Creative Touches With FREE Fonts

I am all about the free...especially since paper crafting is such an expensive hobby!

My wonderful husband surprised me with a Cricut for Christmas. Needless to say, I have been glued to my computer the past several days trying to find low cost & free ways to make my creations shine.

Thanks goodness for free fonts! My two favorite websites are www.dafont.com and www.fontquirrel.com. Both sites have fonts that you simply download with the click of a button - when you open a new document in Word, they are there for your use!

Fonts are great - instead of spending needless money on a bunch of stamps for your cards, simply design sentiments or monograms & either print them directly onto the base card before embellishing it or print them onto the paper of your choice then cut them out using a pretty shape & the center point feature on your Cricut machine. Voila! Cheap & elegant embellishments!

Stuck for an idea for you sentiment? Visit www.brainyquote.com or www.quotegarden.com. Both sites have quotes searchable by category (friendship, love, sympathy, etc.).

Spa Party

I threw a spa party for my daughter's 9th birthday. I know some of these aren't paper crafts, but it really was a lot of fun to do, so I thought I'd share everything with you.

The first thing I did was set the mood with these cute invitations. These are sleep masks that I made by printing the details on white card stock, then cutting them out & gluing them to a piece of pretty scrapbook paper. I outlined the front with blue ribbon. I made each girl's name on a Cricut & added a flower & gem detail (also made on a Cricut). If you don't have a Cricut, this step is not necessary. You don't need it to make the main body of the invite. Finally, I punched holes to the sides & added blue ribbon ties. I think they turned out really cute!

 

 

I packaged the invites in a cello bag & added a set of cute toe spacers. I sealed the bag with a glue dot & another Cricut made flower, but you can use stickers if you like.

 

 

The girls were greeted by a welcome sign & fresh scented candle. The sign was just letters cut on a Cricut & glued to a 12 x 12 piece of scrapbook paper. I propped it on a large plate stand in my entry.

 

 

There was a table set with personalized goody bags & spa water. The goody bags were filled with nail polish, lip gloss & a loofah. The girls made crafts at the party to add to the bags.

 

The spa water is simply mini bottles of water wrapped with colorful duct tape.

 

 

The first activity was a table set with a bucket of white flip flops & a basket of ribbon cut to 6" lengths. The girls made their own spa sandals by tying the ribbon to the flip flops.

Didn't they turn out pretty?

 

Next, the girls were treated to facials & manicures.

 

The facial basket was filled with face mask, hair towels (which went into the goody bags at the end of the party), a spray bottle of water & cotton pads for cleaning. There was also a sheet of face jewels for them to apply after their facials.

 

The nail bucket had polish, files, lotion, cuticle sticks, polish remover & cotton pads.

 



 

After facials, the girls moved to the kitchen where they made their own Peppermint Candy Sugar Scrub, Rosemary Lavender Bath Salts & Lavender Green Tea Facial Toner. All of the recipes are readily available on the Internet. I got mine from Pinterest. I bought the 8 oz mason jars at the groccery store for $8 a dozen. I laid out baskets with precut material for the jar tops & homemade tags to tie around the jars.

 

Here's the dipped marshmallows I made. The base that they are in is styrofoam outlined with the same duct tape as the water bottles. I wrapped plain candy sticks with Washi Tape to make them colorful. There are strawberry & plain marshmallows dipped in blue & yellow candy melts & covered with sugar sprinkles.

 

 

I LOVE how my face maks cheese ball turned out! Again, Pinterest!

 

My daughter is not a cake eater, but she loves cupcakes, so I made 2 dozen & set them out with jars of frosting & a tray of candy so each girl could decorate her own. The cups are plastic shot glasses from Walmart!

 

That's about it! I hope I've inspired you to explore your inner Diva!

Girly Birthday Card - Green & Black

Here's the card I made for my Mom's birthday. This one was incredibly easy & required no special supplies. I used premade cards from Hobby Lobby, scrapbook paper, glitter, & scrapbook embellishments...simple yet beautiful!

The paper I used inside the card was the reverse of the paper on the outside, so it matched perfectly.

Amazing what you can do with some stick on gems & glitter glue!