Ninjago Water Bottle Labels

I have seen personalized water bottles all over party planning blogs and Pinterest. After doing some research I found the standard size for a water bottle label is 8 inches x 2.5 inches. I created a new file in Photoshop and sized it to the specifications above.

I found an image I liked on Google Images of the green ninja and sized it to fit. (These are the same labels I used to create the favor bag stickers, only those were smaller.)

You could possibly even do this in a program like Picmonkey if you started with a blank sheet and added your image to it. You would just size your image to be 1600 pixels (width) by 500 pixels (height). This would give you a resolution of 200 dpi which should be sufficient for printing.

Just like the favor bag stickers, I had these printed on adhesive backed paper at Office Max. It was only a couple of dollars for all the sheets I needed. I would not have been able to buy sticker paper for as inexpensively as I had them printed. Plus, since these were so saturated with color, I didn't want to use all my printer ink from home.

Once home, I cut the labels out with my paper trimmer, removed the original labels off my water bottles and adhered on these stickers.

The bottles looked great on the food table and added one more element to tie the theme together. Little touches like this can be the key if you have to create your party from scratch and cannot buy pre-made decorations.

More Ninjago party posts:

Ninjago Invitations, Ninjago Lollipops. Ninjago Favor Bags, Ninjago Water Bottle Labels, Ninjago Cupcake Liners, Ninjago Cake

     
Sharing with:  Sugar Bee Crafts

Top 12 Posts of 2012

I think it can be fun and interesting to look back at the end of the year and see all you have accomplished. I am always trying to learn and grow. It can be incredibly motivating moving forward into the new year to see all you accomplished the previous year (even if you didn't get everything you wanted to checked off your list).

Using Google stats, here are the 12 most popular posts from Laura's Crafty Life for 2012!

12. Winter Printable 

11. Butterfly Collage 

10. Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

9. Ninjago Party Invitation

8. Party Planning Printable

7. Valentine's Printables

6. Preschool Activity Pages: Practice Writing ABCs

5. Bathroom Organization

4. No Sew Fleece Blanket Tutorial

3. Preschool Activity Pages: Practice Using Scissors

2. 31 Days of Deep Cleaning Your Home

1.Organized Art and School Supplies

I also wanted to take this time to thank YOU, my readers. My dream of having a successful blog and being able to share my crafting skills with others, is slowly becoming a reality! None of it would be possible without those of you who visit my little piece of the internet each week! I am excited for 2013 and all that it promises to bring! 

Happy New Year!

     

Sharing with:
Sugar Bee Crafts, Clean and Scentsible, The Kurtz Corner, Snap Creativity

Life-n-Reflection: Photo Pizazz

I am so excited to be one of the newest affiliates for Life-n-Reflection. Kristy is such an incredible photographer and all of the items she creates are amazing! If you have not had a chance to look at her blog, you should definitely head over.

This month I was able to play around with the Photo Pizazz Let It Snow Overlays. Aren't these pretty?

Let It Snow Overlays

I have been patiently waiting for a snow day so I could take some pictures with my new camera, but we have been completely duped this year! We have had a few flurries, but nothing photo worthy. So, I decided to dig through my old photos and see what I could find in a wintery theme.

I think this first overlay is my favorite. I love the extra little sparkles at the top of the photo.

These snowflakes on these next two photos are really cute as well. I wish I would have had these last year when we made our Christmas card. This was our family picture from our trip to cut down our Christmas tree last year.

If you are new to Photoshop or want to learn more about adding overlays to your photos you can check out the video tutorial: Overlay Video Tutorial

I am so grateful to Kristy for giving me this opportunity to share her beautiful products with you. And if you want to try out some of Life-n-Reflections products for free, she has a special Pinterest board devoted to Goodies for you! (And you all know how much I love Pinterest!) http://pinterest.com/lifenreflection/life-n-reflection-goodies/

      Sharing here: The Shabby Nest, Tatertots and Jello

Ornament Garland

We have had a case of the sickies at our house. My son got sick first, then my daughter and I caught it, now my hubby has it. I haven't had much time to do any crafts or any posts. I finally got a project checked off my list that I was going to do last Christmas!

I purchased a bunch of ball ornaments planning to make an ornament wreath. I am sure you have seen these all over blogland. As pretty as they are, I don't really have anywhere else to hang a wreath in my house unless I want to get rid of some current decor (which I don't!).

I then happened across a post by Pretty Quirky, where she made a lovely ornament garland and I was instantly smitten. I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do with all my ornaments I had purchased.

Ornament Garland

Supplies Needed:

• Ball ornaments (colors of your choice)
• Ribbon

I dumped all my ornaments out into bowls, so they would be easier to work with. I choose traditional colors of red, green and silver. I have actually started to incorporate more gold into my decorations, so I may re-do this next year with some gold ornaments added in.

The process is pretty simple. You just take your ribbon and start threading ornaments onto it.

I didn't cut my ribbon until I had all the ornaments on because I wasn't sure how long it would end up. I had to try three different kinds of ribbon. I originally wanted to use the glittery silver ribbon, but it was just too wide and was too difficult to string through my ornaments. I ended up using a really thin green ribbon I had in my stash. When you are purchasing your supplies, be sure to keep the size of the ornament hook in mind.

To finish off the ends, I just looped the ribbon around the last ornament hook.

Hang your garland. To make it more festive, I tied some decorative ribbon around each end since the skinny green ribbon didn't look all that great! Here you can see the garland hung on our big window in our living room.

Some tips:

• You can make this as full as you want. As you string your ornaments on, they will naturally start to bunch together and turn to make it very full. If you don't want yours as full, I would suggest about every six inches or so tying a knot, so the ornaments don't all bunch up.
• You could easily hang several of these strands together to make them longer. I wouldn't recommend using many more ornaments on one strand, as it is already very heavy.

Cost for this project:

• 8 tubes of ornaments from Dollar Tree ($8.00)
• Ribbon from Jo Anns ($0.50)

Total: $8.50

This project could be even less expensive if you are able to get ornaments on sale after the holidays!

     

Linking up with:
Tatertots and Jello, Homemaker on a Dime, Sugar Bee Crafts, The 36th Avenue, Delightful Order, The Shabby Nest