For Father’s Day I made him a black bicycle hat. I have a few childhood memories seeing my dad wear hats like that, so I thought he might like one. It was a complete shot in the dark.

You’ve got to understand that my dad is impossible to buy/make gifts for. He only ever says he wants happy children. Of course he means it, but we’re a pretty happy bunch so it doesn’t seem like we’re giving him much of anything. Personally, I think he doesn’t believe we’d ever pool our money/assets together to buy him what he really wants: a 40 acre ranch in Kolob canyon. He’s right. We’d never do that.

As luck would have it, my dad was very excited to receive the black hat for Father’s day & it fit him perfectly. He asked me if I could a decal on there. Of course! With my Silhouette, I’m unstoppable! He gave the hat back & requested that I put a decal of a cyclist & “Ride like the wind, Tonto!” wrapping around the side.

It’s taken me nearly 2 1/2 months to get around to doing it! The cyclist took some effort & patience to apply, but the quote was impossible. Maybe I should’ve taken apart the hat to apply the decal. Round shapes are not fun to iron. Admittedly, I was more than bummed to see that it wasn’t going to work out. Blerg. On the positive side, the hat looks pretty rad with just the biker on it.

Hope my dad likes it!

I saw this little yellow & white striped shirt at the thrift store the other day & couldn’t pass it up. It’s so cute & in awesome condition for being somewhere around 15-20 years old (based on the tags). My neighbor’s son just had his first birthday so I wanted to do something thoughtful & possibly handmade. There’s something so foreign to me about making gifts for boys, maybe it’s because I have a girl & I am a girl. Maybe.

I had a bunch of black heat transfer material that I got with my Silhouette, so when I saw this shirt in the thrift store I knew exactly what I needed to do. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do a robot or rocket ship, but when I started thinking about the stripes on the shirt I knew it had to be nautical.

It took me less than 5 minutes to cut out the design and iron it on! I love how slick this is! I think I need to get more colors of this heat transfer stuff. It’s rad. It almost looks & feels like dried silkscreen paint. I’m a huge fan.

Don’t mind me & my soapbox, I’ll get down eventually. ;)

My senior year of college, Chris and I rode our bikes all over the place and never wore helmets. The last day of class, Chris got on his bike to ride to campus, the chain detached and threw Chris off his bike. In slow motion he fell and knocked the back of his head on the asphalt. It was a slow speed accident with pretty low impact, but Chris’s head was hurting for days. NOT cool. I was worried he had a concussion, but thankfully he didn’t.

After that, Chris took wearing a helmet seriously. It took me another 6 months before I unwillingly complied to buy a helmet and wear one – and I only agreed to wear one if it matched my bike. You think I would’ve taken wearing a helmet more seriously, because my brother (bicycle daredevil) has broken a helmet in half before from his crazy awesome bike tricks.

Long story short, the bike helmet I bought to match my cruiser doesn’t match my fixie, the bike I ride most often. It’s also seen better days. I felt like it was time for a facelift.

I used Krylon Fusion spray paint in yellow. Krylon’s fusion brand is awesome. It’s made to adhere to any smooth surface, especially plastic. It went on my helmet so easily & the finish looks beautiful. After I painted the helmet yellow, I made the decals for the sides to add a little more flair. This helmet is SO much hipper than it was before &  matches my bike perfectly. I need to go on a ride soon!

If you’re looking for some hip helmets to wear, try NutCase helmets (found via Kitsune Noir), they’ve got some rad designs. Stylishly protecting your head for $40-$50 isn’t a bad deal, either.

Do you wear a helmet? What kind of helmet do you prefer?

Things are nothing short of crazy around here. Penelope is napping less & less (what am I going to do without 4 continuous hours of naptime?!?!), I’m working on several projects in preparation for BlogHer and I’m working on this blog.

I’m tired and I feel like my creative juices are evaporating in this heat.

I found this gorgeous teal felt ric rac at the craft store a while back. I’m in love with it, but too intimidated to do anything with it. Isn’t it lovely? What would you do with something like this? Sew it onto a pillow? Use it to decorate a wrapped gift?

• • • • •

Materials:
Sewing Machine
Coordinating thread
Ribbon: desired length + 16-20 in.
Quality Paper: cut to 1 x 6 in. strips

Set up your paper strips next to your machine, decorative side down. Insert your ribbon into the machine  with am 8-10 in. tail and place your first strip under the presser foot. Sew a straight, long stitch across the paper & ribbon.

Once you’re finished with the first end of the paper strip, curl (no creases) the paper up to show the decorative side and slip the edge in front of presser foot & sew to ribbon.

Repeat steps 2 & 3.
If you’re uncomfortable with adding paper as you sew, you can pin paper to the ribbon prior to sewing.

Keep adding loops until you’ve reached your desired length, making sure that you have at least 8 inches of extra ribbon at each end. Use ends to affix garland to walls, ceilings, window treatments, trees, etc. Hang garland ribbon-side out. Enjoy! Click the button below to download the printer-friendly PDF version.

This tutorial is free for personal use and should not be distributed without my consent. If you would like to use this commercially, please email me. Thanks!

Here’s what it says:

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

– Desiderius Erasmus

I went for a very spontaneous look and just winged it. It was fun, but as soon as I was half way done I started to think crazy thoughts like: What if I mess up? Do I remember how to write a ‘y’? Oh crap! I’m going to mess up! I hate it when I start thinking thoughts like that. When I used to play the organ for weekly church service those same thoughts would go through my head then I would lose my place and skip a note. It was so embarrassing. Thankfully, my crazy thoughts of self-doubt and stress didn’t get to me; I was able to finish my quote with success.

I wanted to use white ink for this project, but the Higgins “waterproof” white ink that I have totally blows. I know, I know. It’s cheap ink. I should stop buying cheap supplies! I went to my local art supply store and stepped it up a notch and bought Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay India Ink. I love how smooth the inks are, especially the white ink! I really like my new inks a lot. What brands of inks have you tried? Which have you liked/disliked? I’d love to hear!

We spent an hour or so trying to pick out a picture that would work, and settled on a skiing pic Scott took with his iPhone.

This is how the design turned out after playing around with the image in Photoshop & Illustrator. I finished the design in about an hour. The Silhouette took about a minute to cut the vinyl (it would’ve been faster, but I had it at it’s slowest setting). It took some skill to weed out the negative space properly because of the nature of the design, but I was able to save the negative of his face for Scott to apply on his computer. I didn’t get a picture of it, but the black sticker on his black MacBook looks pretty slick.

Here’s Scott, applying the decal.

Here’s Scott, trying to make the same face that he made in the original photo.

Here’s the final product! Pretty slick, right? Now how fun would it be to have an entire family of decals on the back window?

I love my new Silhouette machine. There are just so many things you can do with it! Click here to read my review of the machine. If you’re in the market to buy one, or if you know your mom would like one (Hello, Mother’s day!), use the above coupon code for $50 off a machine and 10% off everything else in the Silhouette store. Hurry and get one before the code expires!

After I got my computer back and I had a great brainstorm session with the hubs, I completed the pattern. It’s pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Doesn’t the corsetted back look hott?

The pros to this case:

• Penelope can’t press the home button, because she can’t see it. So, she’s stuck watching her little videos or playing her games and can’t post random tweets from my phone.
• The leather makes for a better grip. It’s not going to slip out of mine or Penelope’s hands.
• The phone is protected from minor bangs and drops.

The cons to this case:

• It’s sewn in. So if you have to take it to the Apple store (which I do), you might need to un-pick the sewing. No big deal, but slightly annoying.
• the sides of the case don’t lay flat. Although, time and scoring the inside of the leather remedies this problem.

It’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve had the case on my phone, and I really like it a lot. I feel like it’s protected all the time and it just looks funky fun. I get comments on the stitching ALL the time. If you’re looking to cover your iPhone, I hope you give this little tutorial a try. Click on the Download button below to download. Enjoy!

This printable is free for personal use. If you would like to use this printable commercially, please email me. Thanks!