The Monogrammed Life: diy

Monday, May 28, 2018 No comments

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Monday, March 12, 2018 No comments

Wednesday, January 31, 2018 1 comments

Happy Thursday! If you haven’t already gathered, Christmastime is one of my favorite times of the year (preceded only by Halloween, and followed closely by my birthday). I already have all my shopping DONE for this year and now I am in the midst of wrapping everything for a fabulous Christmas morning. Gift giving (and receiving) is my top love language so this time of year it is especially important to me that I choose the exact right presents for everyone on my life and then wrap them to perfection. SO. Let’s dive into wrapping gifts 101, shall we?

How To Wrap Christmas Presents Like A Pro

Now, I may be proficient at wrapping gifts but it’s nothing compared to my father. He is a wrapping genius. Growing up we always had impeccably wrapped gifts under the tree and it’s not wonder. He’s an artist and perfectionist. Needless to say, however, since getting married and officially being in charge of wrapping my husband’s + extended family’s gifties, I needed to get much better at wrapping. Here is the easiest way to wrap your presents and look like a pro while doing it.

You will need: wrapping paper of your choice, scissors (sharp ones) and clear tape. I chose packing tape simply because it was the only clear tape I had on hand. You may choose clear or satin scotch tape if you so prefer. You want it to disappear into your paper.

Step 1: Tape down side A to your box.

How To Wrap Christmas Presents Like A Pro

Choose the BACK side of your box to put facing upwards for this step and tape the first side (side A) directly to the box. This will ensure there is NO slippage of the box while you are trying to get clean lines.

Step 2: Fold side B a quarter inch.

This step is optional, but will make your present look professionally wrapped! It creates a sharp, straight line on the box instead of the haphazardly and/or decidedly NOT STRAIGHT side you most likely have from cutting the paper from the roll.

Step 3: Tape down side B over top of side A.

You want to make sure you have enough paper for size be to adequately cover side A. This is to make sure you can’t see the box and/or the non-folded side of paper. Use 3 pieces of tape: one in the center, one towards to top and one towards the bottom. Taping this down correctly ensures you don’t have any paper stick up or make folding difficult down the line.

Step 4: Adjust the length of end paper.

This part may not be necessary depending on how to portioned your paper out. I over estimated the ending length, so I cut off the extra bit of paper to leave only what I needed to fold. If you left the perfect amount, you are a wrapping goddess and you probably don’t need this tutorial anyways.

Step 5: Fold down to top portion of paper.

Tape this to the box if necessary to hold it in place for you.

Step 6: Make sharp corners.

When you fold down the top portion of paper, you automatically get little paper triangles on the side of your paper. Sharply crease the fold, and then fold into the box on both sides. You will be left with one large triangle on the bottom portion of the paper.

Step 7: Make a small fold on the large triangle and tape.

Make a small fold on the large triangle to get rid of “edge” paper like we did in step 3, and then fold onto the box. Be sure to pull tightly to create a shape and crisp fold.

Step 8: Repeat steps 5-7 on opposite side of box.

You will do the exact same thing we just did on the opposite side of the box. Remember to pull tightly, and really work on those sharp creases.

Step 9: Finish up!

Put on a box, name tag or ribbon to finish your gifts off and place those pretty suckers underneath that beautiful Christmas tree!

PIN THIS FOR LATER:

I hope this helps you wrap your presents faster, easier and more beautifully! I love when I give people gifts and they compliment the wrapping. They just look so stunning under the tree!

Let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Written by Taylor for Blonde and Ambitious

Monday, December 11, 2017 4 comments

we've made a lot of progress in our home since we moved in last june, but I haven't quite gotten to some of the little details yet - like these sweet hangers for our guest room {and built-in wine storage, laundry room upgrade, painting the master... but hey, who's counting?!}. I have always wanted to make these hangers, since I saw them on driven by decor via pinterest, I think. luckily, we have company staying with us this weekend and I'm happy to have had a reason to finally make these adorable hangers!

my biggest learning from this project was how awesome rub-on letters are. I hadn't heard of them before and couldn't find them at michael's - so I was tempted to buy letter stickers. I made another stop at hobby lobby and finally found a very slim selection of rub-on letters. there were only 3 sheets left, so I bought them all and am so glad I did. these rub-on letters go on so smoothly, they look as if they were printed on the wood. I'll be honest, rubbing the letters on the wood was a cathartic experience and I basically want to rub letters on everything now.

a word to the wise - just be careful when rubbing the letters off, be gentle. I didn't have too many issues, but when I googled rub-on letters - I read a hilarious comment that said something like, "one wrong move and you end up with shabby chic." this is kind of true, once a letter gets ripped during the rub, it's game over. they scratch right off the hangers though, so it's not too big of an issue if it does happen.

I am constantly trying to think of ways to improve our guest room, I always think of it as my little single room B&B. in another life, I will for sure own a B&B in wine country or the mountains. do you do anything special in your guest room or have you ever stayed with someone who made you feel like a special guest?

what you need:

wooden hangers

rub-on letters (not stickers)

ribbon to tie on hook, optional

Wednesday, April 05, 2017 5 comments

12:00 AM

I know I'm not the only girl who sees something plain and is tempted to stick her monogram on it just to claim it as mine! After I got my license I would drive my parents crazy because I was constantly asking to borrow one of their cars to go see friends. Shortly after my dad went on a deployment and his car was all mine (for the time being at least)! I ordered a pink vinyl monogram and stuck it on the back window hoping he wouldn't care too much ;) Luckily when he got back my parents officially handed that car over to me (partially because my dad refused to drive a car with a pink monogram on the back) and it still has the pink monogram on the back of it today!

Monograms are such a classic look that most likely are never going to go out of style. Before I became familiar with photoshop I was determined to make everything using PowerPoint. I quickly discovered little tricks that help you make almost everything you can make on Photoshop using PowerPoint. Although I switched over to using Photoshop for almost everything now, I realize that most people don't have that program so I wanted to make a tutorial about how you can make your own customized monogram using a program that's available to most people.

I have provided step by step instructions on how to make both a script and circle monogram. These are perfect if you want to add them to business cards you're making, resumes, blogs, binder covers, or anything you wish to really! Comment if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer all of them.

I also took screenshots to try to help you through the process. I have a mac so it may be a little different for you if you are working on a pc.

I love the script monogram look. It's so classic and in my mind it can be added to most anything and look tasteful. This monogram is pretty simple to make in PowerPoint and then you can add it to any fun projects you're making or print it out to hang on your bulletin board!

1. Download this font

I could honestly spend hours on free font sites like this one. I get so overwhelmed by all the beautiful fonts that I end up downloading a million just for fun! Press the Download button in the right-hand corner (circled below).

2. Continue to Download

Once you press the download button it will either be downloaded to the little downloads bar at the bottom of your browser (if you're using Chrome) or to your downloads folder. Click on the file you have just downloaded to open it up.

3. Open the downloaded font

Once you have opened the file it should bring you to the font's folder that you just downloaded. In the folder will be the license and the font file. Click on the font file to install, the .tff file!

4. Install Font

Once you have pressed on the font file, a window similar to this should pop up and you just need to click "Install Font"!

The font book should open up and show your downloaded font in your font book! Feel free to close this window. Your font is now successfully downloaded!

5. Switch to PowerPoint

Start with a blank slide template and put your three initials in 3 different text boxes. Remember to make your first and middle initial lowercase and then your last name, which will go in the middle, uppercase. For reference, mine were in font size: 287.

Traditionally the order of a monogram goes first, last, middle. So for example, my name is Shannon Patricia Hessen. But my monogram is: sHp (with my last name in the middle).

6. Change the font & the color (if you want to!)

Now highlight the letters one by one (or all at once) and change the font to the font you just downloaded, "Monogram kk sc." If for some reason it doesn't show up in your font selection on powerpoint, type in the name ("Monogram kk sc") and it should work. You can also change the color to whatever you chose to!

7. Move close together to make a monogram

Move the two outside initials inside to overlap with the middle letter. Typically in a script monogram the outside letters overlap significantly with the middle letter.

8. Chose what you're going to use it for, and save it!

If you're going to paste it on top of something else (like a picture or background of some sort) you will want to save just the monogram with a transparent background. To do this, draw a box around the 3 textboxes with your mouse until all of the boxes are selected. Or click on one, hold down shift, and select the other two. Once you have all the text boxes selected, right-click on the picture, and press "Save as Picture." Select where on your computer you want it saved and it will save as a picture with a transparent background!

If you want to make a circle or box behind your monogram to put on a document, you will first need to draw the shape you want using the shape tool on powerpoint and place that shape behind the monogram. In this example I placed a navy circle behind my monogram.

Once you have the shape you want, highlight all the objects (3 textboxes + your shape). You can do this by drawing a box around the 4 objects with your mouse until all of the boxes are selected. Or click on one, hold down shift, and select the other three things. Once all are selected right click over your selected objects and press "Save as Picture." Save your picture to your computer and it's ready to be put on anything you want!

Final results:

Without Background With Circle Background

I love the look of the circle monogram! It's a little more modern and clean than the script version. This tutorial is a bit harder but don't worry because I'm going to walk you step by step through it all!

1. Download this font

If you read through the script monogram steps, the process of downloading the font is going to be the exact same. First, you are going to press the download button in the right-hand corner to start the process of downloading the font.

2. Continue to download the font

3. Open the downloaded font + press install

Click on the font file, it should be in a .tff file! Click install. Once you click install, it should open up to your font book. You can close out of that when you're done!

4. Open up PowerPoint

Start with a blank slide template and put your three initials in 3 different text boxes. For this fond you will need to make all your letters lowercase. For reference, mine were in font size: 287.

Traditionally the order of a monogram goes first, last, middle. So for example, my name is Shannon Patricia Hessen. But my monogram is: sHp (with my last name in the middle).

6. Change the font & the color (if you want to!)

Now highlight the letters one by one (or all at once) and change the font to the font you just downloaded, "MONOGRAMOS." If for some reason it doesn't show up in your font selection on powerpoint, type in the name ("MONOGRAMOS") and it should work. You can also change the color to whatever you chose to!

7. Save each text box as a picture

This is where it gets a bit complicated! Now you will need to select each text box individually, right click, press "Save as Picture," and then save each textbox to a folder you can easily locate. Do this for every text box (so three total).

8. Clear your textboxes & Insert Photos

Once you have saved each text box as it's own individual picture you can delete each of the text boxes (so now your slide should be blank again).

Now go to "Insert" in the top tool bar, "Photo," and then "Photo from File." Now you're going to insert the 3 photos you just saved back onto your slide.

9. Crop Photos

Now you are going to individually crop each photo so it will be ready to make into a monogram! Double click on each picture and press crop in the toolbar (circled below). Crop out the last two letters in your first initial, crop the first and third letter our of your middle initial, and lastly crop out the first two letters in your last initial.