Friday, August 10, 2012

Spending Freeze Baby Gift

Friends of ours had a baby a few weeks ago and we're going over to meet the new little man this afternoon. While I gave them a gift off the registry prior to the baby's birth, I didn't want to show up empty handed today. Since I'm still on a spending freeze (5 weeks until we get real paychecks again, wahoo!) I needed to get creative. You know I love personalized art, and since the baby's name is Ryan, this is what I came up with. Pretty adorable, right?
I've had this really cute yellow scrapbook paper for a few months now and I've just been waiting for the perfect project to use it. Its double sided, so I used about half of it for this piece and the other half for another project that I'll show you at a later date. Here are the details on it in case anyone's interested. Oh, I think I got it at Micheal's.
 In order to get the perfect initial, I cheated a little by typing "R" into a word document and playing around with the font and size until I found one I liked. I ended up going with the Euphorigenic font in size 600. I then went to the font settings and chose to outline the letter. Once I printed that out, I folded the printed letter over the edges the scrapbook paper and cut the two papers together. I used an exacto knife to cut out the middle of the R.

For the background, I went to my stash of card stock and grabbed gray and white sheets. I measured and cut out one inch strips of the white paper and then glued them onto the gray sheet. Instant stripes! If only painting stripes was that easy! (See where I've painted stripes here and here)

Of course, the next step is to use the glue stick to secure the R onto the newly striped background and pop the whole thing into a frame. You may think I had to spend money on the frame, but you must not know about my frame cemetery :)

I love the final outcome, and while I fully intend for this to go in the baby's nursery I can see something like this hanging in a photo gallery wall.  Good thing our last initial isn't R so I'm not tempted to keep it!
I hope the parents like it! How could they not, right?

I'm also thinking that this could be nice in my classroom - my brain keeps going to decorating my classroom. I better get in there next week and get to work!
So, did you think I could pull off another free piece of art? What have you created with initials before? Any other frame or scrapbook paper hoarders out there? I can't be the only one!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

You can find me showing off this project at:

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6 comments:

  1. I love it! :) You are so creative! Just wait until you have kids........ they are going to have tons of DIY projects all over their rooms! :)

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    1. Thanks Jess! I can't wait to have the chance to decorate a nursery :)

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  2. Blog hopping and came to yours! What a perfect gift... I would love it for sure! I just might make one... Going to catch up some more:)

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    1. Thanks! I'm so glad you stopped by. I hope you enjoy the blog :)

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  3. Hi! My first time visiting! I love anything monogrammed like this, especially with the cute patterns! I, too, have a frame cemetery located under my bed. :) I love it when you use things that you already have! That feels the best, especially when it turns out great like your project! I am a teacher too. I would love for you to come visit my blog when you can.

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  4. Thanks so much for visiting! I'm glad I'm not the only one with a frame cemetery. It sounds like we have a lot in common. I can't wait to check out your blog :)

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I really love hearing your feedback! Its a great feeling to get a comment and realize that people are actually reading this blog. Thanks for taking the time :)