christy's creative chaos

i've been too busy to blog! my little baby girl and her bff graduated from high school on June 6th.

(I have no idea why my shirt was hitched up like that. don't judge! lol :O)

i'm still reeling from the chaos that was involved! family in town for 3 days, 2 bbqs, the actual graduation...it took me at least a week to recover, and before i know it, a month has almost passed and my blog has the distinct sound of crickets. *chirp chirp*

I HAVE been making stuff..I made that sign above out of freezer paper. and I made a bunch of thank you cards. they were so cute that we got a thank you note for the thank you card we had sent to thank someone for a gift! Lex wants to know if we should send a thank you note for the thank you note...

I also made an entire 24 page scrapbook album for my youngest sister to send her deployed hubby on their anniversary. i did not take a single photo of the finished project. i'm the worst scrapbooker ever.

that's her with my dad's lab molly. see, I am trying to distract you from my lack of blogging with cute girls and pooches :O)

my mom, on the other hand, has been blogging her heart out! please go give her blog a peek:

so many cute ideas, cheap ideas, awesome ideas :O) my mom rocks!

check out these treasures and MORE on her blog:

stay tuned, i have lots of neat stuff up my sleeves :O)

The response to my cardboard letter M tutorial was amazing! Several readers asked about making curved letters...ooh, a challenge! I love me a challenge :O)

I decided on a lower case a and letter S.

LETTER S:

First thing, I printed out my letters in publisher, just the outlines (why waste ink?), in a basic, bold, no frills font. I made the letters 6 by 6 inches, traced them onto cardboard and cut them out, ending up with 2 letters.

For the sides of the letters, I cut the longest possible 1½ inch strips of cardboard, making sure the corrugation went SIDE TO SIDE, not lengthwise. Then I bent and rolled the strips until the surface tension was broken and they were nice and bendy.

Following the same basic steps I used when I made my letter M, I hot-glued the sides onto the bottom letter. **I used HOT MELT glue for these letters instead of the low temp glue I used on the M. It takes longer to cool and gave me more time to manipulate the cardboard into place. The bendy cardboard was actually really easy to work with. Of course, I burned the crap outta myself a few times, but that's the price you pay for making something AWESOME! :O)

If a strip of cardboard was too short for the whole side, I just added another small piece to get to the end. When an edge was finished, I cut the strip off and used a separate piece for the end. Folding the strip around a corner was too bulky and I wasn't happy with the way the corners looked.

I continued around the letter until I had all the sides put on.

**I switched to craft glue at this point. Using hot glue to glue on the front/lid of the letter was a huge pain. By the time I got the glue all the way around, the glue where I started was cool again! So...I switched to some plain white craft glue. This gave me longer to move the front/lid into place, then I set a couple of books on top to hold things in place while the glue dried.

As with the letter M, the front and back will not line up perfectly. Just use a craft knife to trim the mismatched edges, and trim off any excess hot glue. I had LOTS of excess hot glue this time :O)

To cover the curved letter, I just glued paper on the front, and clipped all the edges like so:

I used a glue stick to stick it down.

I used black cardstock on the back and sides.

And of course, CHARCOAL CHALK INK all around the edges. This ink is my *drug* of choice. If I don't have 2 or 3 extra backup pads in my stash, I get antsy :O)

LETTER A:

Same basic steps...I started in the middle, worked my way out...yada yada yada. I haven't finished the outside yet...but you get the picture :O)

Nest I really want to try some really BIG letters!

This week my Mom's blog was featured on DOLLAR STORE CRAFTS, so exciting! She has a crackle paint technique using ELMER'S GLUE that I am itching to try! Maybe on some cardboard letters...hmmmmm :O)

Please go check it out!

Linking up with:

Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented