Glitter Acrylic Blanks Peel N Stick Easter Cross Tutorial (2018)

DIY St. Patrick’s Day Top Hat Headband for Child and Doll Tutorial

DIY St. Patrick’s Day Top Hat Headband for Child and Doll Cricut Tutorial

Our Guest Blogger today is Jessie Sickler, you are going to enjoy this tutorial post.

These headbands are a great accessory for your little one and their doll.  Not only are they adorable for St. Patrick’s Day but you can customize them for just about any holiday or occasion.  As you work through this tutorial I suggest you work on both hats at the same time.  It’s easier to get all your work done on the step rather than going back and doing it all again to make the smaller hat. 

Felt not shown

       Supplies:

         Items with * have a link to the Craft Chameleon products

·        

 * 2 Green Satin Headbands

 * 1 Black mini felt top hat

 * 1 Black 18” Doll hat

 * Green and White Faux Suede Fabric

   Black Felt

   ¼” Green Glitter or regular green ribbon

   Scissors

   Hot Glue Gun

   Ruler

   Chalk or white dress making pencil

Creating flower embellishments.

You will need to make 2 large white and 1 large green and 2 small white and 2 small green flowers.  I used my Cricut Maker and a Design Space flower to cut my fabric.

Alternatives: If you have a Sizzix or other manual die cutting machine you can use this flower die to cut your shapes.  Clover, Clover Flower Frills Template, even makes a cardboard folding template that you can use with fabric to cut your flower pieces. Clover Flower Frills Template

In Design Space I pulled up a basic flower template and made 2 flowers.  The large is 2.5” and the small is 1.5”.  I used the pink fabric mat and laid my fabric with the soft side up.   When setting your material type select “light fabrics like silk”.  This was light enough that it did not cut the mat but deep enough to cut the fabric.

Here are the totals for the number of flower shapes you need to cut:

•         12 Large White
•          6 Large Green
•         12 Small White
•          6 Small Green

If you want a flower, we need to make the petals.  Each flower takes 6 cuts, 1 for the base and 5 for the petals.  To make the flower you will need to fold your petals. 

Lay the flower cut with the suede side down, fold it in half once, and then fold it in half again (fold it into quarters).  For each fold put a tiny dab of hot glue to keep it in place.  When you are done with all your petals you should have 10 large white, 5 large green, 10 small white and 5 small green.

Now you are ready to put your flowers together.  Fold your remaining flower cut in quarters and then open it back up to you can see the creases.  These lines will serve as your guide for laying your petals. 

You will see that a petal fits perfectly into the quarters of the flower.  Glue each of the 4 petals into the 4 quarters of your flower. 

The last petal is glued into the top center to round it out.  Complete this process with your remaining petals and you will end up with your 2 large and 2 small white flowers and 1 large and 1 small green flower.  Put those to the side, for now, we will get back to them later.

Lining the hat with Ribbon

You will need to cut your green ribbon into 2 lengths.  11.5” for the mini hat and 7” for the doll hat. Starting on the right side of the hat, glue down the ribbon at the based, wrap it around the hat and secure the end overlapping the beginning.   

That overlap will be covered by your flowers.  Do this on both hats.

Attaching the flowers

Now you are ready to go grab those flowers you made earlier.  On the right side of the hat glue both large white flowers on the mini hat at the base and top them off by glueing the green flower on top and in the middle of the two white ones.  Do the same for the small flowers on the doll hat.

Attaching your hat to a headband
We are heading into the home stretch and all we need to do now is get that little hat to stay on our headband.

Take your black felt and with chalk trace the hat.  When you cut that shape out you want to cut inside the line because you want your felt base to be smaller than the circumference of the brim.  

Once you have your bases cut lay them over the underside of the hat and hold your headband against the hat where you would want it to sit.  I wanted my hat to sit to the side so my headband is rotated.  Once you have your headband where you want it, make two little marks where the headband meets the hat.

On each of those two little white marks, you are going to cut a small slit, just big enough for the headband to fit through.  You will put each side of the headband through the slit and slide the felt into the position of where you would want the brim of the hat to go. 

Once you have it in place you will then place it onto the hat and hot glue it into place.  The easiest way is to do one side at a time.  Also, you can place a good amount of hot glue where the headband meets the hat to help hold it in place.   The felt base helps to stabilize the hat on the headband.

At the end of every rainbow is a pot of gold, isn't she a doll!!

You did it!  You can also add additional embellishments if you would like.  A simple swap of the color’s selected and you can make this fit any occasion.  It’s a fun, easy accessory to add to the collection!

DIY Unicorn Phone Case

Personalized phone case

This week please welcome our guest blogger, Angie Scrivner. Angie uses a larger size vinyl cutter with Sure Cut's A Lot program. She can cut vinyl for large signs as well as small pieces for phone cases as we see here.

Hello, I’m  Angie, I have been married to my husband for almost 33 years, have 2 grown children and our first grandchild in December 2017.  I am the owner of a small business, Houndstooth Hunny plus I drive a school bus.

I love creating things for people and seeing my work put a smile on someones face. Now let's get started!

Supplies 
Items with * have a link to the products

*Glitter  translucent vinyl in Yellow, light blue, silver, and purple. Plain pink vinyl in bubblegum (I used Oracal 651) Transfer tape.

* Black iphone 6 cover

* Similar  Cut file for the unicorn face with CC Acrylic for $.90

 Vinyl Cutting Machine

* Vinyl weeding tool

 Vinyl application tool 

I start off by opening the file that I received with my iphone cover. Once I have this open I open the unicorn file that I purchased* and resize it to fit the phone cover. 

This is Craft Chameleon unicorn cut file that comes free with the purchase of their acrylic unicorn blank. It wasn't available at the time this post was written.

After I get everything the correct size, I break it all apart and decide what I want to cut first and cut it on my vinyl cutter.

I wipe my phone cover with a paper towel and a spray of alcohol, to be sure the cover is clean and has no oils from my hands or anything is on it. Upon cutting each item I place them all on a mat on the desk until I have everything cut out.

Once everything is cut out, I weed each piece of cut vinyl and place all side by side so I don’t lose anything while I’m working.

I begin by placing the horn and ears on the cover. I try to center it, leaving room for a name underneath. The horn and ears are your starting point, once you have applied these and smoothed them and removed the transfer tape, you will now start applying the flowers.

Apply the two outside flowers first and the middle one last, this helps everything fit together. When flowers are done, apply the inside of ears one side at a time.  

Continue applying your vinyl parts until you have your unicorn done. At this time you will apply the name.  I also try to center this.

Make sure that you have used your application tool and smoother all of your vinyl and that you have removed all transfer tape. This makes a really cute gift for the unicorn lover in your life! 

Etching Acrylic on the Silhouette Curio

Tutorial on etching acrylic discs using Silhouette Studio,Version 4, Business Edition Software on a Curio with double sided tape.

Hi, I am Rhonda Fox. Many times, I asked myself if I would really get much use from buying a Silhouette Curio. I kept putting it off and putting it off. Then I was the lucky winner of a brand-new Silhouette Curio! I love it and you will too. I am a Curio beginner and I am sharing what I have learned via the Curio manual, watching Silhouette Curio etching videos on You Tube and lots of etching. I have been experimenting using varied materials (acrylic and metals) and I love etching acrylics the best.

* Craft Chameleon has several good etching videos on their You Tube Channel.

Now, let's get started….


Supplies
Supplies with an *astrick are links and can be found on CraftChameleon.com
Silhouette Curio with small base
*2.5" round arylic blanks
* Double Sided Tape - any width will work
OR
* 2.5" Circle Template
Etching Tip - there are 3 to choose from

Silhouette Etching Tip
*CB09 Holder with the Craft Chameleon Etching Tip
* Amy Chomas Precision Tip
Paint brush- I use it to sweep away the acrylic dust as design is being etched. 
Designs- Check out the many designs available or make your own!


Using Double Sided Tape to Etch

Use double sided tape to place your acrylic on your mat. Locate on grid lines as shown.

Use the Ellipse Tool to draw a 2.5" circle. Making sure to locate it in the same place on the grid as on the mat.  Align your design within the circle and edit leaving plenty of room around the hole at the top of disc.

I used the Knife Tool to cut the design before etching, to assure I didn't etch across the hole. When design is edited and ready to etch, move or delete the circle and blue lines used for alignment.

To DEBOSS or EMBOSS? – That is the question.

Design situated in the circle ready for etching? Time to scroll down to the bottom right hand side of screen, locate the little gray arrow and click. Look for the Emboss/Deboss symbol.
It will look like a STAR. 

• Choose the Deboss option to create your etched image. 
• Flip design as this will put the etched image on back of the disk. 
• Right click on design and click flip Horizontal. Don't mirror as it will put the design on the right side of your screen.

EMBOSSING PATTERN:

Choose your embossing patterns. I prefer using the Crosshatch or Spiral pattern. You choose!

Zoom in to see the fill pattern and spacing, To get a smaller pattern or more filled in look, use spacing .004.  You can also change the hatch direction, I used 0. Experiment with the various settings to see what appeals to you. 

CUT & ETCH SETTINGS

Keeping the Embossing Panel open, click on the send button.This will open the Cut & Etch settings.

TOOL 1 = Red or red circle
TOOL 2 = Blue or blue circle
In this tutorial we will be using the red tool holder.

Material Setting – Acrylic Blanks

Acrylic Blank - Cut, Etch, Emboss

Cut – 3

Speed – 9 or 10

Force – 17 (You can go up in increments of 5 on the force setting if you want a deeper etch)

Passes – 1 or 2

Platforms – 3 - #2 panel, Soft Foam panel and then a sticky cutting mat on top. I used an OLD cutting mat because I udse double sided tape

Look over the settings to make sure they are correct, and disc is in correct location on cutting mat. Then it's the big momment...time to hit send and watch the magic unfold.

Enjoy and have fun etching. I certainly have! Here are a few items I have etched.

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