How to make your own custom printables

**If you missed yesterday's post, there's a fabulous giveaway going on here this week- just go to THIS POST to enter!**

Hello friends! Today's post is all about how to make your own customized printables for birthday parties, baby/wedding showers, teacher gifts, Tony Awards viewing parties, Mad Men season finale parties, ......you get the picture. As most of you know, I do NOT consider myself to be very tech savvy, so the fact that I was able to do this means that anyone could do this. You actually may already know some great tips/tricks on this subject, but I'm going to share how I made the printables for the girls Wizard of Oz party because fabric, yes fabric, was involved.

Chew on that for a sec...

Since Dorothy's dress is blue/white gingham, I knew I wanted to use tons of it in the party decor. It served as the table cloth on the food table, and I also made a couple of banners with it as well as a dress-up apron for our photo props, but I still thought, that's just not enough. I need more gingham just like Christopher Walken needed more cowbell. (SNL anyone?) I wanted to somehow incorporate it into the tags on the favor baskets as well as the labels for the food, and that's where fabric.com comes in.

I went to their website, typed 'blue and white gingham' into the search bar, and BAM. Several fabric samples to choose from, just like that. I found one that would work, enlarged the sample picture, and right-clicked on it to save it to my computer. Once you've done that, you'll have a pic that looks like this:

which is great, but I didn't really want that ruler at the bottom.

Enter Picmonkey.com

(once again, this is not a sponsored post, but I should totally be on their payroll as I tend to mention them 128 times a week.

Just sayin.)

I uploaded that pic onto picmonkey's site, used the crop tool, said buh-bye to the ruler, and added an oval in the center to provide a perfect spot to add my text. I also faded the oval out a bit so the gingham was visible behind it as well.

Now all I had to do was add the text on top.

It's just.that.simple.

Once I added words, I printed each of them out on cardstock in whatever size I needed. I used the wallet-size option to print 9 favor tags per 8.5 x 11 sheet:

 

and also printed wallet-sized labels onto adhesive paper for the

cupcakes in a jar:

For the food labels, I printed a 5 x 5 pic, glued them to a piece of cardstock folded in half, and voila!

This works with any picture/graphic you have saved on your computer-

 for example-

I used this Batman graphic I found online (from a simple google image search) for the food labels, favor tags, and even the invites for O's party back in February:

and, just in case any of you are planning a Batman shindig anytime soon, here's a blank one in black and white:

 and a blank one in black and yellow:

** one last tip **

these blank templates can also be used as custom thank you notes! I printed the blank gingham cards in a 3 x 5 size, and now we have our own *free* thank you notes that match our party theme.

So tell me-

what do you plan to make first with picmonkey?

Custom labels for your office/craft supplies/tools/makeup?

Custom invites?

Monogrammed stationary?

Do tell...

Giveaway: D's Stitches

Happy Monday to you, friends! I'm so thrilled to host a giveaway this week for a fabulous etsy shop located right here in my home state of Alabama. Danielle of D's Stitches has some of the cutest mongrams & appliques to personalize anything from onesies and t-shirts to dish towels and bloomers! She sent shirts for each of my kiddos and not only do I love them, but my kids are thrilled with them as well. Know what we call that, friends? A win/win. Take a look...

I'm so thrilled to have new shirts that the kiddos will actually look forward to wearing, because if you have kids, then you've probably already experienced the whines that are brought on by trying to force something on their bodies that they're not keen on. Follow me? My kids started putting up a fight before age 2 about what they would/would NOT wear to the point of tears, tantrums, and hair loss. Well, that last one was just me, but I think I've proved my point. Thank you Danielle, from the bottom of my heart, for these shirts that will put a smile on their faces each and every time I pull them out of the closet.

A few of my other faves from Danielle's shop are the mustache onesie:

these sweet bloomers that can be personalized with a monogram or name:

and these fab linen tea towels that would make great gifts for friends, teachers, or yourself:

She also has Disney appliques as well as Roll Tide and War Eagle gear, and oh so much more. There are also additional product pics on her facebook page HERE.

***

Danielle is generously offering a shirt, onesie, or towel from her shop and there are 3 ways to enter. You could do just one, but wouldn't you rather have more chances to win?

Here's what ya do:

1. Visit her shop, D's Stitches, and favorite it by clicking on the heart under her shop header (leave a comment on THIS BLOG POST that you have)

2. Visit her facebook page and 'like' it (leave a comment on THIS BLOG POST that you have)

3. Leave a comment on THIS BLOG POST with your favorite item from her shop

**As always, giveaways here are for Mathews Family Happenings subscribers. Not a subscriber? It's easy!

Just look on the right sidebar----->

and join through Google Friend Connect or enter your e-mail address in the box to recieve updates**

I'll leave this giveaway open until Sunday night and will post the winner (chosen through random.org) on Monday.  Remember to leave a seperate comment for each entry that you do! I'll be back tomorrow and Wednesday with a few 'how-to's' from the party.

Good Luck!

Flashback Friday

Happy Friday friends! Today's Flashback Friday takes us back to VBS in 1996. I was a teacher in the preschool class and hubs- well he was in the 6th grade. Here's the whole lot of us on the front steps of our church that summer.

Since it might be a little hard to spot the hubs and me amidst the sea of faces, here's a closer view with arrows and whatnot.

Who would've ever thought that a 16 year-old soon-to-be-junior in high school would end up marrying a 12 year-old who'd just finished his 6th grade year?

God did.
That's who.

I'm getting a little mushy today because hubs and I celebrated 5 years of marriage on Saturday. Our big day was a little eclipsed by Dorothy and a munchkin, but that's what happens when you give birth, twice, right before your anniversary. After the big party, we had a lovely dinner and even went to a show at the theatre where hubs proposed, so it was pretty cool to end up at the very place where he decided, "I totally like it so I'm gonna put a ring on it".

That morning, I got the biggest surprise of all however, when a box arrived via UPS and I had to sign for it. This was inside, and I'm still in shock.

Well done, hubs.

I haven't taken it off yet.

Not once.

And happy anniversary to you. I'm so glad God's plan involved that 16 year-old soon-to-be-junior in high school and that scrawny little just-finished-6th-grade boy. Here's to many more years of fun surprises. And jewelry. I'd be open to that too.

VBS 2012

While I do have more Wizard of Oz-ness to post about, I wanted to share with you what my family has been up to for the past 3 days. This year, our church partnered with 2 others whose buildings were also affected in the storm last year, and we're having VBS outside. Under tents. In a big field.

And it's awesome.

We're using Lifeway's "Amazing Wonders Aviation", and if you've used their materials before, you know how great they are. The music, the activities, the crafts, the bible verses that are included- it all works together so incredibly well that 'having fun' and 'learning about God' go hand in hand. While I realize this post will mean more to the church members involved, I thought it could also give some of you who will be using these materials a few ideas, such as turning a kayak into an airplane.

Here are a few pics from the past 3 days of VBS with Alberta Baptist, Pilgrim Rest Baptist, and College Hill Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I'd also like to give a big shout-out to First Baptist for providing our food each night. It's totally rocked NOT having to make dinner this week, so THANK YOU.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3