Boys' Birthday Invites - Sneak Peak

My boys have birthdays that are one month apart.  Sometimes we decide to combine their parties into one shindig and meet in the middle.  This year is one of those years.  School starts back this week (on my oldest son's birthday as a matter of fact,) and my boys have been hugely fascinated with going fishing this summer, so in order to change it up this year we are renting a lake house somewhat locally and having family up for a little birthday dinner.  The boys have been allowed 2 friends a piece to come fishing with them for the day.

Today I sat down with my Silhouette to finally get the invites finished since the party is next week.  I am seriously not into waiting to the last minute like this, but there were a few issues getting the reservations nailed down, so everyone was given a tentative date for the party and now that it is confirmed the invites will be delivered (some by hand.) 

This is a little sneak peak at what you might expect from their party.  I'll post pics sometime next week of some of the other details. 

I hate wasting paper, especially cardstock, so I mixed up the invites and used the cut outs, and the negatives of the design for the cards.

The back of the envelopes.  Every invite has a different fish (and what is fun is they are all fish that my kids can identify as fish they have caught or have seen someone catch.)

Footprint Door Mat How-To

I have been seeing all these pins on Pinterest of monogrammed door mats so I thought I would change that up a little bit.  My last name will be the same forever, but my kids are growing way too fast so why not preserve this moment.  I have always been a sucker for baby feet, so the Footprint Door Mat was born.

What I used:

• $6 Wal-Mart door mat
• Black acrylic craft pain
• Foam brushes
• Paper
• Scanner, Silhouette Cameo, and vinyl (optional)
• If you do not have a Silhouette freezer paper will work also.

First off you will need to prep and paint those precious baby tootsies.  You might want to have a bucket of water close by or do this in the bathroom because it can get messy.  We did one foot at a time.  My boys loved it!

Next, you will have them step directly down onto a piece of white paper.

You will probably have some lighter spots like in the photo above.  If you are using a Silhouette for this you will want to take your black paint and paint in those light spots so that it is a more solid color.  It makes the next step much easier.

Silhouette instructions

When you have finished painting them in, let the paint dry.  Scan them into your computer if using your Silhouette.  When you open your Silhouette software you will click the open folder and find the location you saved your footprints to.  You may have to change the file type in the drop down menu to .jpg to find it.  Then click Open.  When the footprints show up in your Silhouette Studio software you will go to the top menu and find Object.  Then go down to where it says Trace.  On the right side will pop up the trace options.  Select your trace area.  Then choose "trace outer edge."  When you have done this you can select your media if you haven't already and load it into the Silhouette.  Once you set your blade to the appropriate setting you are ready to cut!  You are going to use the negative portion for your stencil so use your Silhouette hook and peel out the inner foot print.  Then you will transfer your stencil onto the rug.  It may not stick firmly if you are using a highly textured rug like the one I used, but just hold it down as you pull off the transfer paper and it will work. :)

Once you have your stencil secured to the mat you will take your foam brushes and paint those feet!  I coated them several times to make sure to get it good and saturated and dark getting into the textured spots.  Peel it off, and Voila!

The great thing is now you have the footprints saved and scanned into your computer!  Think of all the great crafts you can do with them now!  They would make great grandparent gifts!

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