Girlie Craft Night

When my husband travels I always try to plan something with one of my girlfriends. I really wanted to make something festive for the season! Our Pinterest research gave us lots of ideas for pumpkin shirts. I live in the South so you know we had to monogram it!!

Supplies:1) shirt 2) Heat Transfer Vinyl 3) Pumpkin Design 4) monogram

I found this pumpkin design on Etsy and I made my monogram with this app on my iPhone. Once you create your monogram you can go into Adobe Illustrator to make it an svg file that you can cut with your Cricut.

What shirts have you made for Fall?

Warmly,

Lauren

Every year I bake Pumpkin Bread for me and my husbands coworkers. I enjoy getting caught up in the season! I use the Libby Pumpkin Recipe, but I use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

https://www.cooks.com/recipe/yo3hb35r/libbys-pumpkin-bread.html

For my bread, I use less white sugar than brown sugar. I find that the bread tastes more pumpkin-y without as much white sugar. I paired my pumpkin bread with the skinny girl pumpkin spice sugar free syrup! https://www.skinnymixes.com/products/sugar-free-pumpkin-spice-syrup

The Skinny Syrup in my latte was perfect with the Pumpkin Bread!

Is baking pumpkin bread on your bucket list?

Share your recipes in the comments! I would love to try them!

Warmly,

Lauren

It is finally Fall in Arkansas!

Simply by calendar day only. The weather doesn’t really cool down for another month…Every year Weidekher hosts their Winefest & I mark my calendar! It is usually the first Fall activity for us. We usually take a bike ride and enjoy the scenery. Due to a client photoshoot later on in the day we opted to take our car.

Winefest has excellent wine, great food, horse back riding, and shopping! We also visit the surrounding wineries for wine tastings. The entire experience is worth the almost 2-hour drive. Seeing the fall and wine crafts inspired me to make the gifts below.

What activities are on your Fall Bucket list?

Warmly,

Lauren

hen you have extra wood leftover from a project…make sure you use it!

I am super excited! It has been a busy few months, but I finally got my Etsy Shop up! I will be listing some items I make in Etsy: Bathroom Organizer.

My husband has always wanted to make candles. He literally came home on a Thursday and told me: I ordered supplies to make candles this weekend!

We recently finished a batch that we have listed up on my Etsy Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/warmlylauren

Do any of you sell items on Etsy? Do you go to local craft shows or farmer’s markets?

Cricut Easy Press has made my Cricut Vinyl creations so much better!My very first project with my Easy Press was a sweet “Mom Life” shirt.

Two highly important pros to this iron are:

1.  Heat setting Option
2. Built in Timer

You will not truly understand how awesome those settings are until you’ve tried to iron on heat transfer vinyl with a household clothing iron.

What really urged me to open my wallet for the Easy Press was having a vinyl shirt i made for my sweet friends toddler start peel off after one wear.I certainly do not want this for my customers. I want my vinyl to stay on for many years!

Using the Easy Press:

You can expect the perfect amount of heat every time. The Easy Press takes around 5 minutes to warm up once you’ve chosen the settings for your project. I highly recommend ironing your shirt before lining up the decal [[to decrease the wrinkles]]. I never ironed my shirt first when i used the household iron, but using the Easy Press makes wrinkles dissipate so easily!

Another perk to this handy Easy Press is the large flat iron. You can usually cover most vinyl creations with the large Easy Press.

Just press the Cricut button once your Easy Press is in place & it counts down for you –complete with a light beep when you’re done!

I typically do 3 timed presses for each design. Glitter occasionally requires 4, but mostly just for peace of mind 😉

Unlike household iron experiences, I have yet to experience spots that are too melted or ruined creations due to too much heat. I highly recommend this if you want to make sweet creations without the extra headache.

Finished Project

Warmly,

Lauren

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One year down, forever to go! It is officially the day my husband gets to eat his anniversary cake that he has suggested we eat almost every time we do not have dinner planned.

Like every bride, I planned everything to a tee. Including searching high and wide for a plastic cake holder. Noone sold them individually and I had no use for 24 extra cake cartons. My last resort: the local Kroger. I asked the ladies in the deli if i could purchase one from them. To my surprise, under the circumstances, they were delighted to give me one for free!

I got a piece of cardboard and covered it in aluminum foil and got more plastic wrap, probably more than necessary, to wrap the top tier of my cake safely inside of my plastic case. My wonderful caterer followed instructions and wrapped my top tier as i directed. The night of our wedding I immediately put our cake in the very back of my freezer.

The night before we planned to eat cake, I took it out of the freezer and into the fridge. The next morning I got up at 5:00a.m. to put our cake on the counter as we had planned to eat it for breakfast. After we took some anniversary cake photos we had cake and coffee. It was delicious! I like cold cake, but it was even better a little warmed up.I am sure it will take a few days to finish & we will enjoy every bite.

Warmly,

Lauren

One thing I have learned since entering adult life is that having a hobby or two is crucial to maintain sanity. Photography is really one that my husband got me into and it is something we enjoy doing together. Lately we have done several photo sessions for friends and something I like to do is add a personal calligraphy sign.

For this session I used a piece of wood my husband had cut and stained for me. I purchased several white markers to see what I liked most. Honestly, I recommend the chalk over the sharpie, only because the chalk you can remove if you massively mess up.

In my wrapping paper container, I had some kraft paper that worked perfect to practice on. Played with a few fonts and ended up going very simple with a modern style. I prefer Spencerian or Copperplate, but for this sign I wanted to look more modern.

Really enjoyed making this! Hoping I inspired you to make one for yourself or even a friend.

Warmly,

Lauren

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Hello! One thing I find myself doing after the New Year is getting organized. Do you do that too?

My husband is the chef of our house and our very first date we went to an Indian Restaurant. He was determined to try cooking our two favorite menu items! You’d never know how many different spices are used in Indian food until you cook it. Mark brought home all the spices and if you’ve never been to an indian store–all the spices come in bags! As you can imagine, that is not a very fresh way to store your spices. So, I made these awesome labels for the jars I purchased at hobby lobby. You can make them too!

What you need:

• Circuit Explore Air
• Printer (optional)
• Jar of your choice
• Circuit printable sticker sheets

 

First you’ll want to open up Cricut Design Space

I used a free font called Avalon. You can google free font downloads and find any you want OR use one of the fonts in Cricut.  I always start with the text and then move it the shape I choose. For the labels i chose a circle.

In order for your text to show, You will need to move your shape back:

Now, on this screen if you do not have a printer- you can use a Cricut marker to write your labels. I wanted to try the printer method, I really do not think that either way is better.

You’re ready to print! Please add your sticker page to your printer! I really like how Cricut Design Space allows you to seamlessly perform this function.

Circuit Design Space literally walks you through it. I really liked how they added this function!

 

I want to see what you make! Please post photos in the comment section!

Warmly,

Lauren

It is 2017! Happy New Year! I have been absent for way too long from my blog. I got a huge promotion in July and got married to my boyfriend of 5 years in September. We honeymooned immediately following in Germany…needless to say, I have been enjoying the newlywed bliss to its fullest! My blog was neglected & in 2017, that will not be the case! Speaking of 2017 …

It is time for new year resolutions. I have a few of my own for sure and #3 is running 5 days a week. I have my first half-marathon coming up in March. What I personally think will keep this resolution at the forefront is to make a bib holder. I have only participated in 3 organized runs, two of which I placed in. I decided to make my own holder and below I am going to show you how to make yours. It requires a piece of wood, stain or paint, nails, hooks, and possibly vinyl decal.

The first thing I did was stain the wood. I purchased my stain to do some Christmas gifts two years ago, but if you need stain here is some: http://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Stencils-Craft-Paints/Mediums-Finishes/Driftwood-Rust-Oleum-Ultimate-Wood-Stain/p/19695 . I had some pieces from a previous craft I did,  but here are some even cuter ones: http://www.hobbylobby.com/Crafts-Hobbies/Wood-Crafting/Unfinished-Wood/24%22-x-6%22-Rectangle-Wood-Plaque/p/24643 Continue reading