New Nightlight

First of all - anyone who says boys can't have cute things are just wrong! You have to be more creative, but boys can have cute things too! My youngest needed a nightlight and after looking around a bit, I came across this a Hobby Lobby. So I decided to make my own.

I took him to the scrapbook paper and let him pickout a sheet that he liked. He's two, so I actually picked 2 or 3 and then let him select from those. I then picked a solid sheet that coordinated.The pull away sheet on the nightlight shade can be used as a pattern. I traced it onto a sheet of scrapbook paper and cut it out.
The shade is self-adhesive, so I just stuck the paper right to it.

Next a cut out his initial with my Cricut on the matching solid sheet. I decopaged it on and coated the entire sheet of paper in decopage to help bond it further to the shade.

Then I glued on this fabric trim all along the top and bottom...
wrapping it around to the back and securing it with glue to the back of the frame. I then cut away all excess hanging fibers from the trim so that none would be touching the lightbulb.

And this is my finished product - with the lights on.

And with the lights off. He loves his new nightlight and he loves that he picked out the planes, trains and automobile paper too.
Obviously you could also do this with fabric and monogram the fabric, but I don't have a monogram machine - and scrapbooking is more my thing, so I decided to go that route. It was also very quick. From start to finish it took less than an hour and then just time to dry. It was ready to go into his room that night.

Join Between Naps on the Porch for more Metamorphasis Monday!

Pressed flower with Monogram

After the funeral of my husband's 34-year-old cousin, I took a rose from the spray sent by all of the cousins. I didn't know at the time what I would do with it, but I knew I wanted to do something for his aunt and uncle. I decided to try pressing the flower into a frame. Here are the instructions for how I did it and how it turned out.

I first let the rose dry about 3 weeks hanging upside down. You want to do this project with the petals are no longer wet, but still soft enough to work with. The humidity in your home will certainly affect this process.

I started with cutting her initial in vinyl adhesive on my Cricut. I used the Storybook cartridge and cut a 2 1/2" letter. Adhere the negative vinyl to the glass so that you will be etching the letter onto it.

I used Armour Etch and followed the directions on the bottle.
Cut a background for the frame. I used the front sheet out of the frame as a template and cut out cardstock. You could use fabric also, but with this small a frame, I knew very little of the background would actually show.
I then put on a couple pieces of scrapbook adhesive to the back and...
attached it to the inside of the back on the frame. This way when I laid the back onto the flowers, I didn't have to worry about it sliding around.

This is what it looks like in the frame without the glass or the flower.
When the time is up on the Armor Etch, clean the glass as instructed. Then remove the vinyl adhesive and clean the glass completely.
Lay the glass into the frame.
Pull the dried petals from the stem. Starting with the smallest petals, begin layering them around the glass. Remember you are working backwards, so you will want the pretty side of the petal down.
After all of the petals are laid on the glass, carefully lay the back of the frame over the petals, making sure they don't shift, and secure it.
This is the finished product:

I was able to give it to them Saturday night and it was very sweet. Their precious daughter had a short, but loving life. I hope this little gift is a reminder of her and how much her family loved her.