Free Keep Calm and SCARY On Printable!

Today I had the great honor of having my Eat, Drink and Be Scary printable featured on one of my favorite blogs, One Pretty Thing! Please click on over there to check out her roundup of inspirational Halloween ideas! All Thingz Related is featuring my UNO card First Birthday Party  and  The Brambleberry Cottage is featuring my Mod Podge Frame and Handbag-turned-Headband, so stop on over to these awesome blogs and say hello!

Additionally, I received so many requests to create my husband's idea for a printable, 'Keep Calm and Scary On', that I had to make one to share with you! (He is extremely pleased with himself about this. :) )

Click on the image to get it at full resolution and then right click and save and it's yours for free! If you do, please become a follower by clicking the 'Follow' button in the upper right column of the blog! :)

Bakerella Comes to Portland!!

The wonderful ladies of Under the Table and Dreaming,   Lil' Luna,   and The Crafter's File Box are each featuring my Eat, Drink And Be Scary Printable today, so go check out these three awesome blogs and leave some love notes!! And tomorrow it's being featured on One Pretty Thing's Halloween Roundup, so click on over there too for some Halloween inspiration!

I absolutely love the yummy Bakerella blog, full of recipes and tricks, creative baking inspiration, and delicious eye candy. I am fascinated by how Bakerella (Angie) can turn a cake pop into any character or shape she desires, with the cutest results you've ever seen. So I was thrilled to hear that on the book tour for her new book Cake Pops, there was a stop in Portland, ten minutes away from me, scheduled for today!

It was perhaps not my smartest moment when I decided to take a thirteen-month-old walking climbing running falling screeching squirming tornado-of-a-toddler along with me, but I couldn't go if she couldn't, so I decided to brave it! Luckily, we got there pretty late and only had to wait about an hour, during which time Annalise cried and screeched and writhed and ran away and fell down and cried and attempted to escape approximately three million and eight times. STRESS. But in the end we got to meet the famous Bakerella, have her sign our copy of the book, and get a nice picture of the three of us together.

In this picture, I am thinking: I forgot to brush my hair! Where did the baby's headband go? Should I take the lens cap out of her mouth?

Annalise is thinking: Touch my lens cap and you die.  

Free Halloween Printable- 'Twilight'-Inspired!

We've reached the end of Week One! I want to say a big giant THANK YOU to everyone who has visited my new little blog, become a follower, and have been thoughtful enough to leave such kind comments. All of your sweet words make me feel so good. It truly warms my heart and I appreciate it so much.

At the end of week one, Craftily Ever After is nine posts strong, has received 4300+ hits, has 129 followers, has been featured seven times, and has absolutely encouraged me to keep sharing the projects I love to do!

I've had the honor of being featured three times today! Make sure to click on over to Craftgossip.com to see my Damask Mod Podge Frame as well as some other great decoupage projects, and also head on over to Tatertots and Jello and Someday Crafts where they both featured my Eat, Drink, and be Scary printable!  On Thursday my UNO card First Birthday Party will be featured at Paisley Passions, so don't forget to click over there too! It floors me and I am so humbled at the recognition from these amazing bloggers.

As a celebration of the end of a great first week in the blogging world. I thought I'd create another printable Halloween freebie! Again along the lines of the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters, but this time with a little 'Twilight' twist! Here's a little something for all the Edward-lovers!! :)

Click on the image to get it at full resolution and then right click and save and it's yours for free! If you do, please become a follower by clicking the 'Follow' button in the upper right column of the blog! :)

Shabby Chic Chalkboard

In perusing my local Dollar Store the other day, I came across a truly hideous pink wooden princess mirror. The painted design on the frame was some stripey orange and yellow hair with a crown on top so when you looked in the mirror YOU could be the princess with the worst 'do in the kingdom! Well, no matter! The mirror had a great body with scalloped edges that appealed to me and since I really love the trend I've been seeing of children in photographs holding up chalkboards with messages on them (such a cute way to always remember what was going on the picture!) I decided a refashion was in order.

This is what I started out with:

It was a well-made little piece for a dollar, with metal tabs that could be rotated to release the mirror itself.

After two coats of chalkboard spray paint for the mirror, some decoupaged pink toile scrapbook paper for the frame, and a handmade flower to boot, we had a much prettier specimen!

The flower was made just like the one for my Damask Mod Podge Frame- I cut circles from a polyester blend fabric (a clearanced remnant from Joann's! 75% off!) and held their edges over a candle flame until they melted and curled upwards. Then I attached the circles with a jeweled brad and hot-glued the whole thing to the frame.

I chose the pink scrapbook paper because the edges of the frame were already pink, so that meant I didn't even need to paint them!

The best part is that it's been put right to use!

Free Halloween Version of 'Keep Calm and Carry On' printable

My little craft blog is only five days old and I'm DELIGHTED to report that my projects have already had the honor of being featured three times!!! Over at Finding Fabulous you can find my Damask Mod Podge Frame and click over to  Moo Moos and Tutus for my Lace Halloween Wreath and  Tatertots and Jello for my UNO card First Birthday Party. UNBELIEVABLE!!!  I feel so overjoyed for this encouragement- please hop on over and leave the lovely ladies of these blogs some comment-love!

I really like those Keep Calm and Carry On posters that are everywhere and since I'm decorating for Halloween, I decided I needed a Halloween version. I didn't want to have to pay for one though, so I hopped into Photoshop and created my own!

If you would like one too, it's yours! Its dimensions are 8X10. :)

For the record, my husband really wants me to make one that says 'Keep Calm and SCARY On". So you might see one like that coming soon too. :)

Lace Halloween Wreath

I've been excited to see so many cute fall/Halloween wreaths all over blogland, so it was just a matter of time until I created my own.

When I visited my grandmother back east this spring she was trying to get my mom to take her old black lace jacket.

She didn't want to throw it away but she no longer wanted it because sun-damage had caused discoloration in some areas.

My mom didn't want it either so she convinced me to take it for the fabric. It's been sitting in my stash ever since. This week though, I paired it with a 10" green wreath-form and two spools of satin ribbon from the dollar store.

Three dollars later, I had a festive Halloween wreath!

To make it, I wrapped the wreath-form in the orange ribbon, adhering it with a dot of hot glue every few rotations. I cut a circle out of the lace jacket a few inches larger than the wreath and snipped and stretched and maneuvered it to cover the front and sides.

 For the flower, I cut a bunch of 2 1/2 inch strips of ribbon for the petals and hot-glued the corners and tops back on themselves. I put a dot of hot glue in the centers of the ribbons and pinched them into a pleat before overlapping and adhering them onto a piece of felt. I made the center out of ribbon the way I would make a fabric rolled rose.

Halloween's coming a bit early at our house this year!

Max's UNO-themed First Birthday Party

This summer Annalise's little boyfriend turned one. I was so excited to get to help throw a boy's birthday party! The theme was the card game UNO.

I took some photos of him and using Picassa, designed him a birthday invitation to send to all his little friends.

His birthday card was made by scanning the back of one of the game cards.

As Max's birthday gift I freezer-paper stenciled him an UNO shirt to wear to his party. (Idea and tutorial from here.) I've been wanting to try the technique for awhile and it was really fun!

Here he is next to his girlfriend, sporting his shirt. :)

There were color-coodinating balloons,

and Max's mom and I made loads of paper pom poms.

I created an UNO card banner,

and made inexpensive party plates by gluing game cards to dollar store plates.

Little Max's face in a birthday hat made up the cupcake toppers,

and the piece de resistance was the UNO card birthday "cake"! I got the idea to make the centerpiece into a cake out of cards from the idea of diaper cakes at baby showers. The different layers stacked conveniently inside each other for effortless travel to Max's house, where I set it up and then added some shredded-up office paper for "frosting". It turned out great!

                           

This party made me so excited to get started on plans for Annalise's first birthday party!

Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

I used my fancy trifle dish for the first time! (Let's try not to remember how many years I've had it, nor why I spent $50 on it at one of those Southern Living parties to begin with...) Happily it turned out pretty and delicious!

I asked Dave what he wanted for dessert and he suggested a strawberry shortcake trifle. I didn't really know what I was doing but I winged it on the "recipe" and it was a success!

I layered half a package of strawberry Jell-o, cubed angel-food cake, half a package of cook-and-serve vanilla pudding, and fresh-cut strawberries and then repeated the layers. I refrigerated it overnight so it could all gel together and added whipped cream to each plate before serving. Easy and yummy!

Handbags to Headbands

I picked up three cute damask-patterned vinyl-y tote bags at the dollar store, knowing I could refashion them into something fun.

 

 

I decided to start with this one.

While I snipped and glued, a certain little person tried to charm me back into playing with her.

 

A few minutes and some pearls and elastic later, we had this cute new accessory!

And lots of leftover vinyl for the next project!

Damask Word Art

I've been able to carve out some teeny moments of time to be creative lately. Which is truly my favorite passtime ever. Our friend Todd (a dentist) just had a birthday, so I designed him a card with some humor he'd enjoy.

For his gift I created a bit of art for his walls. I played around in Photoshop until I liked the font and word placement of our mutual favorite quote, and then printed it on some lovely damask scrapbook paper. (I can not get enough of damask!!!)

Now I just have to make one for myself!

Damask Mod Podge Frame

My favorite pattern ever is damask so when I saw some gorgeous damask wrapping paper in black and white at Michael's a few months ago, I snapped it up thinking I would use it to spruce up the fronts of the drawers on our ugly old dresser when I paint it. I still plan to do that but as it will take longer than ten minutes (which is the most Annalise ever entertains herself) it has not happened yet. Annalise's little friend Olivia turned one the other day though and I knew just the gift for her. I pulled out the wrapping paper, some black paint, mod podge, and a $1.00 unfinished wood frame from Michael's, as well as some much-loved old pants that I had saved for their fabric. I wore these to all the church dances back in the day. :)

The best part was that I didn't have to buy anything- I already had all of it around the house! This is what I came up with.

For the flower, I cut circles out of the pant leg and held the edges over a candle flame until they melted and curled upwards. Then I attached them with a pearl brad and hot-glued them to the frame.

Perfect for a sweet one-year-old girl!

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