Cute Customized Cups

A little over a year ago I received the best Christmas present ever for the crafty side of me.  It was the Silhoeutte Cameo.  It's opened up an overwhelming number of crafting possibilities, many of which I've delved into and many are still in the noggin.  I used high quality vinyl transfers, cut out the designs on the Silhouette and transferred them carefully onto the drinking vessel.  It's a bit tricky and sometimes I get annoying little air bubbles in the transfer but overall I'm so delighted by the outcome that I try not to get caught up in the little imperfections (more interesting in the end, right?).

Soot Sprite from My Neighbor Totoro.  Totoro is one of our all time favorite movies and we adore every little critter in it.  (Gotta give my husband credit here.  The soot sprite was his idea to put on the back of his laptop and I shamelessly copied him!).

A is for Annabelle.  Found this cute monogrammed A cup at Michael's for a few dollars and decided that it needed a bunny on it.  Why?  We have a beloved, rescued house bunny named Thibault and we consequently love all things bunnies.  Annabelle is the bunny whisperer of the family and even made a cute little you tube channel dedicated to his bunny adventures.  See it here.

Lastly, I have a wonderful Niece who loves turtles the way Annabelle loves bunnies.  For Christmas I made her a fun Turtle Girl travel mug.

Demitasse of Succulent?

I absolutely love succulents.  These little gems come in such a whimsical variety of sizes, shapes and colors.  And best yet, they are ridiculously low maintenance.  Who could ask for more?  I decided to have some fun and plant some in little demitasse cups to put on our sunny window sill.

One of the other bonuses of using these little cups is that they are the perfect place to propagate little succulent cuttings.  See a great blog here on how to.  Once they outgrow the cups, place them into a bigger home and repeat.

What fun will you have with tiny succulents?

Warm Softies

A few years ago, my sister-in-law gave my daughter a stuffed animal that had some kind of heatable "beads" inside of it.  The idea is that you put said animal into the microwave and warm it up before you go to bed and it keeps you toasty warm.  I absolutely loved the concept and decided that not only did I want one too, but that, of course, I could make them!  I sketched out a few simple templates on file folder paper and then set out to find the softest, most beautiful fabric I could find.

This turned out to be a marvelous thing called Minky.  The texture is just amazingly soft and there are some sumptuous colors and patterns.

Then, of course, I got more whimsical and the result was an adorable cupcake.

We have an amazing rescue bunny at our house so bunny softies quickly followed...

And more bunnies....

And, well, how about butterflies while I'm at it?

These warm softies have been gifted by me to many friends and families and both the adult and child recipients seem to grow fiercely attached to them as a night-time ritual and/or when aches need to be soothed.  

I played around with several "fillings" but flax seed along with some organic dried lavender and lavender essential oil (just a few drops mixed in with the flax) seemed to be the clear favorite.  It's very soft and retains heat for something on order of 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how long it is heated.  

I have realized that with limited time, the classic heart is the way to go.  I can probably get one made in about a half and hour.  I am developing a template for a wrap around neck pillow that should also be pretty quick to make.  

I Hope I have inspired you to come up with your own warm softies!