DIY Personalized Rubiks Cube

I saw the tutorial to DIY your own Rubik's cube using sports stickers a few years back on sceneofthegrime. I decided to try this idea out using vacation photos.  This would be a super cute idea for a family gift or work gift (thought about giving one of these to my bosses with group shots of my coworkers, but....didn't seem like much of a gift ;o)).

I printed off 6 photos from my recent trip to Hawaii and I snagged this rubik's cube for a buck at the store. I tried to choose photos with different colors on on the back drop (blue/black/tan etc) to help with the color matching later on. I first pealed all the stickers off the rubik's cute...not a problem, I'm practically a pro at this-it's how I solved the puzzle when I was little too...peel and replace.  ;o)  I then traced the size of the whole square and then used the stickers to measure out the inside squares.  I traced the whole thing onto the portion of the photo I planned to use....

  

 If you look closely at the photo of my mine, you can see where I held my squared off square on the top of the photo and drew down the lines to 'engrave' the lines on the photo so I knew where to cut.

I cut it each side into little squares.  

 I then glued them into place using a glue stick, though some (like the the one with the hole) needed a little dab of permanent glue to hold.

Elvis Clipboard

So.....today is Elvis' birthday, I know this because PBS is usually taken over by his legacy videos today....and every other day between now and his next birthday.  I used the same process I always use for a clipboard here to make this for our VP last year at work.  She's a little bit of a fan.  My teaching partner and I bought a book about Elvis on half price books, and then we put our scissors to work.  We used some glitter gold spray paint to give the top clip the appropriate treatment for the king.  Pasted the pictures down, and mod podged over them. 

We added her name to the bottom of the front, and did a layer of mod podge there as well.  We originally used super glue to glue down the ribbon, but you could see the dots through it, so we went back and added hot glue as well.  Thank you....Thank you very much.

I'd Be 'Soda'-lighted...Valentine's Candy Bouquet

 I've been sort of, as in 12-step programish, obsessed with vintage Valentine's Day cards this year....and by this year, I mean....forever.  I saw the cutest little card (photo to follow) that said "I'd be soda-lighted if you'd be my Valentine."  Ummmm, why don't they make corny cards like this anymore?  They are all sponge bobbed, and mickey moused out, and I'm all about those cute little characters too, but what if I want to give MY friends a card that is not currently running  a show on the cartoon network?  So, I've been hunting down vintage.  I have seen approximately 8,546,345 versions of soda gifts.  I saw this super cute version here at Kara's site I tried to emulate.   Here's my version, not to be confused with version #2 I'll be posting about tomorrow. 

 The supplies needed are these little soda jars.  You can grab them for under a buck at most thrift stores, or if you are already at a supercenter, they sell them individually for $2.  I also grabbed a little strofoam ball from the craft store, Valentine's colored M&M's, a chocolate heart (foiled wrapped) candy, 25 pieces of taffy (which I learned the hard way was the exact number needed....after I ate two pieces), hot glue, syran wrap, a pokie stick, and a pixie stick 'straw.' 

 First....it took about half the bag to fill up my cup.  I'm not going to promise you'll be seeing any future crafts with the other half of the bag because there was an accident that occured.  In my mouth. 

 I covered the M&M's with syran wrap, then tripped the edges so no flakes of strofoam would join the candy.  NOT that this would prevent me, but serving styrofoam is generally frowned upon in most social settings....

 I then took a serated knife and cut the styrofoam ball in half.....man, half a bag of M&M's and half a bag of M&M's per project, it's almost like you could make two of these.....if you had any self control. 

 I then took hot glue and ran it along the rim of the flat side of the stryrofoam and popped it on top of the glass of syran wrap covered M&M's.

 Here's where my pokie stick came in handy.  I needed a hole for my 'straw', so....I used this plastic straw/stick to create it. 

 I yanked it out, and then popped in the pixie stick 'straw' I decorated with a little vintage Valentine picture on one side, and message on the other.  I hot glued it into place. 

 I then began hot gluing the taffy onto the styrofoam ball.  It took 25 pieces.  Lesson learned.  You could also use glue dots. 

 Here is the photo of the vintage Valentine I found.

 I shrunk it down, and cut it into a heart shape and spiced it up with some crepe paper 'ruffle' along the edge. 

I added the red heart candy to the top (glued it into place) for the cherry.  You could also use a heart shaped sucker. 

A Week of Decade Projects in Review

Here are the projects from the last week of decade projects, and all the links to the how-to's and sources when applicable.  I'll be adding to this in the future because I have a list of more ideas....and someday, hopefully I'll throw the 80's project that has eluded my to do list for far too long!   
Pacman Cookies

Make Your Own Record Bowl

Tie Dye Cupcakes

Ghost Buster-Slimmer Pudding

TV Themed Cheers Meeting

The Breakfast Club Meeting

PacMan Fortune Cookies

A Few Scenes from a 50th-50's Party
Linking To:
Tatortots and Jello Be Different...Act Normal Funky Junk Under the Table

The Decades: Pacman Fortune Cookies

These could not be any easier.  I saw them on a wedding website a year or so ago.  I can't remember the specifics, and I certainly can't explain how this fit into a wedding, but....it's cute.  I had two fortune cookies.  I like pacman...so much this is my second pacman post of the week.  I made the bow with two heart shaped sprinkles, and a dab of melted chocolate.  No ghost were harmed in the making of these fortune cookies.

The Decades: The Breakfast Club

This probably won't change anyone's life, but this is a little something we put together at work for a data driven meeting.  It's always good to feed people when you start talking numbers, charts, graphs, and groups.  We 'invited' (aka informed teachers they have to go) the teachers via an invitation attached to this spoon.  This is cute quote towards the end of the movie, it's attached to one side with a picture, and the other side had our quick version of the letter for 'our' breakfast club meeting. 

There are five characters, so my teammate and I grabbed 5 different kinds of cereal, attached pictures of the five detention serving cast members, added milk and scoops, and crunched our way through the meetings. 



The Decades: Cheers

This is the G-Rated Version of a Cheer's Show get together...brought to you by my iphone. 

This year at work, we are celebrating our school's 50th anniversary.  We are traveling through the decades at various events this year.  I live life in themes, so I tend to embrace whatever 'theme' is chosen for us each year.  My job requires 'hosting' a certain number of meetings for one reason or another.  Fortunately, my co-worker is on board with having themed snacks at our meetings.  Old TV land parties always sound like a fun deal to me for a get together inside or outside of work, and travels along the road of decades themes.  In this particular case, the Cheers theme song went well with our vertical team.  We served 'root' beers and bar snacks (pretzels, popcorn etc), and the words to the cheers theme song were attached to our drinks. 

Cheer's Theme Song

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got

Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go - where everybody knows your name

and they're always glad you came

You wanna be where you can see - our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name

I can't tell you that the attendees enjoyed the meetings, but I can confirm they enjoyed the root beers. 



The Decades: Tie Dye Cupcakes

I made tie dye cupcakes for an event at work.  I also made a ginormous mess in my kitchen, in my muffin tins, and in my attempts to diet.  I used white cake mixes, dived it into four parts, added gel dye...

...and then I used a spoon to add dollops of each into the muffin tins. 

I could have taken a toothpick and stir it around, but attempt two I just took a measuring cup, dipped them into each bowl of batter, and it naturally mixed in my cup.  If I believed in being neat, I could have even used ziplock bags, but it's not a philosophy I can legitimately try to convince anyone I've adopted.    I wasn't sure what would happen when blue and red mixed blah blah blah, but they held their true colors, even as they cooked.  Good to know....

I'm just going to make a little confession about dying cupcake batter that I haven't read anywhere else, but....I think it should be noted.  I think a lot of dye gives cupcakes a weird flavor. 

Which is sort of a problem when you've got 4 dozen cupcakes to push on people that are not small children distracted by pretty colors.  Beyond the mess I made.  I just used white icing, and made little picks using a piece of clipart I nabbed from online.