Thursday, February 17, 2011

What did I do?!?

Whew! What a week!


I have a Cricut. I dabble in the vinyl business for people when they need something cut with the Cricut. I harvested out bigger jobs to my sister who has an acutal professional vinyl cutter. I work in the warehousing industry and we have made the leap into purchasing our own trailers for our products as of last week.


My boss asked (on Monday) if I could make decals for our 18 trailers. "Yep, no problem." 2 foot by 6 foot. *nervous twitch* "Yep, no problem." (my inner 'smarter' brain said, "How the h e double hockey sticks are you going to do that?") So I head home trying to figure out how I'm going to do this with a Cricut Expression.


Fast forward to the next day at work... "Hey, Mike from Gray wants you to make some vinyl decals for all his new trailers." Me: "No problem." I call Mike... he wants 'a buttload' of decals ASAP.


O.k. A panic attack later in the work bathroom... I realize I can't do this without a professinal machine. Look online... $2,000 for a 'professional machine'... Seriously. Wow.


*Big Gulp* Go talk to the boss to borrow some cash. Him: "Hey, let's do this, you charge me for the decals you'd make for our trucks then you purchase the machine outright with no overhead." Wow. Really?!


So... that's what I did.




Jumped into a business I know very little about, ordered the machine that after 5 hours of research seems to be 'one of the best', and should have it *fingers crossed* Saturday.


Now, how do I run it? Dunno. Guess I'll find out!


Wish me luck!


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Spring Block Tutorial

It's a snow day!  The midwest blizzard of 2011 is winding down and the boss called and said "Don't even think about coming in!"  So, here I sit.

Work's loss is your gain!  In the spirit of hating winter and hoping Punxsutawney Phil is correct... I have made some Easter blocks, and thought I'd show you how to as well!

Cut 2x4 blocks in random sizes.  I cut my from 3-7 inches tall.



Next, I found some Easterish scrapbooking paper and measured and cut to the size of the block.



Then I used my most favorite thing ever, Mod Podge, and cover the back of the paper completely. I then use a roller to make sure the paper covers completely and push out any bubbles. (BTW, don't ever get your nails done... cause they look like CRAP afterwards!!)



Then I like to distress the edges with Tim Holtz's distressed ink.  Here I used vintage photo.  I do the edges of the paper and the blocks to blend it all together.



Get your trusty Cricut out or cut out your own letters.  I used the Calligraphy cartridge with Celebrate.



And tada!  We (you) have spring blocks!  I also made some Valentine blocks.  A quick and easy decoration bring you out of this dull yucky winter slump!





I'm linked up here and here this week.

Thanks for stoppin' by!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Flea Market February







Here is just a glimps of what will be at the store this weekend. A lot of hardwork, let's hope it pays off!