I'm very excited to share my new shaker card design with you, using my own watercolour gradient as the background. If you have seen my Christmas shaker card, you'd know that I love a fun handmade card that's filled with confetti, sequins, glitters or sparkly fillers. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to make these birthday shaker cards using my hand-lettered cut file and how to paint your own gradient background for these cards.

How to make a watercolour birthday shaker card

Supplies You'll Need:

• Watercolour paper (I use Canson brand 140 lb)
• Watercolours
• Painters tape/masking tape
• White cardstock
• Ornament fillers/sequins/confetti
• Acetate
• My handlettered SVG file (see link at the bottom of post)
• Foam mounting tape, glue/adhesive tape
• Cricut or other cutting machines
  
  

Instructions:

I like to make my cards in A2 size (4.25"x5.5"). Start by trimming the watercolour paper into 8.5x5.5" size. This is the size of the unfolded card. Draw a line in the middle with a pencil lightly. Tape along the folding line so your watercolour won't bleed through on the other side when you paint. Paint from the right top corner using the lightest yellow on the palette and continue to add sunshine yellow, orange, pink, magenta, and violet. Make sure to blend these colours well as they overlap one another so the colours look seamless. Let the paper try completely and lay a heavy item (such as a book) on top of the paper to straighten the paper. Once it's fully dried, you can score the middle line and fold the paper in half. The folding line should be on the left-hand side.

For the front panel, you'll need my SVG file, which you can upload to your cutting machine. Load the file to Design Space and click Make it! I used white cardstock for the front panel, but you can use any colour as well. Once the design is cut, attach a piece of acetate to the back of the front panel with adhesive tape or glue. You've now created a window for the shaker card!

With foam mounting tape, create a border along the edge of your gradient background. Fill the border with as much confetti, glitter, or sequins as you like. Be sure to leave some room for these fillers to move around. Peel off the mounting tape and attach the window you just created. Apply some pressure and shake your card to ensure nothing falls out. And you're done! 

I hope you like this DIY tutorial! If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on Instagram and tag @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your creation!

If you don't have time to make your own, you can also grab this card made for you in my shop as well! 

Until next time. Happy creating! 

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and I may receive a cute commission if you make a purchase through my links at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support :)

 

Justice just turned 4 years old and we threw him a birthday party with our friends and family recently. He’s now old enough to decide on a theme for his birthday. So when he told me he wanted a train-themed birthday party, I was all aboard!

DIY Train Themed Birthday Party

A backdrop is a must-have for any themed birthday parties. I convinced Will again to put together a balloon garland with me. I invested in an electric balloon pump and boy, did I make a good investment. Making balloons was such a breeze. I totally recommend it to anyone looking to DIY their own balloon garlands. The cost for supplies and the pump combined was less than if I was to get the garland made elsewhere.

Make Your Own Balloon Garland

I kept the garland pretty simple with shades of greys, whites and light yellows to mimic the steam of an engine. To make a lighter or darker shade of the balloons, I used the double stuffing method. Check out how to double stuff balloons here. We tied the balloons using a fishing line and hung them to the wall using 3M tape and hooks. Then finished off by adding an air-filled train engine foil balloon.

Personalized Train Tracks Number Balloon

One of my favourite things to DIY for birthday parties is the number helium balloons! They make such impactful statements and bring the theme together. Since the number balloons are typically solid colour, I wanted the number 4 to look like train tracks. And these train tracks tape saved me from having to cut out the design from adhesives.

Baggage Party Favours

For the party favours, I got some train cookie cutters and playdoh along with other miscellaneous small items like stickers and erasers for our guests. I used my Cricut to add some handles to the kraft gift bags so that they resemble baggage. I printed some cargo stickers on my sticker labels and made some personalized luggage name tags. You can download my cargo stickers template here and print on Avery 5160 labels.

Train Station and Platform Décor

I wanted my space to resemble a train station and the platform. I scored some adhesive vinyl from Dollar Tree for 50 cents and taped my entire foyer up to look like train tracks by cutting them into strips. I also made some platform signs from Bristol boards and white vinyl adhesives for the letters cut from my Cricut. Justice is obsessed with railroad crossing so I knew I needed to include that into the décor. I cut out 2 rectangles from a piece of foam board and added the adhesive vinyl cut letters the same way. I taped the foam boards onto a tripod and attached 2 red balloons as the lights. Justice was ecstatic when he saw what I made.

Train Party Activities and Games

• Colouring Station – This was very easy to set up with some tables, seats, crayons and a table sign. I found some black and white train related imageries online, added some text and printed them off with my laser printer. 

• Pin the Choo Choo Train Game – This was a lot of fun for the kiddos. Each kid picked a train paper cut-out and wrote their names on it. Then they had to connect their carts with each other to the engine on the tracks while blindfolded. The kids had a great laugh when they saw where each other’s pinned their carts. Find my template at the end of the post.

 

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Cake Table Decorations

I used to spend a lot of time baking and decorating cakes. I would feel pressured and stressed out if they were for an important occasion. But ever since I could make toppers with my Cricut, it saved me time and sanity from making my own cake while still allowing my cake to look good. Both my cake topper and train banner were made from my template and cut onto coloured cardstocks. For the topper, I assembled the cardstock cut-out onto skewer sticks. For the banner, I hole punched each cart and string them together with a piece of twine. I love being resourceful and Justice’s wooden tracks and train toys were perfect to decorate the table.

Express Train Shirt

Every birthday, I made Justice a custom shirt to wear, and this year was no different. I drew my design in Illustrator and cut it out onto iron-on vinyl with my Cricut. Justice Express was ready to choo choo!

Invitations

Party invitations were interactive this year. I designed a digital boarding pass on Canva and sent it out to all my guests (the parent) to present on their phones upon arrival. Justice had a blast role playing as a conductor and pretending to scan them abroad.

This party was a lot of fun to DIY. If you’re interested in making these for your party, you can find my svg cut files here. Hope you enjoy this post!

Tis' the season to get festive and have fun with your food presentations! Whether you're hosting a party this holiday or just enjoying a cozy night in with your loved ones, a platter that's loaded with all sorts of creamy cheeses, fruits and crackers is bound to impress everyone. I love putting cheese platters and charcuterie boards together for holidays and parties. Not only the colours are inviting, they are also easy to assemble and variations are endless. 

Here's a guide on what you'll need to make this holiday charcuterie/cheese board:

A Guide to Create a Holiday Charcuterie/Cheese Board

For this Cheese-mas tree platter, I used cheeses from Cheeseworld.ca's ultimate gift box that came with a good mix of both hard and soft cheese such as, Président Compté, Petit Saint-Paulin, Societé Roquefort, Président Camembert and Président goat cheese. To make the snowflakes, I cut the shape using my cookie cutter onto Compté cheese. Compté is a hard cheese that makes cutting intricate designs easy without loosing the shape. For the big star, I used Le Petit St Paulin as it has a large area to cut out the shape. With this type of semi-soft cheese, I needed to be gentle and careful when releasing the cheese from the cutter.

When assembling the tree, I started from the bottom and worked my way up to the top. I followed in the order of meat, cheese, fruits to separate different colours for visual interest. For meats, I used prosciutto as the bottom layer and crunched them up like a long piece of garland. I like to fold my salamis twice and placed them side by side of each other for dimension. Fruits like strawberries, blueberries and green grapes are great choices for adding bright and festive colours to the platter. 

And finally, for the tree stump, I used prezet-like biscuit sticks from Twigz. I love that these biscuit sticks give the platter a different texture. 

And that's it! This is how you assemble a cheese-mas tree platter this holiday season. If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on IG @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your version!

Have a happy holiday!

 

It's Justice's third Halloween! By now I can tell you that I really enjoy making costumes for him (see his sushi and cup noodles costume in the past). This year, I want to continue our Asian food theme and bring one of our favourite snacks to life. May I present to you - our giant Pocky!

In case you didn't know, Pocky is a Japanese brand known for their tasty biscuit sticks originally with chocolate coating. The product line has grown popularity worldwide and has expanded its offering to a wide range of flavours. You can spot one of these goodies in most Asian supermarket. 

Not only our whole family loves snacking on Pocky sticks on a daily basis, its iconic, eye catching red packaging is so memorable and easy to replicate. Here's what I did and my thought process in case you want to turn your baby into a snack too!

I used felt for this costume as I want Justice to be able to move freely in it. I want a material that can be folded and stored away easily after use. Felt is thick and stiff enough to hold its shape, does not fray like other fabrics and allows me to glue things on it. I purchased a large piece of felt from my local fabric store along with some felt sheets in beige, brown and white colour. You can also make this out of cardboard box if you don't mind the bulkiness.

 

DIY Pocky Sticks Halloween Costume

Materials for Pocky Costume:

• Felt (red, white, beige and brown)
• White glue
• Bonding tape (optional)
• Fabric cutter or scissors
• Cricut or other cutting machine
• White iron-on vinyl
• My Pocky design cut file

Materials for Giant Pocky Stick:

• Cardboard tubes or paper towel tubes
• Brown / beige paint
• Paint brush
• Kraft wrapping paper (optional)

Justice is about 3 feet tall and I wanted the costume to be down to his knees, about 21 inches in length and 16 inches wide. The staff from the fabric store was very helpful in determining how much felt I'd need (since I suck at math!). So, to help you determine all the pieces you'd need, here's a diagram. You can adjust the size to fit your own needs. I also added about half an inch on all sides for seam allowance to attach the pieces together. For the head and arm holes, I traced an outline using a 4" wood circle on the side panels and cut all the pieces out with a fabric cutter.

Before attaching all the pieces together, I made the front graphic using beige and brown felt sheets for the Pocky sticks and some iron-on vinyls for the logos. The brown felt sheet makes 4 chocolate coatings, about 3 inches wide. I trimmed 3 inches on the shorter end of the beige sheet to make my biscuit sticks. Connected them together, trimmed the corners and stuck them onto the front red panel. I recommend using felt sheets with adhesive backing as they keep things clean and mess-free. But those might be hard to come by so attaching with white glue works fine too.

With my mighty Cricut machine, I cut out the logos and nutrition facts onto white iron-on vinyls. Then, pressed the designs onto the front and back red panels with my good ol' iron. After my front and back panel designs were finished, I cut holes for the arms and head in my side panels before finally attaching all the side seams together.

This part was a bit tricky. I find it easier to tell which pieces should attach together when I laid out all the connecting pieces in order on the floor. I put some bonding tape (or you can use white glue) and sandwiched between two connecting side seams. Then I used my hair straightener (yes, you read that right!) and pressed them together. The pressing and heat will turn the bonding tape into some kind of adhesive and bond the two felts together. I love using my hair straightener like a mini heat press. It's so helpful to apply heat to areas as narrow as the side seams! I also bonded the seams from the inside, with wrong side of the panels facing out. So, when I flipped the costume inside out, the seams are clean and hidden. 

Finally, to make the costume fall straight down his body and not crunched up (since it's quite oversized on him), I cut two pieces of cardboard in the same widths as my top panel, added velcro adhesive to them and inserted them like shoulder pads. The velcros help secured the cardboards to the felt.

If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on IG @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your version!

I love the idea of a portrait rubber stamp as opposed to traditional signing my name on holiday or greeting cards. I wanted to make one for Justice as he's still too young to be able to write his name. Rubber stamps are easy for his little hand to grab and the coordination to stamp is simpler to understand and follow than writing at his age. With the stamp, he can leave a mark on notes and greeting cards himself with little guidance. After making a stamp for my holiday wrapping paper, I got a little addicted to carving and making my own rubber stamp. There's something about gliding through rubber that makes it so therapeutic. It's like carving butter. But instead of just carving out his name, I thought it'd be cute to turn his portrait into a stamp this time. It was a lot harder to carve on such a tiny surface without losing the details. Here are my step-by-step and tips for this DIY so you can also make one for your LO!

Tools and Supplies for Making Rubber Stamp:

• Japanese Rubber Block or Carving Block
• Carving tools 
• Pencil
• Paper
• Ink Pad

Japanese Rubber Block v.s. Carving Block

I used Japanese rubber block for this stamp. But any carving block meant for block printing would do as well. If you're a beginner or first-timer in carving, I recommend starting off with a Japanese block. It usually consists of 2 layers in different colours. The top thin layer is what you'd carve away. The different colours make it easy to tell which areas to carve and which to keep. It'll also prevent you from carving too deep into the block, making your stamp look even and clean. With the carving block, since it's all in one colour, it can be tricky for the brain to remember that you're actually carving out the negative space that you don't need. 

Start With a Sketch

I started by sketching a simple caricature form of Justice's face with a pencil. You can draw directly onto the block but I like to draw on a piece of paper first then transfer to the block. If you draw directly onto the block, it'll be hard to erase if you want to refine or correct a mistake. It's also important to make your portrait as simple with as little details as possible. The carving surface is small and fine lines could easily be tear apart in the carving process. After I'm happy with the drawing, I transferred it onto the rubber block by burnishing the back of the paper. 

Burnish Sketch Onto Rubber Block

To burnish the drawing, place your drawing onto the rubber block, portrait facing down. Shade the back of the paper with a pencil. The portrait will then be transferred onto the rubber block. Now, grab a v-gouge or u-gouge carving tool and start carving away all the unwanted areas. Pro-tip: carve in the direction away from your hand.

Refine your carving as needed. 

Check out my video below to see these steps in action.

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I hope you like this DIY tutorial! If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on IG @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your version!

Happy Crafting!

Justice is TWO!

I can't believe that we've been doing this parenting thing for 2 years! Wow. Where did the time go? 

I've always dreamed of hosting my kid's birthday party. But with Omicron numbers still high in Ontario, we kept his birthday party small and celebrated with just our close families at home. For his first birthday last year, his theme was One Superhero, purely because his IG handle, @Sueper.Justice sounds like a superhero. This year, we wanted to throw him a party with all the things he loves. Justice is obsessed with cars so nothing's more fitting than throwing him this Two Fast 2 Curious race car theme for his 2nd birthday!

This party was everything I envisioned and more! I had so much fun creating and DIYing all the elements since I couldn't source everything that match the theme and my vision perfectly. If you're interested in this theme for your little one as well, I've listed all the DIY details in this post.

Two Fast 2 Curious Race Car-Themed Birthday Party

Backdrop

I knew right away that I wanted to make a backdrop for the dessert table and for his photoshoot. And a race car balloon garland would be a perfect focal point for this party. I purchased a DIY balloon garland kit from a local party shop, Olive and Hare so that I could save some assembly cost. But I soon realized that I was taking up far too many tasks for the party. I ended up entrusting Will to take care of the balloons and assembly. And he did an amazing job! The race car foil balloon I ordered off from Dela and Bear party shop. I love the vintage-looking race car. And the balloon garland went so well with it as if it was the smoke coming from the exhaust which is what I was going for.

Birthday Banner

For the birthday banner, I drew the shape using my Adobe Illustrator and cut the shapes onto black cardstock using my Cricut cutting machine. Then I bought some silver metallic alphabet stickers from Walmart and just stuck them onto the banner. They look exactly how I wanted it. If you're interested in the banner template, you can download the cutting file here.

Birthday Decor

We got Justice a motorized Batmobile as a present. And I thought it would make a perfect prop for his birthday photoshoot. I designed some decals to put on the car so I could match it with the theme. I bought some white vinyl from the dollar store and cut the design using my Cricut. I covered the existing designs of the car with black coloured cardstock and adhered the decals on top. I must say that the car looks pretty sleek and nobody knew it was originally a Batmobile!

I also bought some wooden cars from the dollar store and painted them with acrylic craft paints that I have lying around at home. They became cute decor pieces for my dessert table.

The party plates were actually normal paper plates that I customized. I couldn't find paper plates that matched the theme and colour scheme, so I went with black paper plates and designed the decals to place on top. I love them so much! You can download my cutting file here.

Birthday Cake

As for the birthday cake, I decorated using my homemade marshmallow fondant! I added some food colouring gel to the marshmallow fondant to make it into the colour red. Then I moulded it into a race car just like moulding a play-doh. The race car took a few days to dry completely so I had to allocate enough time in advance for it. I love how the cake matched the balloon garland! And Justice kept wanting to steal the fondant car from the cake as soon as he saw it!

Birthday Shirt

It became a tradition where I'd make Justice a custom shirt to wear on his birthday. For his One Superhero first birthday last year, I made a Superman inspired t-shirt with his initial and a red cape to go with it. This year, to match the Two Fast race car theme, I drew the graphic with Procreate app and cut it onto iron-on transfer vinyl with my Cricut. 

I then used the same graphic to make the "Two Fast 2 Curious" backdrop and cut it out onto 2 large pieces of black bristle board. I wanted it huge on my wall so using bristle board could not only make that happen, it also help save on material cost. If you're interested in the cutting file for this graphic, you can get it here.

The custom race track number 2 balloon was the easiest to make. I bought the black foil balloon from the party shop and had it inflated with helium prior to the birthday party. Then, with the remainder white decals that I had on hand, I cut out into strips of roughly, 1" x 2.5" size and just stuck them onto the balloon. I love how it turned out. It was so cute!

And that was all. Justice had a blast that day at the party with all his families. Although it took some time to DIY everything for his birthday, seeing Justice's excitement made everything worthwhile.

Do you like to DIY for your kid's birthday?

I hope you like this DIY tutorial! If you give this a try, be sure to share your pictures with me on Instagram and tag @tingandthings_ or use hashtag #diywithting. I'd love to see your creation!