Happy spring & a tire swing

I have barely looked at my Cameo since I found out I was pregnant in January.  I've played with the software, dreamed of what I'm going to make for the holidays in our new house, thought about what I can make for the new baby to wear, etc...very little actual crafting however.  That will probably change for my baby shower next month, but for now, I just made this cute little card.

Every shape is in the Silhouette store and the only colored paper I used was the green grass; the rest is all print & cut, even the background.  I needed a birthday card for someone and liked the idea of a white picket fence, but not a house since it wasn't for a housewarming.  I had the string laying around and even though I cut cardstock "rope" I changed my mind and I like the string much better :)

This is my favorite part of owning a Cameo over a Cricut (which I still have..)- I can browse the online store, buy a single shape that I like, mix & match all of my shapes, resize, color, edit, and make a digital template, then print it, cut it, and put it together, without getting up or going to the store!

Shape links:

Tree

Tire Swing

Leaves on tree

Cloud

Fence

Grass

The card itself is this card's shape minus all embellishments, and then I just made a square the same size as the front half and print & cut it blue

I placed the leaves one by one by first putting small glue dots all over where I wanted the leaves, and then using the Pick Me Up tool, placed them one by one easily & quickly over the glue dots.

The birthday girl liked it so much that she wants me to make her 24 random cards, blank inside, and pay me of course :) Guess I'll be busy on the Cameo after all!

Homestyler

Since we have been shopping for a new house I have spent a lot of time looking around at things like paint colors, new countertops, closet organizational systems, new furniture...etc.  I was really excited to try out this free app called Homestyler on my iPad today.  Every so often I just search the top charts and this looked interesting, so I downloaded it.

You can take a photo or upload a photo and then totally redecorate the room, from new windows to wall colors to furniture to cabinets & appliances.  Everything looks pretty realistic and can be resized and rotated until perfect.  The paint colors are from Sherwin Williams and probably my favorite part, since sometimes visualizing a whole new wall color can be hard.

I took this photo of the eat-in kitchen of a house that made our short list...

And even though my husband hates white kitchens, I had fun designing what might have been :)

The cabinets aren't perfect, I should have made the table a smidge taller, and the old lighting fixture wasn't totally hidden, but it gave a very realistic idea of what to expect, should I redo this kitchen with white beadboard cabinets and a dandelion light fixture (and a prettier window).

My biggest pet peeve with the app is that the selection of furniture and cabinets and other things to modify is someone limited.  I think there were only 6 dining room tables.  On the plus side, there are ways to do a top down view of your floor plan or totally build a house & then decorate it.  How fun is that?

Totally Custom iPhone

Hi, it's been awhile!  The ups and downs of growing another human being will do that I guess :)

I had some fun today customizing my iPhone and it was mostly free. You could probably do it totally free, but I did spend $1.99 on a single app.

I'm sure you all know what an iPhone screen generally looks like.  I have a 4S.  While I did use folders to organize some things, in general:

source:  techradar.com

After 1 free app and 1 paid app, voila!

Yeah, I downloaded Tamagotchi.

ALL of the icons came from a free app called CocoPPa and I used StyleFake's instructions, which are not only really thorough but look really tedious to screenshot and repeat myself here, so go read for instructions.  In general, you open the app, find an icon you like, go to "Set up Link," and then click whatever- set up a speed dial number, a direct URL link, search for a specific app to assign, etc.  Then you name it, hit OK, agree to open it in Safari, and click the button that looks like an arrow inside a box (bottom center) and then "Add to Home Screen" at which point the icon shows up on your screen and you can move it just like a normal icon.  However, unless I missed it (it's long) that blog doesn't list all of the possible shortcuts that you can do.

I did figure out a much easier way to actually change your app.  But first, you can't change everything.  Basically the general iPhone apps are mostly there forever.  You can change the Camera icon if you use a 3rd party camera app, and I was able to change the photo album, SMS, e-mail, Safari browser, and music icons as you can see.  You can easily change any 3rd party app's icon and Stylefake shows you how (basically go to an image you like, hit "set up link" and the first option is to search for the app to use- never saw Apple apps, just 3rd party).  You cannot change the camera, phone dialer, calendar, etc.  I tried a few different tricks and couldn't get it to work.

Another important note- this just makes shortcuts.  If you delete the actual apps, nothing will work.  Stick them all in a folder and hide it on page 2 or something (as I did).

Ok, on to my easy way of getting Apple apps to change their icons- after you find an icon and go to "set up link" (again, read Stylefake's photo-heavy instructions, they're great) click "URL" at the bottom like you are setting up an icon to take you directly to Google, your favorite forum, whatever.  Instead of any of those URLs, use these:

Text message- SMS:// 

Music- music:// 
Photos- photos-redirect:// 
Maps-maps:// 
AppStore-http://AppStore.apple.com/ 
Safari-http://google.com  (or any other link that you like, I actually use msn's home page)
E-Mail:  mailto:
ITunes-http://itunes.apple.com/

It's really pretty easy and fast and looks cute.  On the negative side, notifications don't pop up on these icons, you will see a white blank page and then it will go to the actual app (less than a second in my experience), and using this shortcut to access the Apple e-mail app results in it bringing up the new message window, which you have to close to actually see your inbox.  Nothing takes more than a second, but you might find it feels tedious to use.

The other app I downloaded is for the monogrammed wallpaper.  It's called Wall About You and is $1.99.  It is a very no frills custom monogram wallpaper maker.  You could easily make your own wallpaper and e-mail yourself the image, then save it on your phone and set it, but I was in the car and just wanted something fast.

I am by no means an expert on this app.  I just thought it was fun, it was easy to use after I did it once or twice, and it looks cute.  The ONLY URL directs I know of for changing Apple apps I have listed, I don't think it works on a 3GS or lower iPhone, and please don't blame me if you somehow totally brick your phone.  Other than that, have fun with it :)