December 1st

Welcome to Erica's Craft Room

25 Days of Christmas,

with 25 Cricut projects a day.

Don't forget to stop by Erica's blog to see 24 more projects today....

and every day in December.

http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com

I am so excited to be part of 25 days in December.

I totally experimented cutting fabric with the Cricut, no idea what I was going to make or how it would turn out and I ended up with a Poinsettia Pin.

Supply list.

1. Fabric that has been washed, dried and ironed.
2. A sticky Mat
3. A blade that is brand new or one that is dedicated for cutting fabric.
4. A deep set housing blade, if you have it.
5. An iron that you don't care if it gets gunked up.
6. Iron on interfacing.  For this I used Steam a Seam 2 because I had it and wanted to see if it would work.
7. Stickles
8. Brad
9. Pin finding, look in the jewelry area at the craft store

After preparing the fabric for cutting, I placed the fabric with the Steam a Seam down on the mat.    I used the deep set blade and my settings were Blade 6, Pressure 5, Speed 1 and Multi-cut 2.

My poinsettia is cut from the Christmas cartridge at 5.16 x 3.81.  It cut really well.   I didn't like that the back was sticky and ugly so I decided to iron my cut out pieces to the piece of fabric that was left over after cutting.   I had to hand cut the poinsettias out but it was relatively easy using the cut pieces as a guide.  So, now I had a bunch of double sided poinsettia leaves and didn't know what to do with it.   I figured it was another one of my many projects that failed and then I decided that I could probably add some dimension by folding and ironing just the tips.  Somehow I managed to not burn my fingers.  I then outlined the edge of each piece with stickles.  I sort of painted it on using and eye shadow thing.   I was going to sew this together and put on the front of a felted wool eye glass case but didn't really love that idea and decided to make a pin instead. 

To make the pin I pierced the center of each piece so I could put a brad through it and then attached the pin putting the brad through the center hole in the pin finding.  I also hand sewed the bottom piece to the pin to make sure it was secure.    I added stickles to the brad and added a few dots.

I decided that I was going to give this to my mom when I saw her at Thanksgiving and made this box to wrap up the pin.

To make the box I used the inside part of the matchbox, box from Tags Bags, Boxes and More.   I used my gypsy and put 2 on the mat, then I made one a bit smaller so it would fit together better.   The cut sizes were 6.26 x 4.65 and 6.22 x 4.62.   I used paper from a Recollections cardstock stack.

To make the bow I used the scallop border from Winter Frolic to make strips for the bow.   To do this, you have to weld 2 of the borders together flipping one so you have a scallop on both sides.  I grouped those together and copied several more that I welded together to make longer strips.  The size of the scallop border welded was 1.75 x .50, after welding more together my strips were 6.85 x .50.    To put the bow together I cut my strips as I went.   The center piece is first, you will need to punch a small hole on each end and make a loop putting a brad through both holes.   Cut the 2nd piece and make a loop and punch a hole through the center and add it to the first, then do the same with the 3rd strip.  Open the brad to secure.

I had extra of the strip so I used it along with a strip of green paper to make a paper ribbon for the box.   The red paper is from Stampin up.

I hope my project inspires you to experiment and try new things because you never know what you will end up with.   My mom loved the pin.

Laurie