Free Military Easter Image

Hi All,
Have you had a great week? It's been really busy here - lots and lots of stuff going on. My youngest is starting his journey to Afghanistan. Right now he's in pre-deployment mode. He's spending 3 weeks at Fort McCoy getting his soldiers ready to go. I'm really going to miss him when he ships out.

Have you watched that new series Coming Home on TLC? It's so nice that such special events are happening for the returning soldiers. Sunday night is definitely my TLC night between Coming Home and Army Wives, I'm glued to the tube! My other must sees are Good Wife, Parenthood, House and American Idol. What shows are your must sees?

Any way, back to Trev, he'll be leaving for Afghanistan before Easter. The holidays will seem a little less festive without him being here. :(

I know I have some military families that visit my blog, so I thought I'd share this image with you. Make sure you click on it before you save it.





Don't forget that starting on March 31, PLV is sponsoring a challenge over at Craft Us Crazy where you'll have a chance to win 5 Cut Outs. This is the first time PLV has sponsored this challenge site and I'm really excited about it. The DT's will be using some Easter Cut Out images, so if you need ideas be sure and check them out. The challenge runs for 2 weeks so you will have plenty of time to get your entry completed.

I hope you have a great week, plumb full of smiles!
Peggy

Yellow Ribbon, New Easter Cut Outs, PLV Sponsorships

Hi Everyone!
I sure hope you're having a great week! Can you believe it? This weekend time changes... you know the ole spring forward fall back thingy. I know spring is coming but it sure doesn't feel that way around here.. cloudy and rainy seems to be the only path we're following. lol I have a lot to post today so I guess I should be moving along.

It's been a really busy week around here. This past weekend we were lucky enough to participate in a Yellow Ribbon Conference in Saint Louis Missouri. This particular conference was hosted by the United States Army Reserves. You see, my youngest is once again on track to spend a year in Afghanistan, he leaves next month. The last time he toured he was a Marine - woops.. isn't that once a Marine always a Marine! But anyhow, for this tour it's Army all the way.

The Yellow Ribbon event is somewhat new and I think it was instituted under President Obama.. but don't quote me on that cos I'm not sure. It is an event that is packed full of helpful information for the troops and their families. The sessions are geared more toward spouses and partners vs. moms and dads but we still gained a lot of information on some valuable resources. Hopefully, we'll never have to use them, but at least we know they are there and available to us if we need them.

They hosted us at the Sheraton in the West Port Plaza. We were lucky enough to get rooms in what they call the chalet. This suited us just perfectly because it has more of an old world feel vs the newer modern version. The hotel was packed full of huge furniture and lots and lots of marble. The food was okay nothing really to brag about but it was filling and there was plenty. All in all, it was a very nice weekend on the Army's dime.

I worry about the young Army families. How hard it must be! We saw several couples with really young children. I can't imagine having to spend that much time away. The good thing is that with all the technology, they'll be able to communicate regularly and at least talk over Skype where they can see other, but still it has to be extremely hard. I thank them for all their sacrifices and pray that they all return safely.

I'm pleased to announce that I've released some new Easter Cut Outs. I was hoping to have a CD all ready for you but other things got in the way - you know how that goes. lol But anyway, here's some of the best of the best of my new - I mean old - Easter cards. I hope you like them. They're available in all the shops and can be purchased from the web shop or Etsy store or the ebay store











Now, someone has shared a secret with me, but I'm terrible at keeping secrets! ;)
So I'll give you this big hint!!!!!! Make sure you visit DeeDee's Blog , she has a post coming up that I'm sure you'll want to see and join in the fun.

This month is a major sponsor month for PLV. Right now, there is a challenge going on over at PaperTake Weekly were PLV will giving out 5 Cut Outs to the winner. If you haven't joined in already make sure you visit and get your entry in soon. Who knows maybe you'll be lucky enough to pick those Cut Outs that you've been drooling over.

And starting on March 31, PLV is sponsoring a challenge over at Craft Us Crazy where you'll have another chance to win 5 Cut Outs. This is the first time PLV has sponsored this challenge site and I'm really excited about it. The DT's will be using some of the Easter Cut Out images so if you need ideas be sure and check them out. The challenge runs for 2 weeks so you will have plenty of time to get your entry completed. Don't worry, I'll remind you of this in a future post.

So now that your eyes are all worn out from reading.. lol I'd like to close with just a small note. I am so thankful for so very many things.... I've got great kids, that I'm very, very proud of, a super husband that puts up with all my s#&*@, a great sis that is my inspiration and a couple of bros that are always there for me, our troops who keep us safe and so so many blogging friends. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!



Make sure you click on her before you save her.

I hope you have a great week, that's plumb full of smiles.
Peggy

PeggyLovesVintage Easter Contest Project

This was so much fun! For the contest I thought I'd try something with fabric to show you how versatile the images are. I've only used the Fabric transfer kits once before so this was a little bit of a challenge. I thought I'd try my hand at creating an Easter Egg Hunting outfit. This would consist of a Tee-Shirt, Hat and canvas tote for the kids to use for their Easter Eggs. Here's how my completed project looks.



We had so much fun with this. She just had to do the modeling pose with her new outfit.






Since this was for Jordan everything had to be pink, her most favorite color! So off I went to find my supplies. I purchased the tee-shirt, hat and canvas tote at Hobby Lobby. I sure had good timing because everything was 50% off. Boy you can't beat that kind of a deal! I found the Fabric Transfer Kit at Walmart. It comes in two types one for light fabric and one for dark. Since everything was pink, I choose the light kit.

So now I was ready for the design phase. For the tee-shirt I wanted to wind up with an image that would cover almost the whole front of the tee-shirt. I found that if I designed it to print on the entire sheet of fabric transfer paper (8.5 x 11) it would fit perfectly and be the right size. So with the size in mind, I knew I wanted to use the bunny music above and below the bunny and include a few Easter eggs as added embellishments. Since her tee-shirt was pink, I didn't think the green music would look right so using Photo Shop I changed the green color to black. I wanted the bunny to take up most of the room on the 8.5 x 11 sheet, so I didn't include the eggs on the bunny sheet. So here's the completed tee-shirt design.



I did a test print of the design on regular paper to check that it would look right and fit correctly on the tee-shirt.

I created the eggs and used Photo Shop to color them to match the colors in the bunny. I needed two different sized bunnies for the hat and tote, so Photo Shop to the rescue again. I also decided to use a little creative license and using Photo Shop's clone utility I replaced the music with a little flower bouquet. So now I was ready to create sheet 2 with the two bunnies and all the eggs I would need. Here's how it looked.



As an after thought I decided to add her name to back of her tote. So I went hunting for a cool Easter font that would make it something special. Here's what I came up with. I found it at this site fancy fonts . Originally the font is just plain black and white but I wanted it to be different colors so using Photo Shop again I created the text and then flattened the image and colored in the different areas. I think it turned out pretty cool! Make sure you click on it so you can see it big.



So all in all it was pretty easy once the design process was completed. Things I did learn from this... Most important... don't trim your images too close on the fabric transfer sheets. The ink has a tendency to bleed a little as you're ironing it. You can see that primarily on her completed tote image. I trimmed really close so the iron picked up the ink and spread it around a little bit.. lol. Also, make sure your iron is not too hot for the fabric. It has to be really hot for the transfer to occur but you don't want it to scorch the fabric. You can see where this also occurred on the tote. lol... Poor tote! One more thing, if you're printing text remember to change the print to mirror. Otherwise it will be backward on your item. Mirror print is usually found in your print window. If it's not listed on the main window, check in the advanced area for it.

I can't make something like this for Jordan without also doing one for Kaiden so check back next week to see what his Easter Egg Hunting outfit looks like. His has a cutie Duck image.

So now if you haven't visited the other projects from the DT, DeeDee, Donna, Julie, and Sherri take a minute and see what they've created.



Have a great week full of smiles!
Peggy