Toys and Accessories Archives - Page 52 of 60 - Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

A letter from an imaginary friend…..

April 9, 2010 by Ashley Hackshaw

A few months back my friend Shari asked if I could write a letter to her daughter Finley from her imaginary friend Soren Lorensen. I finally got around to it:

It took SO long for me to get to it I had to come up with an elaborate plan to explain the delay! “Soren” explains to Finley in the letter that he was traveling the world and forgot about the letters in his backpack.

I included letters and postcards that “Soren” wrote while traveling the world (complete with fake postmarks and stamps)……

…..plus a little metal box of trinkets and gifts he picked up for Finley along the way.

Each letter corresponds with a trinket or gift and has a story behind it:

Letter 1: Soren visits “the beach” and collects seashells
Stamped and postmarked from Canada (you can get fake stamps and postmarks at your craft or scrapbook store), the envelope features a generic beach photo

Letter 2: Soren visits an “elephant” store and purchases some elephant gifts

Letter 3: Soren visits a farm, befriends a small mouse, and they both clean out a smelly pig pen.
Soren mentions in the letter that they had to wear clothespins on their nose, one for Soren, one for the itty bitty mouse!

Letter 3: Soren visits Australia and picks up some stickers and animal medallions in the hotel gift shop.
Stamped and postmarked from Australia.

Letter 4 (postcard): Soren runs out of money and gets a job at an eraser factory for a day, they pay him in erasers
I designed and printed out the company logo and pasted it to the front of the postcard.

Letter 5 (postcard): Soren visits Japan and China and picks up some origami paper.
I made the postcard by pasting a note card to the back of some pretty origami paper. Used a sticker for the stamp/postmark.

And a few extra trinkets just for fun: a superhero necklace (see tutorial here) and a tiny origami crane.

I had so much fun putting this together the last day or so. It is kind of like a scavenger hunt in an envelope…..Finley will have to guess which gifts go with each letter!

Lil Blue Boo Citrus (and ZERO waste!)

March 23, 2010 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’ve been working on some spring silk screens for my clothing store. I put the question out there on Facebook and the overwhelming requests were citrus and ladybugs! So I did both. Here are some sneak peeks from a citrus photo shoot my friend Lisa and I did this morning at the park! Lady bug photo shoot to come soon! The “orange fairy” came just in time for some photo props too!

Here is how the dresses looked on the hanger:

Have I mentioned that EVERY little last scrap of t-shirts and knits gets upcycled?! Lil Blue Boo is trying to go to ZERO waste. Pieces that are too small for dress sleeves I send to my friend Shari for use in her adorable Soren Lorensen Design creations. Pieces that are too small for her? Those go to my friend Lisa of Ellebows and More for her new line of upcycled hair pieces to match my Lil Blue Boo dresses! They are so cute I can’t stand it….she leaves pieces of the seams, stitching etc. Each one is limited and unique! She’ll be adding more mis-matched pieces as she gets dress scraps…..so if you are looking for pieces to match your dresses there will probably be a delay before they show up in her shop. OR send her photos of your LBB dresses and see if she has some coordinating scraps to match a few of them! More products to come as well!

There have been a few recent improvements to LBB dresses too…..a more refined neckline and a hidden seam at the neck for those kiddos that might have sensory issues like my little one!

Painted Wood Plaques – A Tutorial

March 1, 2010 by Ashley Hackshaw

My sister-in-law’s baby sprinkle was this weekend and I made her two painted plaques for her nursery, a LBB dress, and put everything in this great little bucket as my gift:

One wood plaque I made to hang on a wall or door:

…..and the other to hold hair clippies:

These are great little gifts to make on a budget! For each plaque I started out with an pre-cut wood piece from the craft store:

I sprayed the wood piece pink (the color that I wanted the lettering to be) and let it dry:

Next I used letter stickers (from the scrapbook section of the craft store) to spell my niece’s name “Cari”:

For perfect polka dots I used a hole punch to punch tiny vinyl circles from contact paper (adhesive shelf paper)…….

……..and placed the around the edge of the wood plaque. You could use any scrapbook punch shape as well…I wanted to keep it simple:

The stickers and vinyl dots become “reverse stencils”….

…..and I applied my top coat of white spray paint over them:

Once the top coat of spray paint was dry, I carefully peeled off the stickers and dots:

For the “clippie” plaque I took leftover fabric from the nursery rocker reupholstering (so it would match my niece’s nursery perfectly) and folded it in half tucking the ends under: