If you’re looking for teacher Christmas gift ideas you could make with your kids utilizing your Cricut machine, I’m so excited to share the items my daughter and I recently made as a half of our vacation partnership with Cricut!
My daughter and I have been making gifts for her teachers since she began preschool as I really feel homemade gifts are a lot extra meaningful. These projects additionally allow us to spend high quality time collectively whereas concurrently giving my daughter an opportunity to practice her executive functioning skills – from brainstorming Christmas gift ideas, to ordering supplies, to making a schedule to make sure we have sufficient time to get everything accomplished and wrapped in time for the winter break.
Now, full disclosure here: I’m a Cricut newbie and my candy girl is solely 10, so the Christmas gift ideas we got here up with for this marketing campaign are designed for beginners. And for these with youthful kids, I’ve included tips on the finish of this post outlining different methods you can get them concerned so it truly feels like a mom-and-me project!
5 Cricut Tips for Beginners
Before I share our teacher Christmas gift ideas with you, I desired to quickly present some tips I learned whereas getting comfortable utilizing our Cricut machines. For reference, we were gifted the Cricut Explore three and Circuit EasyPress 2 for this project, that are each fabulous instruments and extremely intuitive and easy you use.
1. INVEST IN THE RIGHT TOOLS
Since I’m an amateur crafter, I don’t have a room full of provides at my disposal, however over the years I’ve learned the significance of getting the RIGHT instruments on hand whenever I sit down to create enjoyable projects with my daughter. For the Christmas gift ideas below, you’ll need:
Cricut Explore 3
Cricut EasyPress 2
Cricut Basic Tool Set
Cricut Permanent Vinyl
Cricut Transfer Tape
Cricut Portable Trimmer (not required, however holy smokes do I love mine!)
2. PURCHASE EXTRA VINYL
Once you’ve chosen the colours for your designs, make sure you buy a little extra, particularly if you’re a beginner. Mistakes happen, and there is nothing worse than getting midway through a project and running out of a key supply. Remember that you can always return something you don’t use, or it can save you it for one other project!
3. START WITH SIMPLE DESIGNS
When we were initially brainstorming Christmas gift ideas, we chosen complex, multi-colored designs, and whereas we certainly could’ve made these work, we quickly learned this wasn’t the best technique for our first Cricut project. I additionally knew my daughter would lose steam if I complicated things, so we chosen single-colored designs instead. Thankfully, the Cricut Design Space has TONS of beautiful designs you could make with solely one color of vinyl!
4. WATCH TUTORIALS
Cricut machines are SO POPULAR amongst craft bloggers, and there are tons of tips and tutorials available on-line for everything you can think about – from how to load vinyl into your machine, to easy tips for peeling the backing off switch tape, to the best temperature to make use of in your Cricut EasyPress2. If you’re stumped, do a fast search on-line and you’ll have a solution and solution in minutes.
5. DO A PRACTICE RUN FIRST
This probably goes with out saying, however make sure you do a dummy test earlier than continuing with your precise project. This will allow you to get acquainted with creating projects within the Cricut Design Space, and I truly believe you want to expertise the method of printing, eradicating vinyl, and making use of switch tape firsthand earlier than you start your first DIY project. It sounds so intimidating, however when you get your hands wet, you’ll be surprised at how easy the method is.
3 Teacher Gift Ideas You Can Make with Kids On Your Cricut
While we were brainstorming teacher Christmas gift ideas, we had an added layer of complexity: my daughter has 2 male teachers this year, so we desired to discover one thing rather much less girly than what we’ve done within the past. We desired to discover one thing sensible with the choice so as to add a little personalization through colours and designs, and after browsing through the Cricut Design Space, we landed on a 3-in-1 set of personalized tote bags, lunch boxes, and mugs for every of her teachers.
Supplies Needed
Cricut Explore 3
Cricut EasyPress 2
Cricut Basic Tool Set
Cricut Permanent Vinyl
Cricut Transfer Tape
Plain Tote Bags
Plain Lunch Bags
Plain Mugs
Personalized Totes & Lunch Bags
When I polled the mothers in a few of the social media teams I’m in for the best teacher Christmas gift ideas, many educators piped as a lot as say tote bags are one of their favourite issues to obtain from their college students since they’re transporting materials to and from school every day.
We agreed this would be a nice beginning level as we could personalize the totes with every of my daughter’s teachers names, and we could use their favourite colours so they labored for every males and women. As an added bonus, my daughter was able to decide on a design for every teacher to mirror one thing they like. This was a no brainer for her main teacher as he’s an avid Raptors fan! #WeTheNorth
For the lunch bags, we determined to incorporate every teacher’s name as soon as again, however after seeing a enjoyable DONUT TOUCH MY LUNCH idea on Pinterest, we determined to make the identical design for everyone. What can I say? We LOVE donuts!
Creating these projects was very easy. Once we’d chosen our textual content and photos, we measured each items and began to create our designs within the Cricut Design Space.
The software program is extraordinarily intuitive in that when you type your textual content or add your design from the library, you can click on the decrease proper side of the merchandise and drag it to make it bigger or smaller. Look to the highest and side for measurements to make sure it will match in your bag.
Instructions
Once you’ve created your design within the Cricut Design Space, creating your personalized totes and lunch bags is pretty straightforward. Here’s the method we followed:
1. PRINT. Once your design is ready, press the inexperienced MAKE IT button within the top-left nook and follow the prompts. The program will take you thru the method of selecting the kind of vinyl you’re using, remind you to load it into your printer, assess whether or not you have sufficient vinyl to print your design, and immediate you to press the beginning button.
2. CUT AND REMOVE EXCESS VINYL. Once your design has been printed, you’ll want to chop round it, leaving an inch or so on all sides. Next, take away all vinyl that’s NOT a half of your design utilizing the Cricut Basic Tool Set. Be certain to take away the vinyl in between letters, etc.
3. APPLY TRANSFER TAPE. Cut a piece of switch tape, take away the backing, and lay it over-top of your design. Use the scraper out of your tool set to smooth the switch tape, after which carefully lift it, ensuring your design comes away from the vinyl paper backing, adhering to the switch tape. Take your time with this course of – if you take away the switch tape too quickly, items of your design may not stick to it.
4. PREP YOUR CRICUT EASYPRESS 2. Preheat your EasyPress 2 and prep your work area. Place a Cricut EasyPress Mat down so the warmth out of your iron doesn’t damage your tabletops or, if you don’t have a mat, you can use a few towels as an alternative.
5. PRE-HEAT! Before you iron your design onto your tote/lunch bag, use your EasyPress 2 to pre-heat the fabric to take away wrinkles, etc.
6. POSITION YOUR DESIGN & IRON. Once the fabric has been pre-heated, place your design(s), cowl it with a tea towel, and place your EasyPress 2 over-top. Set the timer for 30 secs.
7. HEAT THE REVERSE SIDE. Once the timer goes off, flip the merchandise over and warmth the opposite side within the identical way to make sure your design adheres to the material.
8. ALLOW TO COOL SLIGHTLY & GENTLY REMOVE TRANSFER TAPE. Go slowly with this step, particularly in case your design is small and/or contains tiny, intricate pieces.
Personalized Mugs
I admit I was a tad worried the mugs would be too finicky, however they ended up being the best a half of our project! If you’re looking for Christmas gift ideas for youthful kids to make, that’s the perfect option.
Instructions
To make these personalized mugs, follow the directions outlined above to print your design, apply switch tape, and lift it off the vinyl paper backing.
Next, make sure your mug is clear and dry, place your design the place you’d prefer it to appear, and firmly press it onto your mug.
Use the scraper out of your tool set to smooth the design onto your mug, after which carefully lift the switch tape, ensuring your design adheres to the mug.
6 Ways To Get Kids Involved In These Projects
- Design. Ask your child to do some snooping to discover out a few of the issues their teachers like, after which allow them to decide on a different design for every teacher. Cricut Design Space has lots of ideas to decide on from!
- Color. Whether you’re selecting your child’s teacher’s favourite color, or making selections based on design, that’s a nice way to get your child concerned within the process.
- Cutting. While I don’t recommend having youthful kids use the Cricut Portable Trimmer, they can simply cut round designs with scissors as soon as they’ve been printed on vinyl. Depending on their age, they can additionally cut items of switch tape, ensuring the items are big sufficient for every design.
- Lifting. Older kids can assist lift items of vinyl from printed designs, however use warning when permitting children to utilizing weeding instruments as they’re very sharp.
- Applying switch tape. From eradicating the backing on switch tape, to making use of it over-top of your designs, that’s one other easy way to get your kids involved!
- Scraping. Once you’ve accomplished your project, your child can assist scrape items of vinyl off machinery, tabletops, etc.
These newbie Cricut projects are the perfect way to get your feet moist if you’ve simply bought a Cricut Explore 3 and Cricut EasyPress 2, and as you can see from the tips above, you can get kids of all ages concerned within the process.
If you’re looking for easy teacher Christmas gift ideas kids can make, I hope the ideas on this post encourage you to create one thing meaningful.
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This is a sponsored post written by me in partnership with Cricut. All opinions are my own.
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