even have to break out one of these fine pieces to go see the doc tomorrow.
Love,
Aubrey
I don’t have a silhouette machine but I do have a cricut and I use it to make freezer paper stencils for decorating shirts and what not. You mentioned looking for a source for heat transfer vinyl but you might like to try the freezer paper stencil technique. Just google it and you’ll find lots of tutorials. Have fun with your machine!
i still love a cute embellished t, those little hearts are toooo cute!