Great Grad Gift: Custom Shirts!

Item: Blank Label Gift Card Cost: Shirts from $60 Expectations: More than exceeded

My boyfriend’s brother is graduating from UPenn this year and will be off to med school in the fall. I had been trying to think of an awesome and stylish gift to get him- I considered a hip JCrew Timex style watch, waxed canvas messengers, etc etc. Finally, one day I was sitting there and I remembered that at some point I had seen some “custom shirt” sites- I went online to search and was so excited to find Blank Label: a stylish and “affordable” site for custom shirts. I immediately knew this would be the perfect gift.

A quick call to the boyfriend and it was settled- we ordered a gift card that morning. I told him I would get a measuring tape to pack inside the box with it to make it a little bit more fun for opening- little did I know the amazing gift box that would arrive in just a couple days. The attention to detail that the company paid to the gift card has me dying of anticipation to see the shirts that come out of it!

When we received the box we were stunned: Blank Label certainly had sent the best gift card presentation we had ever seen!

When we opened the box there were instruction cards, over 15 fabric samples, a measuring tape, and a gift card in a wax sealed envelope: classy!

Equally exciting is the awesome product he gets two make: customized shirts for HIS body. Shirts too short? Sleeves too long? Waist too billowy? Weird pattern? Hopefully not with Blank Label. He will get to pick from tons of patterns and styles (who knew there were so many collar types!). Down to the button, the shirt will be made for him.

Hopefully this has given you a helpful gift idea for your grads! Happy looking!

Please note: I have been in no way compensated by Blank Label for this post. I just found the product to be awesome and wanted to share!

Star Wars Baby Shower?!

Project: Star Wars Baby Shower Decorations (Cut Outs) Time: Weekend Project Cost: under $10

It can be done! Above is the top half~ish of the invitations I sent for my sister’s baby shower. She LOVES Star Wars and I wanted to try to incorporate that into the event. My theory? If it looks miniature and is in pastel, obviously that means its for babies! I found some great images of miniature looking characters from robotrobotROBOT (awesome art, check it out!) and used Illustrator to eliminate the color and turn them into vectors. {NB: Before using & sharing these characters, I asked for his permission.} I had never used Illustrator before and basically just clicked buttons until I got what I wanted. Then, I was able to change the color of the vectors endlessly and resize them (even to very very large) without losing quality.

The idea was this: make the invitation and matching poster size cutouts of the characters to use as decoration. Below, you will see a step by step of how I made the poster size characters!

First, I purchased poster size pastel paper at Sam Flax. Then, I moved our projector to point at the wall near the floor (so that I could sit down while doing this) and hooked up my laptop to put the images on it. Next, I taped the poster to the wall where the image was being projected (sorry for blurry picture:)

Then, I got down there and began tracing the character. As you can see above, I thickened the lines of the vector: this is because I planned on using a white poster as the background for the paper cutouts and wanted it to be generally the correct shape. In the photo below, you can see how I traced the lines in an easy to see color (the actual side that people will see is the other side, this side gets glued down).

Then, I stuck a piece of white poster on the wall and did a quick outline of the wider lines.

Now, I was ready to do the hard part and, because I was not thinking, there are no pictures. I took an exacto knife and cut out each piece. The white poster board is no problem- quick line and done! The colorful posters were quite tedious, you have to cut on both sides of the line and remember which pieces are going where.

Finally, I glued the colorful poster cutouts onto the white poster and “Poof!” the cutest Star Wars cutouts ever. I thought it was pretty awesome to have the whole outline be a single line (all connected); while it was fairly difficult (in that I was crouched over them cutting the large piece out for what may have been hours), it was worth it. I was really happy with the results and the mom-to-be even took them home to hang in the nursery!

Make it a magnet!

Project: Magnetizing things Time: <5 minutes Cost: Free!

Over the holidays, I received this really neat “Cook This” notepad from my sister and it has been great fun; however, I have quite a small kitchen and it has been taking up a decent amount of counter space. I thought it would be really awesome if it was a magnet – so I made it one!

This was the simplest of crafts. I have all these advertisement magnets from legal research companies and thought I could just attach them to the back and wahlaa! magnetized notepad.

Originally, the plan was to hot glue the magnets onto the back, but I discovered I actually do not have a hot glue gun here. Instead I followed these (very very difficult) step(s):
(1) Tape the magnets to the back with packaging tape (or hot glue if you have a glue gun)
(2) Put it on the fridge and enjoy!

Because the notepad is kind of heavy and the magnets were pretty weak, I used two. On one of the magnets, I tried to peal off the original paper front with the advertising; it was so well attached that this really did not seem to help and then I had a weird non flat surface to adhere the tape to. If the front/advertisement portion of your magnet is well attached, I wouldn’t bother doing that. Adhesive magnet sheets do exist, but this was made all from things I had at home and for free; I am certainly not knocking them though- the sheets seem pretty neat!

Spring Cleaning Begins!!

Project: Clothing Drawer Organization Time: About 40 minutes Cost: Free!

Pin It

It has been a beautiful morning here and I took that as inspiration to get started on some spring cleaning! First up was the neglected chest of drawers in my bedroom- I have been throwing stuff in them without thought for months… I don’t know what came over me, normally they stay in tip top shape. I put on a bit of peppy music (after FINALLY getting my PS3 to communicate with my computer to stream music!) and got to it.

Approach: Take it all out and start over!! Luckily, I usually fold most of my stuff so while it may have been strewn around in the drawer much of it was quick to go back into place. Also, I removed my sweaters: winter is over!! That is what gave me so much more room in the bottom drawer. For a bit of freshness, I like to leave a used (or new) dryer sheet in the drawers (see the after shot on the top drawer).

Maintenance: Easy! Since I fold all of my clothes when I wash them, its easy to put them back in to stacks.  The key is to just not get lazy after I have already spent all the time in the laundry room folding- it takes just a few moments to put them in the drawers neatly (why do I ever just throw them in there!).

Every home needs one – small stuff storage zone

Project: Small Stuff Storage Zone Time: Weekend Project Cost: ~$25-$30

Pin It

Great for: cables and cords, crafting and art supplies (markers, yarns, paint, etc), pieces and parts (computers, toys, etc), unused electronics items (remote controls), candles, anything!!

Everyone has tons of different small things laying around, hidden in closets, shoved under beds, and taking over the house. Even if you keep it down to the minimum of stuff- there are just some small things you need and want to keep. My solution to this was to create a small stuff organization home in the closet.
To be fair, this project takes a decent amount of time, but it can change how you live!! My strategy was to collect all the small stuff and bring it into the living room (what a mess!!). Figure out where you’re going to be able to store all these boxes (think top of a coat closet, office closet, etc) and then get the size of the space. Then head to the Dollar Tree to pick up some boxes; make sure to bring a tape measure or something of the sort so you can estimate how many boxes will fit. [I have found that Dollar Tree CONSISTENTLY has the best price on shoe-size plastic storage boxes. If you can find them for better than $1/ea - snag them!! Target also usually sells them for 3 for $4. If you're buying a lot of boxes, make sure they have enough matching ones (you might have to ask) or order them ahead of time.]

Then, I laid out the boxes (open) and started putting matching items into each one. This is the longest and hardest part. You may have to switch things around and figure out which stuff fits in each box. Just do it!! As you may notice from the labels, this is at my boyfriends condo: tons of electronics stuff and cables; it has been a life-saver to now be able to find these things quickly and efficiently.

(This is a smaller version of the small stuff storage solution in a smaller apartment with less stuff. Thought you might like to see that these can work in any size space and with any number of boxes!)

The final task is making the labels. First, just make a quick list of what each of the boxes should be labeled. If you don’t have a label maker (see the blue boxes): just whip up some labels in word, print them off, cut them into squares and attach with clear packing tape. If you do have a label maker (see the white boxes): print off some labels and stick them on!