Christmas Gift Project: Grocery Bags with the Yudu

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great, but I am still in awe about how quickly it came and went. I was busy up until the last minute making gifts and baking so I didn't get a chance to post some of the things I made this year and I guess it's not too late to do it now. Sometime this summer I came across a site that sells blank grocery bags and thought of using the Yudu with them. (The city I live in is actually contemplating banning plastic grocery bags, so these would come in really handy here.) Anyway, my original intent was to personalize sets of them to give as gifts, but I waited too long to actually start working on them, so I did two more generic designs, using one for each side of the bag.

This is the biggest project I've done with the Yudu, and now I feel like a pro! (not really) The design had to be created so that it would fit between the raised areas on the bags where the straps are sewn down. Then the hard part was making sure each bag was put on the platen just the right way. I got smart after pulling the first bag and marked  the Yudu with painters tape so I would know exactly where to line the top and bottom centers of the bags. I had a few that went astray, but overall they came out like these. Also, since I was working between the two raised areas, I found it easier to pull from side to side rather than top to bottom.
The design on the left is from Word Collage and done in Brown Yudu paint. On the right I used images from Home Accents (apple and pear), Gypsy Wanderings (cupcake) and Stretch Your Imagination (ice cream). The paint color is Putty. The images were cut with vinyl then placed on transparencies which were used to burn the screens. I'm sure there is an easier way to do that step, but it works well for me.
I ordered the bags here and must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the quality. They are well constructed and even came with the rectangular rubber pieces to put in the bottom of each bag. I ended up with 32 screened bags when it was all said and done and used 25 for gifts. The left overs were ones that I deemed unworthy of gift giving, but will probably use myself. I gave sets of 5 to each of my kids and my friend's daughters along with gift cards to their favorite stores. Not too bad of a gift idea, if I do say so myself!
Thanks for stopping by!

Texas Pennant

Recently PC did a contest for Circle members for the Road Trip to CHA. We were to use one of the pennant cuts on Birthday Bash and create a pennant to represent our state or region. Last weekend at the meetup they announced the winners and I'm happy to say mine won 4th place! This was only the second time I've entered a judged contest so I'm pretty excited to have placed.

I decided to create a montage of images that most people think of when they think of Texas. So I came up with the Alamo, a Texas Longhorn, an oil derrick and of course, blue bonnets. The background is the Texas flag. The Alamo was created on the Gypsy in two layers, one with all the details and one with just the outline. The detail layer was first drawn using Cricut markers, then the image was cut using the outline layer. I sanded the ink afterward with an emory board, crumpled it up a little then inked with Antique Linen distress ink. Several carts were used for this:George for the basic rectangles, PDDU for the arches on top, My World for the columns, Christmas for the door and windows and Home Accents for the dome on top. Want to guess what cut it is? It's a pear, well actually two. One was flipped horizontally then the two round ends were overlapped and welded.

The oil derrick is actually a windmill from Country Life. A black strip was added to the center then the top was hand cut. The oil is a splash from 3 Birds on Parade, cut several times, covered with glossy accents then accented with a white pen.

No Texas themed anything would be complete without a Longhorn! This cut is from Old West. It was cut in white then some spots were added with a SU Cajun Craze marker. The outlines were done with a black thin marker and the hooves were colored with a Copic T5 marker.The hooves and horns were covered with Glossy Accents. Then the whole cut was run through the Xyron to cover it with adhesive. After removing the adhesive from the hooves and horns, the cow was covered with off white flocking. I used a large sewing needle to remove the flocking from the black outlines.

The last thing to add were the blue bonnets. These are from the 50 States cartridge. I cut them in several sizes then colored them with a Copic B16 marker. White gel pen was used for the highlights.
All the elements were placed on the banner with foam adhesives in varying heights.  I kept the word Texas simple, figuring the images would speak for themselves. The letters are from Cricut Classic Font. The pennant was finished by adding a border of hemp twine around the edge which was tied in a lasso shape.
This was a fun, challenging project for me and I was really happy with how it turned out. Placing in the contest was just an added bonus! Congrats to everyone who entered and to the other winners!
Thanks for stopping by!
Maria