Custom Passport Tutorial

*These are pretend passports & not to be used for international travel!*

Purchase your custom passport cover in my Etsy shop {here}. Print the file as a 5x7 photo at a photo lab of your choice. Customize the information (you can add the pictures digitally at this point, or print pictures separately and glue in later) and then print off the insides of the passport using the template provided with your purchase. Now you're ready!

1. Gather supplies: Passport covers & insides, adhesive spray (or other adhesive), scissors, stapler, corner round punch, piece of cardboard, extra piece of computer paper, pen
2. Trim the insides of the passport to slightly larger than 5x7, so that you have a little bit of wiggle room when you adhere it to the cover.
3. Fold the cover & the insides in half. The insides should have the information on the inside when folded.
4. Spray the back of the cover with adhesive spray. (I recommend you do this over newspaper, cardboard, or grass, rather than a table in your house, or on concrete as the adhesive is very sticky).

5.  Stick the insides onto the cover so that the information will be on the left when you open up the passport. This is also where it's helpful to have each of them folded, because it's much easier to line things up.
6. You should have some extra paper sticking out the edges of the cover.
7. Trim the extra paper with scissors.
8. This is how your passport should look when you open it.

9. Grab that extra piece of computer paper & cut it to 5x7. Fold it in half. Draw lines so that each half is separated into 4 sections. You can certainly be more precise in your measuring than I was, but it's totally up to you!
10. Place the extra sheet into the passport, and lay it all down on the cardboard with the cover facing up. Open up your stapler so that you can use it flat (or if you have a stapler with a long enough reach, then you can just staple things that way).
11. Place two staples into the crease of the cover about an inch from the top & bottom edges.
12. See. Now pull everything off the cardboard.

13. Your staples should be sticking up straight on the inside of the passport. Fold them toward each other so they lay flat.
14. We're getting there. Does your passport look like this.
15. Optional: You can use a corner punch, or scissors, to round the corners of your passport. I recommend cutting one sheet at a time, so you don't jam your punch.
16. Finished! Now you can fill it up with stamps!

Emergency/Camping Box

Over at Safely Gathered In I recently saw a post about how to make a camping/moving box. I also think it would qualify as an emergency box. I always hate it when we go camping, and once you get there you realize you've forgotten an essential item. So, either you get creative to make do without it, or you run into the nearest town and buy it, meaning you have an extra when you get home. We went camping last weekend and I did forget a few items, though luckily my parents were coming up later and I was able to have them bring the things we forgot. Now, it would have been so much easier to just have a box with all of the necessary kitchen and miscellaneous items, rather than having to go through everything and say, "Will we need this?" So, after we got home, I created our own camping/emergency box. You can check out the post at Safely Gathered In to see what she put in hers, but here's what I put in mine.

Aluminum foil
Broom & dust pan
Bug spray
Can opener
Cereal bowls (2)
Cheese Grater
Chef knife
Clothes pins
Cook Pots (large and small)
Cutting board
Dish scrubbers (2)
Dish soap
Egg carton fire starters
Frying pan
Hot pads (2)
Jack’s food bowls (2) (he's our dog)
Ladle
Matches
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Metal mixing bowl
Mugs (2)
Pancake turner
Paper towels
Paring knives (2)
Pitcher (2-quart)
Plastic cups (2)
Plastic mixing bowl
Plates (9)
Potato peeler
Rope
Scissors
Serving Spoons (2)
Silverware
Skillet
Spatulas (2)
Spices (Garlic powder, chili powder, salt, pepper, cajun, taco seasoning)
Stove & fuel (single burner)
Table cloth
Tea pot (for boiling water)
Toilet paper (2 rolls)
Towels (5) (hand towels)
Trash bags
Wash bins (2) (we got these from the hospital, they used them to bathe the babies, I've also seen them used as barf buckets, etc.)
Wash rags (2)
Whisk
Wooden spoon
Ziplock bags

Ok, so obviously this box can be adjusted to your individual needs. Why do we have 9 plates? Well, because we found a camping dish set at a thrift store and it had 9 metal plates in it, along with the cook pots, tea pot and skillet. All of these things fit in the box with room to spare. For the box we used an 18 gallon plastic tub that we got from Walmart for about $4.50. Now is a great time to buy those because they have them cheap for college students. Ours only has the neon colors left, but we bought them while there was still blue.
Now, please, don't go out and buy all of this stuff today because it will be way too expensive. A lot of these things I already had. Most of these things can be found at thrift stores, or garage sales for really cheap. Some of them you probably already have and just don't use because you have so many, like wash rags, hand towels, and other things. Look around your house before you buy things. Take inventory and then make a list of things you want to look for at thrift stores. Then, if you still need things, buy them on sale at the store. Do it gradually, you don't need it all today.
So, in an emergency, I could grab this box and have all the things I would need to have a working kitchen and tidy campsite. Plus, we could use the plastic tub for bathing, or just storing water. I will probably find a few more things to add to the box as we go camping again and realize we've forgotten something that we needed. I hope this helps! Leave comments with any questions you have. I put a link to the egg carton fire starters so you can learn how to make your own if you want. They are so great because they burn a whole lot longer than a match, so you have a bit more time to get your fire built around it. All I used were the carton, dryer lint and candle wax. I didn't have the wood pellets and they still worked just fine.

A Quick Tutorial on Etching Glass

I ordered some Armour Etching cream last week & it arrived the other day. I finally had a chance to try it out & thought I would share the process of etching my pyrex glassware with our last name. I think this is a great idea so that you don't lose your glassware when lending it or taking it to potlucks. I also think this would be a wonderful gift for newlyweds, their last name etched into their dishes. So, I used my Silhouette SD to cut a vinyl template of our last name. Make sure your glassware is clean by using some spray glass cleaner. You also want to make sure you don't have any fingerprints in the area to be etched.

Then, get your Etching cream & a paint brush ready. I did start out trying just a regular paint brush but wasn't getting the kind of coverage I wanted, so I switched to a foam sponge brush.

Apply a coat of cream over the empty letter spaces. Don't skimp, you want to have enough cream to etch the glass completely, not just in patches. The bottle said to leave the cream on for 5 minutes, so that's what I did.

After the 5 minutes are up, wash the cream off. Be sure not to wipe it with your hands, this is an acid based cream we are dealing with. It will cause chemical burns. Be safe. So, wash it all off, then clean your dish again with the glass cleaner & wipe dry. Here is what one of mine looks like. I've actually done about 4 with the same template. Don't look too closely, or you'll see all the lovely fingerprints. It took me a few tries to get a good picture, so I had to keep readjusting my hands. I love this stuff! I'm also excited because I have another use for my Silhouette & my vinyl! (By the way, theSilhouette SD is an amazing machine! You just hook it up to your computer & it will cut any of the fonts that you have. You can also create your own custom images for it to cut onto paper, vinyl, heat transfer, etc.)

 Happy etching!