You might say I picked a pair of perfect pumpkin paper projects! Go ahead and say it, it's kind of fun. 🙂 Today's post is all about these two super-fun Cricut projects, the pumpkin pie slice placecard and the filigree pumpkin lantern.
You might be saying to yourself "this is kind of a lot of pumpkin paper projectsfor one blog post". And I would say back to you "yes, I know...I goofed". 😉 I truly intended for these 2 projects to be 2 separate posts, but life got in the way. I was able to get the pumpkin pie slice placecard tutorial video up on YouTube last week, but the blog post never happened.
To the one, maybe two, of you who were actually looking for a blog post last Friday, I apologize. To the rest of you, let's just pretend I picked a perfect pair of pumpkin paper projects just for this single post. Ok?
If you caught my last blog post on the pumpkin napkin fold, you are already well on your way to having a super-fun table at your next soiree.
BUT, if you'd like a next-level experience, try the pumpkin pie slice placecard too! This design is actually a pie box in Cricut Design Space. I shrunk it down, simplified the sides a little, and added some names.
It's not the fastest project, but it's so stinkin' cute. In fact, it's so stinkin' cute that when I made them for Thanksgiving last year, some of my guests told me they took them home, added a hook, and hung them on the Christmas tree. As you can imagine, this makes me happy on many levels!
If you have Cricut Access, the base pie box file will be free. I've also saved my version of the file so you can skip the work (if you like) and just add your own names to my file!
Here is the link to my file, which should also be free for you if you have Cricut Access.
https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/5f89d17df6ee000ca8478fe8
There is a video tutorial for you, as usual. I honestly believe that video is the best way to explain this project. The camera is nice and close so you can see all of the tiny folding of the pumpkin pie slices and paper whipped cream!
https://youtu.be/fHT2bD4jJ-M
I love a good Fall decoration project. To me, it's kind of the beginning of celebration season when the Halloween decor goes up.
When you can manage to find a project that also LIGHTS UP, bonus.
This project is a design from SVG Cuts and it's really lovely all lit up. See?
Once again, not the fastest project to do, but SO SATISFYING. I feel legit pride when I walk by it. In my mind, I'm doing that thing when you exhale on your knuckles and shine them on your shirt... 🙂
I can't give you this file design for free because it's not mine to give! You can purchase it here from svgcuts.com. And once you buy it, you can make as many perfect paper pumpkin lanterns as your heart desires.
How much fun would this be to take for a hostess gift if we ever get to spend time with other people again?
Once again, there is a video tutorial pasted below. You need to hunker down with a beverage and some music and have a few dedicated hours to get this one done.
Not gonna lie, it's a time-sucker. However, I found putting the globe pieces together was VERY relaxing. I found myself at the end of the project surprised that I was done (like in that way when you drive somewhere and can't remember how you got there)!
https://youtu.be/5stm428-xUE
I will paste the material lists for each project below. Many of the links below are affiliate links, so if you make a purchase using any of the links, I may received a small commission. If you do, thank you for your support of this blog. 🙂
Perfect Paper Pumpkin Pie Slice Placecard Supplies:
Cricut Glitter Pen: http://shrsl.com/2k72gCricut Explore Air: https://shrsl.com/2c9ekCricut Access: https://shrsl.com/27tq8Cricut cardstock: https://shrsl.com/21uhj3D Zots: https://amzn.to/354APUHFoam Adhesive Circles: https://amzn.to/3nVEzAl
MY FAVORITE GLUE EVER: https://amzn.to/31vyRvF
Perfect Paper Pumpkin Lantern Supplies:
Cricut Explore Air: https://shrsl.com/2c9ekCricut Access: https://shrsl.com/27tq8Cricut cardstock: https://shrsl.com/21uhjEcho Park Warm & Fuzzy solids pack woodgrain: https://shrsl.com/2kgrdRemote control lantern lights - Amazon sells just a 2 pack, which is helpful: https://amzn.to/3jh8u2rPaper covered wire: https://amzn.to/31t5slEMY FAVORITE GLUE EVER: https://amzn.to/31vyRvFLittle precision tip glue bottles: https://amzn.to/2HrIkwv Also, Halloween nails featured in video, "Bats Amore!": https://www.colorstreet.com/SunnieNailsIt/products
In this blog post, I will show you how to make a quick and easy pumpkin napkin fold. Each one only takes a few minutes, and you can do it with just a napkin, a napkin ring, and a piece of paper!
If you've been a reader of my blog for long, you'll know that I've always really loved being a little extra with my table decor for holidays. I love a good placecard, I love a nice place setting, and I love a nice appropriately-themed napkin fold!
You may have seen my 30-second candle napkin fold used for Christmas, which was super speedy. This one is not quite as fast, but it's still relatively simple. I'll walk you through it!
Because it's worth it. Look how pretty!
I mentioned this in the video tutorial, but I started this pumpkin napkin fold with a wrinkly 18 inch cotton napkin. Now, I HAVE before ironed my napkins before a napkin fold, especially if I need a crisp line for some reason.
For example, for a previous Thanksgiving napkin fold design, I needed very very crisp folds in this turkey.
But today's pumpkin napkin fold is kind of a blob. I could not see a reason why I should iron a napkin that I was about to basically ball up.
That's part of what makes this an easy napkin fold! No ironing. 🙂
Open the napkin to it's fullest position and grab a plain napkin ring. I had a simple ring that was covered with string and it worked fine. If you don't have a plain napkin ring, you could take a paper towel tube and cut it down to about a half inch tall.
Put the napkin ring in the center of the napkin and pull a piece of napkin up through the center. I left it about 3 inches tall.
The bulk of this pumpkin napkin fold is tucking and squishing. Start with the first 4 corners and tuck them into the napkin ring as deeply as you can.
You will end up with something that looks like a pinwheel of sorts.
After your first round of tucking, tucking any more corners in becomes really difficult (or it did for me with the heft of my napkin and the width of my napkin ring).
To get through this issue, I grabbed a butter knife and it was the secret weapon.
The process is the same at this point. Take the next 4 corners from your smaller pinwheel and use the knife to tuck those in as well.
When those napkin bits are tucked, you'll have a few stragglers.
Grab what you can and wedge it in tightly.
When you have the edges all tucked in, flip the pumpkin napkin over and you'll really get a glimpse of what it's going to look like in a few moments when you are done.
There is a natural center to the new top of the pumpkin napkin fold. You need to stick your finger in there and wiggle it around a little.
It's going to feel a little weird and naughty, but nobody is watching you and the pumpkin napkin won't mind. 🙂
There are a few schools of thought with regard to pumpkin napkin stems. One of the most popular options online seems to be a cinnamon stick. Many people just jam a cinnamon stick into the center and call it a day.
It's cute, but I have two issues with that approach. #1. Cinnamon sticks are kind of expensive and that seems wasteful, and #2, if there is actual cinnamon on your napkin and you wipe your mouth on that, might it end up really really overpowering your ability to taste your meal? Dunno, but don't want to find out.
I decided that it was easy enough to just roll up a piece of paper and I like not using a food item. 🙂
Start with a plain piece of 8.5 x 11 kraft paper and cut a strip about an inch and a half to two inches wide.
Then cut that strip of paper in half so you have roughly a 5.5 inch piece of paper. Starting at the corner, cut the strip at an angle that ends in the middle of the other end of the strip.
Roll the paper up tightly from the wide end toward the narrow end. When it's fully rolled up, you just let it go the slightest bit by releasing the pressure. This is easier to see in the tutorial video.
I chose to glue the end down, just to make it secure. It's optional...but I was already making placecards and the glue was on the table and I couldn't resist.
Voila! Finished and adorable pumpkin napkin fold!
This last step is TOTALLY OPTIONAL. I made some easy little stickers to use on the bottom of the pumpkin to keep all of the squishy bits on the underside together.
The stickers were made really really quickly (like 5 minutes for 14 stickers, which was decent), and I did it largely because I did the napkin folds in my craft room where my camera was instead of where my plates were...which meant I needed to cart them back downstairs and have them stay together. But they looked really finished and I think I'd do it again just because it looks nice.
To make the stickers, I cut quick circles with my Cricut machine and then ran the circles through my Xyron. The Xyron Create a Sticker machine is a magical device that basically turns any flat object less than 5 inches wide into a sticker. I love it. I've linked to it in this post (affiliate links through Amazon) but I noticed that the price for my old one is WAY more than the cost of the new and sleek-looking one, which is now less than $20. 🙂
If anyone wants to see a tutorial on how to use the Xyron, please leave me a comment and let me know! I'll be glad to turn on the camera the next time I make stickers for something. 🙂
https://youtu.be/scs5fAGQ_H0
Links below may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase by clicking through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. If you do, thank you in advance for your support of this blog. All cotton orange napkins: https://amzn.to/30Nwh3uSimple napkin rings: https://amzn.to/2SCku3tKraft paper cardstock: https://amzn.to/2SDWBZxXyron sticker machine: https://amzn.to/2Fep6dh (the one in my video is old, this is the newer and less expensive one!) Links to favorite glue and Cricut supplies are on my blog resources page here: https://amandatoryactivity.com/papercraft-supplies/
This tutorial will show you how to make a super-easy honeycomb melt and pour soap using a detergent-free honey soap base. This is a terrific beginner project if you are new to soap-making, or want to try a supervised project with the kids.
If you're not a soapmaker, you may not realize the difference between cold processed soap and melt and pour soap, but it is night and day. While cold processed soaps require tons of safety equipment and the use of sodium hydroxide (lye) to create soap (you can read more in my DIY cold processed soap post) , melt and pour soap bases have already been through that process and are just ready to heat and use!
All you need is a few ingredients (which I will list for you at the bottom of this post) and some bubble wrap to create this easy design.
Melt and pour soap projects require melt and pour soap base. I like a lot of the detergent free soap bases sold by Wholesale Supplies Plus (their Crafter's Choice brand), and the list of ingredients in their products is very minimal, so they keep it simple. I was inspired to try a honeycomb melt and pour soap project because I found this detergent-free honey soap base!
Even some of the ingredients listed that look confusing, like Sodium Cocoate, are really pretty simple. Sodium cocoate is just fatty acid salts of coconut oil. Coconut oil is a popular oil to make soap with (I use it in all of my cold processed soaps) because it makes a really bubbly lather!
Anyway, note that this soap base also has actual honey in it. Sugar, in general, in soap also helps boost your lather volume, so I'm expecting this to be a very lather-y bar!
You'll need a microwave safe pouring container and something to cut your melt and pour honey soap base with. You can use a knife for this if you like. I like this crinkle cutter because it cuts through big blocks of soap easily and is easy to release the cubes from in order to pop them into the container for melting.
Now if I just lost you because you're thinking "Amanda, that's too many things...and what the heck is stabilizer", don't fret.
You don't need to do these things if you don't want to. You can just melt your soap base plain and not add additional color or fragrance.
However, these are the items that I chose to use for my project. While the honey melt & pour base on it's own has a very pleasant color and scent, it's mild. I wanted to amp mine up.
I used just two tiny drops of this amber soap colorant in the entire batch.
On the right is the fragrance I selected, honey almond. This is also from Wholesale Supplies Plus, as is the item on the left. That item is vanilla color stabilizer. The reason I need this is because I've selected a fragrance oil that has a lot of vanilla in it.
My fingernail is pointing to the vanilla on the label, which is 6%. As vanilla content goes, that's pretty high. Vanillin in vanilla will naturally discolor your soap and bath and body products, but the stabilizer helps prevent it!
If you choose a fragrance without vanilla in it, the stabilizer won't be necessary. And if you choose not to fragrance your base at all, you can also leave out the stabilizer!
The whole reason this honeycomb soap project is so easy is because the tool you use to make the honeycomb design is just a simple piece of bubble wrap!
I used a 12 bar rectangular silicone mold, but you can use any cavity mold you like as long as the top of it is flat.
If you don't have a cavity mold or want to keep the budget low on this project, consider using some tupperware containers and just cutting off the bottoms later to make them smooth.
To prep your bubble wrap, just cut each piece to the size of each bar!
One reason I like the melt and pour soap bases from Wholesale Supplies Plus is because they come notched, which makes it easy for you to chop up the block.
Fill your pouring container with cubed soap, and heat in 30 second bursts until fully melted.
The color is already pretty nice naturally. As I mentioned, I amped it up just a touch with the liquid soap colorant.
Two tiny drops was all I needed to get the color a little darker. I wanted a nice deep honeycomb!
The appropriate amount of fragrance oil to use is going to be determined by the kind of fragrance you selected. Always check with the retailer for appropriate usage rates. Wholesale Supplies Plus, for example, has a calculator on their website that makes it easy!
https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/calculators/FragranceCalculator.aspx
I check the temperature of the melted soap base before adding my fragrance. If the honey soap base is too hot when you add fragrance, some of the scent may burn off.
I like to aim for between 120-125 degrees to add my fragrance. Then I like to pour the soap just a little cooler than that.
Pro tip: If you pour your fragrance down the side of a skewer or pipette, it'll keep your fragrance oil from running down the backside of your bottle and onto your hand. 🙂
You will also notice that I'm using a scale under my melted soap so I can tell how much fragrance is going in.
And finally the vanilla color stabilizer in the same amount that I used for fragrance. I typically use a 1:1 ratio just to be safe.
Once you've mixed in your fragrance, give the melted soap base a spritz with 91% rubbing alcohol. This will pop all of the bubbles and keep your soap nice and smooth.
Pour equal amounts into your cavity mold, and spritz a final time with rubbing alcohol.
Finally, add you pre-prepared pieces of bubble wrap on top of the poured soap.
Make sure you put the bubble wrap BUBBLE SIDE DOWN onto your soap.
I like to use my bamboo skewer to push out any large air pockets. Frankly, with a honeycomb soap design, any imperfections you may have will look more natural! So, I don't do too much fussing with it!
I think the honeycomb effect is really cool, and it was so easy!
I was impatient and excited, so I only waited about 6 hours before I unmolded my honeycomb soap. 🙂
Gently peel back the bubble wrap, and behold your glorious honeycomb melt and pour soap!
While melt and pour soap doesn't need to cure the same way that cold processed soaps do, I still think it's nice to let it rest for a bit.
Glycerin soap can often get what is called glycerin dew when it is unmolded and exposed to air. There's nothing wrong with your soap, it just doesn't look fantastic.
Glycerin is a natural humectant, meaning that it draws moisture from the air to itself. So if that's soap, that can make it look like it's sweating and dewy.
This honey melt and pour base from Wholesale Supplies Plus is a "low sweat" base, so I didn't have much sweating at all. After letting the soap rest for a couple of weeks, it got a little more firm and a little more cloudy, which I think made it look even more like an actual honeycomb.
What do you think?
I put together a super-speedy video tutorial for you and will post the link below.
Materials used for this project are linked below. Some links are affiliate links and if you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. If you do, thank you in advance for your support of this blog.
Amazon supplies: Melting pitcher https://amzn.to/3j6Q5pOSoap crinkle cutter: https://amzn.to/30cUXCaLiquid soap dye: https://amzn.to/308tj9m (they don't seem to have my exact set for sale anymore, but the "orange yellow" in this set looks closest to the amber I used)Digital scale: https://amzn.to/342oiAlDigital thermometer: https://amzn.to/2S0O3LZBamboo skewers: https://amzn.to/33ZlTXbInexpensive rectangle cavity mold option: https://amzn.to/30dgQBr Wholesale Supplies Plus supplies: Honey detergent free soap base: https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/detergent-free-honey-soap-2-lb-tray.aspxHoney almond fragrance oil: https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/honey-almond-fragrance-oil.aspxVanilla color stabilizer for melt and pour soap: https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/vanilla-color-stabilizer-mp-soap.aspx Brambleberry rectangle bar cavity mold: https://www.brambleberry.com/shop-by-product/molds/silicone/12-bar-rectangle-silicone-mold/V000670.html?cgid=3-silicone_mold_pro#start=8
Today, I'm going to teach you how to make tiny bows using two of the bow designs in Cricut Desk Space.
I don't ordinarily think of myself as dense (even though we all have our moments), but when I first got my Cricut and saw some of the files for bow designs, I had to scratch my head.
I mean, come on. These 2 below are the files...and there aren't directions. In my opinion they are NOT intuitive!
If you are an experienced Cricut user, this is not your tutorial. But if you are looking at the two pictures below going "huh? how is that a bow?", you are in the right place!
Over the years, I have learned to think more three-dimensionally and can now look at a file and understand without putting it in my hand how it's going to go together.
I've put together a video tutorial for you, and it's quick. We will go through both of these in about 10 minutes.
I'll show you how to find the bows in Cricut Design Space, make them however tiny you like, and then assemble them!
The bow design on the right in purple is a free Cricut Design Space file, but it seems that the one on the left is free if you have Design Space Access.
Don't know what Access is? I wouldn't Cricut without it! Cricut Access is a subscription service that give you access to a ridiculous number of available designs to use. I'll add my affiliate link for you here in case you'd like to read more:
https://youtu.be/jDD9X0z1Ys0
Links to favorite glue and Cricut supplies are on my blog resources page here: https://amandatoryactivity.com/papercraft-supplies/
Say what now? That's a lot of descriptors, I know, but that's what this particular candle is. It's one of the most popular candles in my shop and I get a lot of questions about how I make it, even from other candle makers. So, this tutorial is going to clear all of that up with a 10 minute video link at the bottom!
I absolutely love soy wax candles. There are a lot of reasons why soy wax candles are "better" than paraffin candles, or why soy wax is more eco-friendly than other waxes (here's a little bit about that if you're curious). While I think all of those things are nice, there are really two things that I love most about soy wax candles.
#1 - They smell nice. I mean, all on their own, absent any fragrance oil, soy wax just smells good to me when it's warm. I can't quite place the scent, or lack of scent...but unlike a burning paraffin candle (which I think has a distinctly gasoliney-petroleumy odor), I think warm soy wax smells kind of sweet! In my shop there is actually a candle that smells like nothing, called Total Non-Scents, because just burning soy wax is pleasant to me. Anyone else?
#2 - They are clean. How many times have you set your paraffin candle too close to the edge of a table near a wall and had black soot on your wall the next day? Ew. The wooden wicks in a soy wax candle will still produce smoke when they burn (because they are, after all, still burning wood), but the wax itself burns clean. It's a beautiful thing. 🙂
I use the wooden wicks because I'm bougie like that. 😉 No, actually, I just like the slight crackle you get, and I like the way they access the soy wax. People don't often remember that the wax is the fuel of your candle, not the wick. Your wick just gives your flame access to the fuel.
The wooden wicks I use are from the Wooden Wick Co. (linked below in the materials list) and are patent protected. They require a patent statement on the bottom of each candle and I exercise COMPLIANCE! If you are going to sell your candles, don't get yourself sued. The Wooden Wick Co. wicks that I use are flat with a little booster in the center. These wicks give you a nice wide flame and burn beautifully.
As awesome as I think soy wax and wooden wicks are, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that they do require a little bit of extra love.
Soy wax has "memory", so the first time you burn your candle has a big impact on how your candle will perform the next time.
Similarly, with the wooden wicks, you need to make sure there is sufficient air to reach your wick or the flame will snuff itself out. Wicks need to be kept trimmed, and one should knock off the burned bits between burn sessions. Best practice is to turn it upside down over a trashcan to do it. That way, the burned bits will fall into the trash and not into your candle wax.
If you are someone who lights a candle for 10 minutes to smell it and then blows it out, you will likely be emailing me the next time you try to light it to determine what is wrong with your candle. It feels silly sometimes to talk about care and maintenance of a candle...I recognize it's not a pet, I'm just saying that the way you treat it matters. I have more about this on my FAQ's page.
With great soy wax wooden wick candles, comes great responsibility;)
I'm going to let the video below do all of the process explanation, but I want the blog post to address a couple of things.
First, this combo of soy wax and wooden wick is what works for me. I live in Maryland, and my climate may not be the same as yours. Things like humidity have a large effect on how you candle cools and sets, etc. If you plan to make any volume of candles, it's worth getting some smaller packages of wax and testing them out. The wax I use now is not the first wax I tried. But for me, it's the one I think hold the largest amount of fragrance (the "fragrance load").
Also, you need to pick the right sized wick. This process can seem a little daunting, but there is a wick selector on the Wooden Wick Co website that is helpful. They also offer wick sample packs in case you want to do burn tests and decide for yourself. None of these links for the Wooden Wick co are sponsored and I have no affiliation with them, it's just the only way to go if you want to make wooden wick candles. **Note, I tried some of the super-cheap wooden wicks from Amazon when I first started making candles and they were awful. I ended up needing to double-wick them, re-wick them, and even toss some of them.
The video will do the rest of the explaining. No amount of me describing how to get the swirly pattern in the top of your wax is going to do a better job than you watching it happen. This video is about 10 mins, so I cut out the fluff and sped up as much as I could. 🙂
My decision to put wax embed shells on top was really driven by the process of making soap embeds for soap designs. I thought "why couldn't I do that with wax?" Sure, they burn off after the first use, but that doesn't make them a waste of time. The impact when you open the lid is worth it!
Golden Brands Soy Wax 464: https://amzn.to/2GsNvffWooden Wicks: https://woodenwick.com/collections/wicks/products/the-crackling-booster-wick-4Wooden wick clips: https://amzn.to/3lT5vQ3Wick stickers: https://amzn.to/2Gmm6eT8oz Candle tins: https://amzn.to/332YWloCandle dye flakes: https://amzn.to/2DvW9ZtShell silicone mold: https://amzn.to/31Zf7AXPipettes: https://amzn.to/3lUla1wNature's Oil Sun and Sand Fragrance: https://amzn.to/2DAuuqkCarpenters pliers: https://amzn.to/3btCQfZHeat gun: https://amzn.to/357t81q
Enjoy!!
I don't know what it is about containers that look like other things, but they are the cutest! For Mother's Day, I made a gift box that looked like a little spa (to house some bath bombs), and while I didn't specifically have a purpose in mind for this gift box, I couldn't resist the opportunity to show you guys how to make this milk carton gift box!
This project assembly was about 15 minutes, which is awesome. My video tutorial (linked at the bottom) is longer than that because I do the computer part with you first (and because, let's face it, I talk too much when I'm showing you every little step), but in REAL LIFE it's a quick and easy project that is just so ding-dang cute.Â
Not only am I a sucker for containers that look like other things, I'm a sucker for a good freebie. Freebies work on me too, anyone else? I often find myself going to get a freebie and snagging a few other things...and I'm CERTAIN that's the priciple of the thing.
But what I like about freebies from Dreaming Tree is that they're actually free. Not free with purchase, or free once you hit a dollar threshold, they're just free. If you're new to Cricut, or new to Dreaming Tree files, this is an incredible resource. Whenever I find a new SVG designer whose designs I find appealing, I always look for a freebie first so I can test drive their stuff before I buy a bundle or something complex...
So, here's the file (it's an affiliate link, but once again...an affiliate link on a free product. You do the math!) 😉 Dreaming Tree Milk Carton Treat Box
Grab the freebie, save it on your computer in a convenient and easy-to-find spot, and open Cricut Design Space for the next bit!
As with most third-party (non-Cricut) SVG files, you need to make a few key adjustments to the file in order for it to cut the way you think it will.
Let's start by getting the file into Design Space. Open Design Space and hit "new" in the upper left, which gives you a blank canvas. Go to the "upload" button on the bottom left, and then "browse" on the following screen.
Find your file on your computer and open the SVG folder within it. I prefer to use the "solid score lines" in the extras folder.
Pick the first item in the list to be imported, and then work you way down the line. You will have uploaded 10 files when you are done.
When you have them all, select them all. You can tell they are selected because there is a little green square around each one.
And then select "Insert Images" in the bottom right. This will add all of your milk carton pieces into your blank canvas.
And now for the simple changes. When you look at the pieces, you'll notice that there are lines that should be score marks but are listed in Design Space as cut marks. Â
A good example is the base piece of the milk carton.
All you need to do to fix this is select each one of these (in this example there are 2), one at a time, and go to the "cut" at the top left and select "score" instead.
All those cut marks will suddenly turn into score marks, and even though they appear as dashes, they are solid score marks.
Finally, just select both the piece and the score marks with your cursor, and then click "attach" in the bottom right corner. This will ensure that your score marks are attached to your piece and will score where you expect them to!
The little dash marks to the left of the triangle of dash marks are there to help guide your placement of some of the embellishment pieces. It looks a little weird now but will be helpful during construction.
Follow this same procedure changing cut marks into score marks on each of the following pieces below:
Once you've changed your score marks and attached them all, it's time to let your Cricut cut them out for you, and let's go put it together!
Assembling this gift box is a breeze. The carton itself is basically 2 pieces, everything else is decoration and super-fun. 🙂
I chose to begin by assembling the embellishment pieces that have layers, mostly because I like to get the little bits out of the way.
For the "fresh" sign, there are three pieces. A plain blue, a black with a single cut-out, and a blue piece that has most of the word "fresh" in it. These three pieces stack in that order.
The milk bottles also have three layers. The bottom layer I chose to cut out of a beautiful silver metallic cardstock because I liked the idea of the lid being silver, and the lid isn't covered up.
On top of that base, you put the larger of the pale pieces (mine is beige), and on top of that, you add the final top piece (mine is white). There rare two milk jars, so do them both.
You want to fold the 2 milk carton pieces along the score marks, and your pieces should look something like this. I have a video tutorial, so if you need to see this in action that will help.
Both pieces are the same structurally, so you can just do this fold pattern twice.
The three tabs on the right side of the above will be glue to the un-tabbed side of the other main piece, like this:
Then you can flip it over and attach the other side. Give it a good squeeze and a moment for your glue to set.
Open it up and flip it over, and glue the bottom flaps together. You want to fold in the two small ones, and then glue the smaller of the two remaining flaps down. You'll end up with the largest of the flaps on the outside.
Press down from the inside onto the surface of the table to give it some pressure to stick.
Now that your milk carton gift box is constructed, it's time to add the goodies to the outside!
There are helpful score mark guides on the pieces as I mentioned earlier, so you can follow along with where they are, or make up your own design.
The score marks on the white pieces were nearly impossible for my camera to pick up, but the score marks on the black piece with the cow on it are really noticeable. I'll use that as an example.Â
You see the little arches toward the top that look like pencil marks? That's where you will align the high points of the "M" in milk, and then there are spots to help alight the "l" and the "k".
Pictures below will show you where the other decor pieces go. Also, the large blue piece wraps around the box on three sides, so make sure your cow ends up on the front of your carton. 🙂 Â
The smaller blue piece is the back panel of the blue wrap around. The black wrap around fits right on top of the blue one!
Finally, I added some bling to the box in the form of a small black enamel dot on the front. Truth: the file has a small black paper dot and I promptly lost it...so I improvised. If you can manage to not lose your tiny dot, that's where it goes!Â
I also added a sparkly bit to the "i" in milk.
Next, you want to put your gift box item into your gift box! Then you are ready to ribbon it closed.
Then there's the small emblem piece, which you can kind of put wherever you like. Â
I put a pop dot on the back and put it on top of the bow...but I also think it might have looked nice where the black dot is.
https://youtu.be/ZH3sXYUHl64
Dreaming Tree FREE SVG file:Â https://www.3dsvg.com/shop/boxes-svg-files/milk-treat-box-free-svg/?affiliates_svg=1045Â Materials used for this project are:Â Cricut Explore Air:Â https://shrsl.com/2c9ekCricut cardstock:Â https://shrsl.com/21uhjMetallic cardstock used for milk bottle:Â https://amzn.to/32BgXHuDouble-sided adhesive and dimensional adhesive squares found here in a variety of sizes:Â https://shrsl.com/24rsxAdhesive gemstones in strips:Â https://amzn.to/2EE0f1LBlack sticky dots:Â https://amzn.to/3jo3465Â Links to favorite glue and Cricut supplies are on my blog resources page here:Â https://amandatoryactivity.com/papercraft-supplies/
Today's Cricut tutorial is this sliding shadow box card from Lori Whitlock. I don't know about you, but I'd never seen anything like it (and I troll A LOT of craft sites!). I made this card design for a dear friend's birthday and was so impressed with the design and, frankly, the ease at which it came together.
The original card design by Lori Whitlock is an "I love you" card, and I changed it into a custom birthday greeting, so I'll show you how to do that too! The card is so much fun. You slide the sides out, and out pops the box card in the back!
The card design is a 5 by 7 card, but you'll see in the tutorial that I took it down just a notch to make sure it would fit in the envelope since I knew it would be poofy.
I also used this card as an opportunity to create a custom ribbon with my PTouch ribbon printer. It's a tool that is super cool (like a label maker, but instead of printing on label, it prints on ribbon!)
If you want to see that, it's in action on the YouTube video link at the bottom of this post. I make the ribbon at the very end.
But isn't it cute? I just thought this card was so boing-y that it could use a mechanism to keep is collapsed!
To avoid sounding like a broken record, I'm going to direct you to a video I have that is dedicated to getting Lori Whitlock's files out of her shop and into Design Space. The process works for many third party SVG designers, but since this happens to be Lori's design too, it seems fitting...
The video link is here if you need it: https://youtu.be/sWgjUVpUCcs
If you don't need that help, skip ahead to the next steps!
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, this was an I Love You card and I needed a birthday card. Quick fix!
Select the text you want to remove, and then select ungroup in the upper right. This will allow you to delete the text.
Select the text tool on the left side, type in your new message, and then go to the top filter and filter on "writing".
This will allow your Cricut to draw your new message for you. 🙂
Scale down your text to the right size, and move it into position on your tab. Move all of the embellishments out of your way so you can select the text and the tab together. Once you have them selected, click on attach in the lower right to attach the text there so when it writes, it will write right where you want it. That's a lot of rights. Right?
As with most third party SVG files, you need to fix the lines in the file that pull into Cricut Design Space as cut marks instead of score marks.
If you look at the image below, you can see the panels that will need to be folded, but on the right side when you select them you can see that they are listed as "cut".
This is a simple fix, you just need to catch them!
Select each one and go to the upper left to the dropdown menu and select "score" instead.
If this instruction doesn't make much sense to you, skip ahead to the video tutorial link and give it a peek. I take you step by step through this and you'll get to see each of the things you need to change.
Once you have changed your cut lines to score lines, make sure to select the scores and the paper piece and attach them. I forget this step ALL THE TIME and don't realize it until I go to cut it out and have score marks floating by themselves on my mat.
There's another spot that needs attention, it's on this page with the leaf and scroll design. You can see the little score marks on the sides of the frame...those were cuts too, so make sure you change those!
Pick out your papers and cut out the pieces with your Cricut. I suggest using a thick cardstock for the base of the card (which is everything white in the file). I think the base needs to be sturdy because there are so many moving pieces and inserts in this card.
My favorite sturdy white cardstock is from Amazon (and has a pretty metallic sheen to it) and worked really well for this project.
I used a Cricut patterned paper called Whimsical Garden.
And didn't the text we created turn out nicely? I used the set of Cricut pens that I got in the Very Berry color. I think it coordinated well with the accent berry in the Whimsical Garden pattern.
To make the sliding box card you need a few moving pieces, but the number of pieces is actually manageable!
I started with the frame piece (front piece) of the shadow box. It folds on those fancy new score lines you made earlier, and then the little tabs fold down for you to attach it to the back. You're making a little frame with open sides...
The side pieces line up with the slats forming a triangle...largest in the middle and smallest at the end, like so:
You fold the right size panel into a Z shape.
And the left side panel into what I think looks like a swan... (but it's also a backward Z) 🙂
Finally, I linked the 2 sides together with the base piece that looks like a square.
IT'S NOT A SQUARE. It's a very slight rectangle, so just be careful when you put it down that it's the right direction. If it's not, you'll have an overhang like this:
Obviously, I also attached the blue side panels too.
Once you glue down the center piece, set it aside to dry. These panels are going to move around a lot, so you want to make sure they're nice and secure.
While you are waiting, go ahead and decorate the inside bits!
This is the fun part, get creative! As you can see, I chose to flip around some of the patterned paper and added some bling to the centers of the flowers.
My favorite stick on embellishments are these little enamel dots from Doodlebug Designs. They're called Sprinkles. I use them in almost every card I make, even when I try not to. When I first fell in love with them, I ordered them in every color I could find...and I've been working my way through that stash for about 3 years! 🙂
Putting together the rest of the frame is a breeze too. You'll want to make sure you put the border piece on first, and then add the leaf decoration, otherwise you'll cover it up!
This part looks complicated, but I promise it's not. Start by putting one of the side panels into the side pocket of the frame you made.
Flip the card over so you can see the back, it's easier. The front of your frame will be down on your table. Like this:
Flip it back over, and slide one end of each of the inserts into their corresponding opening on the side of the shadow box.
I found it easiest to start with the back, the large one. Then I worked my way to the front, all on the same side of the box card.
Then you match them up on the other side, and secure the other side piece of the card base into the frame pocket, just as you did on the first side.
Okay, my friends. Flip it back over and you'll see that you are 95% of the way finished!
To open the card, you pull the light blue (in my case) tabs to the sides and the back of the shadow box card pops out like magic!
I kind of think it looks like they are entering a stage...it looks like some come in stage left and stage right. Maybe that's just me.
Full disclosure. I forgot this step at first. I got to this point and opened and closed the card about a dozen times and felt like I was finished...and then I looked at my table and realized there were some extra pieces. 🙂
Flip it over and put some glue or double-sided tape down on just the square (not square) part of the back. You don't want adhesive anywhere else, or else your sliding mechanism won't work.
Finally, line up the back piece with the semi-circle cut outs on both sides, and you're done!
I shrunk the whole file down to about 6.8inches on the long side instead of 7 (you just use the "select all" button and grab a corner arrow to squish it a little).
I think this was the right choice, because even shrunken a bit, it was a tight fit!
If any part of this text tutorial was confusing, I encourage you to watch the video tutorial. You can watch me click the buttons and take it step by step if you like. I won't be offended if you fast forward through the bits where I hem and haw over what colors of enamel dots to use in the centers of my flowers. 😉
https://youtu.be/we98cPahIcI
Lori Whitlock card design: https://shop.loriwhitlock.com/sliding-shadow-box-card-flowers/ Heavyweight pearl cardstock for card base: https://amzn.to/2A5slkCI use this cardstock a lot, and particularly like it for placecards in addition to card bases. Cricut Multi-pen pack: https://amzn.to/34k8zhSCricut Patterned paper in Whimsical Garden: https://shrsl.com/2g96aCricut Explore Air: https://shrsl.com/2c9ekCricut Access: https://shrsl.com/27tq8Cricut cardstock: https://shrsl.com/21uhjDoodlebug Designs Sprinkles: https://shrsl.com/24r68PTouch Ribbon Printer: https://amzn.to/2Yl8EhC Links to favorite glue and Cricut supplies are on my blog resources page here: https://amandatoryactivity.com/papercraft-supplies/
The first time I saw a woodgrain soap, I thought there was sorcery involved. Woodgrain soap is just as it sounds...a soap made with a beautiful woodgrain design. This tutorial will show you how to do it (or how I did it...and what I would do differently next time)!
Having made cold processed soap before, I still couldn't wrap my head around how someone could produce such an intricate pattern in soap, but it's actually not so hard. The two important things that produce this pattern are:
1. the way you pour the soap
2. the way you cut the soap
Aside from those 2 things, it's just like any other cold processed soap project. So let's go through the process!
I did a post a few months ago about the basics of cold processed soap. In that postw I go into all of the main elements to make a cold processed soap with a fairly simple design. It's of the utmost importance that you make sure that you are using safe handling procedures with lye.
One of my favorite soap YouTubers, Katie Carson at Royalty Soaps did an entire video on lye safety, which I suggest you watch if you are a newbie!
With this in mind, my woodgrain project begins with my safety gear!
As you can see from the photo above, I prefer to use long-sleeved dish gloves instead of plain rubber or nitrile gloves when I'm mixing my lye. It's totally a personal preference, but I like how thick these gloves are. I don't tend to use them when I'm working on the actual soap pouring and designing because I need the dexterity provided by nitrile gloves. But to mix my lye, this is where I start.
My safety goggles are from Bramblerry.com. I love them because they have a nice foam liner on the inside, which you can see above. They are comfy!
I also wear a mask when mixing my lye because I have asthma and I'm sensitive to the fumes. They aren't in the video because it's already on my face... but you can't tell me that right now in summer of 2020 you don't have a face mask or two that would do the trick 🙂
Also, if you are sensitive to the fumes, try substituting some of your distilled water with frozen distilled water. That will help cut down on the fumes big-time!
I'm going to breeze through this somewhat because there would easily be a blog post for each of these things.
Instead, I will tell you that my go-to batch oils recipe is the one used by Royalty Soaps (mentioned above), and in all of her videos she includes the recipe for her batch oils. I've found it to be a very easy recipe to work with. It can also be found on her website here: https://www.royaltysoaps.com/pages/product-and-soap-making-faqs
She uses a 35.2% lye concentration and a 5% superfat. I have done that with this woodgrain soap recipe as well. If you want to tinker with your recipe, I recommend using soapcalc.net. It will allow you to enter your oils, select your superfat and lye concentration percentages and help you swap out ingredients if you want to avoid any particular type of oil.
While your lye water solution is cooling, prepare your colorants!
A lesson learned in this process for me was to pick less colors! In my mind, I was thinking about how beautiful wood was and how many different shades of wood there are. For some reason I thought I need them all to be in this one soap. 🙂
When I make this project next time, I will likely choose one shade of brown and then lighten it and darken it and go with a MUCH more simple color scheme. But, if you want to know what I chose for this particular soap, the products photos are below.
Since I used largely non-micas, I made sure to disperse my pigments in oil. You can either use a lightweight carrier oil like apricot seed oil, or you can grab some batch oils and use those. If you don't want to change the superfat of your soap, you should just use your batch oils, which is what I have done below.
I used a rate of about a teaspoon of pigment to a tablespoon of batch oils, and made kind of a thin paste to disperse the color.
Below are the colorants and the fragrance oil I used. For this project I chose the natural pigments from Earth Pigments because they are such, well, natural colors!
In truth, they were lovely, I just used too many of them. 🙂
A quick note about the fragrance from Brambleberry, it was really nice. It had a great scent in the bottle, and smelled even better after the cure. I measured out the appropriate amount of fragrance for my batch size (brambleberry.com has a fragrance calculator that can help you with this for any fragrance they sell, so that's how I determined the appropriate amount to use).
It really is a lovely mix of wood and rum that doesn't make you feel like you're washing yourself with bark or bathing in a distillery. 🙂 It also behaved really well in cold processed soap. It didn't accelerate trace and it stayed nice and fluid for my woodgrain soap pour, which is key.
Here again I could include an entire additional blog post because there are a lot of schools of thought on what temperature you should use to soap.
I started my soaping journey a little warm (in my current opinion) when my lye water was at about 130 degrees. As I soap more and more, I have found that I'm getting closer and closer to soaping at room temperature.
In the case of this soap, I got my lye water down to about 100 degrees, and my batch oils were around 95, which was fine.
Again, it's a personal choice, but whatever you choose, I wouldn't go higher than 130 degrees or lower than a reasonable room temperature in the upper 70's, and you'll want to make sure your oils and lye water solution are within 10 degrees of one another.
Try to minimize the amount of air bubbles you get in your batter by pouring the lye water down the shaft of your stick blender.
Next, combine your lye water solution with you batch oils using a stick blender. I wanted to get this just past emulsion, so I knew the two were combined, but I didn't blend too long and thicken my batter. You want NICE runny batter.
Pour your batter off into your various color containers. I used a lot of small containers since I thought I had accent colors (lots of them). 😉
And then I added the fragrance to each color and mixed with a mini whisk to blend.
Here's where the fun really starts. For my woodgrain soap, I set up the pouring container by pouring the different colors of batter down the side of my pour container like this:
Alternate your colors pouring each down the side of the container. I did not use any pattern here. I tried to use more of the medium shade of brown since I had a larger bowl of that, and then tried to just mix in the others willy-nilly in whatever order struck me. Less formulaic would mean more natural-looking, right? Who knows...but it looked nice.
When you're done, you have this beautiful pour container ready to go!
To start the woodgrain pour, put some towels down on your work surface. I stacked 2 on top of one another, so I could put my loaf mold down on an incline.
Grab your pour container and start pouring down the side of the mold, back and forth lengthwise.
As you move back and forth with the pour, you'll see a lovely pattern starting to form.
And then you do this little movement where you jiggle the container a little back and forth as you pour, which creates the knots in your woodgrain soap!
I have a video tutorial as well (as usual) and it's likely easier to see how subtle that little jiggle is. But you can see the knots start to form below.
As you start getting full, remove the towels from underneath the mold so it slowly flattens.
You'll keep pouring your woodgrain soap until you fill the mold. You won't really have the side of the mold to use anymore since it's filling up, so you'll just do the same back and forth pattern on the top instead.
Don't panic with this next photo, I realize it's confusing. The pattern you see on the top of the soap is not your woodgrain.
If you think about it, you'd have to slice off the top layer of the mold over and over again to see that pattern. What you are seeing on top is actually the side of the bars, and because of that, I just empty out the rest of the containers at the end so I didn't waste any soap!
Trust me, your hard work pouring a beautiful woodgrain soap will all be realized when you go to cut it.
I did swirl it around a little, just so the sides would be pretty too. Then I left it to set for 24 hours before unmolding.
Once your soap is firm enough to unmold, umold it! You will know it's ready to unmold because it won't be too squishy that you dent it with your fingers, but it won't be so firm that it's hard to cut...typically 24 hours or so.
If you want an easier time unmolding your soap, you can add sodium lactate into your lye water solution at a rate of one teaspoon per pound of batch oils. I did this for this project (which you will see in the video) because I wanted to play it safe, but it's totally an optional step. I didn't want to go to all of the trouble of doing the woodgrain pour only to have it stuck in the mold. That blog post would have sucked!
When you unmold the woodgrain loaf, you can see some of the pattern on the SIDE of the loaf...I told you it wasn't sitting on top!
When you put the loaf in your cutter and slice off the end, it's going to look CRAZY.
Like you're-going-to-start-cursing-me-under-your-breath-for-having-led-you-astray kind of crazy...
You get this weird feathery-looking pattern. THIS IS NORMAL AND GOOD. DO NOT PANIC.
What you do is cut the loaf into chunks that are as wide as the height of your finished bars. For example, my soap boxes are about 3.5 inches tall, so I cut a chunk of the loaf 3.5 inches wide.
I used the Brambleberry 10 inch loaf mold, so I ended up with 2 3.5 inch chunks and a bunch of leftover that was the wrong direction for the woodgrain effect, but I used it in another soap as an embed so it wasn't wasted!
Now that you have your bar length chunk of soap, turn it 90 degrees. Do you see it now? The woodgrain was hiding on the side!
Each slice is really unique and has it's own distinct pattern. But do you see how nice the little jiggly knots look? I love them!
In my shop, I call this soap Knotty By Nature. 🙂 I have a woodsy candle with the same name, so I'm envisioning and very Knotty gift set in the future.
When I do this woodgrain soap in the future I will do two things differently:
#1 - I will make a bigger batch! I didn't know it would be so much fun.
#2 - I will use less colors so it's a little more subtle.
Whenever possible, I like to give you a YouTube tutorial because I know I personally learn best by watching actual action vs. photos. If that's you too, you're in luck!
Please enjoy and drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.
Today's Mandatory Activity is a Chewbacca cupcake cake, but before I start this post, I want to just talk about Chewbacca for a minute. He's the friend we all hope we have in life...fearless, protective, fiercely-loyal, and speaks a language that only the two of you can understand. 🙂
Why not take some time to make a Chewbacca cupcake cake for the deserving friend in your life? I did, and I'll show you how.
Whether you call them cupcake cakes or cupcake pull-apart cakes, what we are talking about is a cluster of cupcakes that get iced and decorated as if they are one cake.
The challenge with cupcake cakes is that you are limited to the sort of shape you can get because you're just bunching together a cluster of circles. Unless you are someone who can figure out how to cut a cupcake in half and make it continue to stand up (I am not that person), you're gonna have to adjust the shape you are icing.
Frankly, if you're that person who is slicing up cupcakes to make a perfect shape, you're probably better off cutting and shaping a sheet cake so you can get it JUST SO. I'm okay with making some design adjustments in order to be able to use the cupcake cake construct.
Why make a cupcake cake instead of a regular cake? Well, it's easy to serve and eat! Your guests can just grab a cupcake from the outside row and be on their merry way. There's no cutting of cake, and limited fuss.
You should, however, be prepared to have people argue over who gets part of belt or the most icing on the muzzle, especially if you have any children in attendance. 🙂
With all of that in mind, I started here. A rough head and shoulders shape of cupcakes smushed together...
Let me start with the single best tip I can give you for icing cupcake cakes. I have emphasized that sentence in every way I know how. 🙂 You need to make WAY more frosting than you think you need. I mean, like, 100% more frosting than you would use for a regular cake. Since the surface is so uneven, you will have a few layers of icing on this cake before you can really even start decorating in any meaningful way.
MAKE A LOT OF ICING. I'm not kidding.
The best way I have found to ice cupcake cakes, is to use an icing bag with a caker icer tip. You can see it in the picture above in the bottom left.
My favorite is the Wilton carded tip cake icer. This gigantic tip is flat on one side, and jagged on the other. The jagged side helps get the icing to cling to the bumpy surface of your cake. I would argue there is no bumpier cake surface than dozens of cupcakes you want to look uniform! The smooth side leaves you with a decent canvas on which to decorate!
Apply gentle, even pressure, on the bag to get a smooth ribbon of frosting on the cake. Cover the whole surface.
This is the start for any cupcake cake.
I started by making a massive quantity of icing, and I split it off into 3 shades of brown (a light, a medium, and a dark). Save a portion of the icing to stay white for his eyes. I just put the colors into large ziploc bags to make them easy to store and access, but that's just my preference. When you stash your icing in baggies, you can cut the corners of the bags off to dispense my icing into piping bags, or directly onto the cake.
I made equal parts of medium and dark brown, and a little less light brown. The idea is that we would cover Chewy initially with a medium tone, and then add in the parts of dark fur, and top it off with the lighter furry bits on top.
Using the medium brown, I emptied the remainder of the piping bag into the middle of his face. I wanted to start building up the muzzle where his mouth and nose would be.
After which, I spread it out with my spreader spatula and smoothed it out.
I cut open the corner of my bag of dark brown icing and spread a piece of Glad Press N Seal on the counter.
When I'm working with one piping tip (like, I don't have extras, but I need multiple colors of that shape), I like to put my icing into a "log" of Press and Seal. This makes it easy to take it in and out of your piping bag as you need it.
In this case, the frosting is dark brown, and looks really unfortunate!
TAKE A MINUTE TO ACT LIKE A KID AND SEND SOMEONE A PICTURE OF IT. 🙂
We definitely had a chuckle in our kitchen.
Next, roll up your log, and drop it into a prepared pastry bag with a Wilton tip #233, which is the grass tip (technically, the "multi opening tip").
Next, set this log aside for a moment. Work on getting a layer of dark brown icing on top of your medium brown. I just used the opening in the storage bag to drop some big blobs onto the cake so I could spread it around.
This will help create a little dimension in the fur.
Whenever you are working on any kind of character dessert, I think it's best to keep a visual aid handy.
For this Chewbacca cupcake cake, I chose a picture of a Chewbacca toy since I felt like it had already been stylized enough that it would be easier to follow.
Getting the eyes right is always most important, I think. If the character isn't looking back at you (or the eyes are looking in 2 different directions), the illusion is easily lost!
Using my visual aid, I sketched out where I thought the eyes would go, how long I thought the nose might be, and roughly where to place his mouth.
Chewbacca's eyes are piercing. That's a knowing stare! We need to get these right, or close enough...
Noticing that his eyes were very darkly rimmed, I went in with some Wilton black sparkle gel. There is no real reason for using this instead of making black icing. I hate mixing black frosting, so I cheat when I can).
I began by outlining the shape of the eye, but quickly decided to fill them in with black and spread some of it to the edges of the sockets to blend it. I used some cookie icing brushes, but you can use a standard craft brush as long as it's new!
With the white icing I had set aside, I filled a piping bag and didn't use a tip. I just cut off the tip of the bag and added some blobs of white to the sockets, and smoothed them out with my brush into kind of an almond eye shape.
I decided that Chewbacca's eyes looked a little blue, so I grabbed some blue food coloring and mixed it with some white icing so I could paint in the eyes.
Once I got the color where I liked it, I added some black on top for pupils, and then finished with a tiny dot of white in each pupil. I always think that helps with eyes...
While this seems like it could be the easiest part of the decorating job (ala, just drag a bunch of fur all over the place), I think there's a really subtle distinction between Cousin It, Chewbacca, and a Berenstein Bear. 🙂
The secret to Chewbacca's fur placement is the direction in which his hair grows.
I grabbed the brown piping "log" we prepared earlier and started at the forehead, careful to pull the fur up from his forehead to the top of his head. As I moved around the face, I spread the fur in the right direction, per my photo reference.
Afterward, I went back in with the brush and just smoothed out the connection points between the fur and the face.
Added some more black to the eyes and some to the nose...and stopped here to work on the belt and ammo.
I have a video tutorial linked below where I've sped all of this up for you A LOT, because I tinker with his features a ton before I decide to stop.
This is where things get weird. I said it in the video, but it bears repeating.
You can't have a Chewbacca cupcake cake, or a Chewbacca cake of any kind (in my opinion) without the iconic leather belt (or belts) and ammo.
To make the belt, I'm using these Little Debbie brownies, which are barely food, to roll out into "leather". I can't remember at what point during my baking adventures I figured out that I could mold things with squished up store-bought brownies, but if you need dough, this is usually my answer!
Before you ask me, no, it doesn't work with homemade brownies. Those are usually fluffy and don't stick together like this. These things really roll into a flat sticky sheet...
When you have a thin piece of brownie leather, clean up the edges with a knife so they are nice and clean...
Gently life the brownie leather strip from the parchment and lay it down on Chewbacca's shoulder.
Next, grab a generic Hershey bar. Break off the individual rectangles and place them on your leather belt.
I used an edible silver food paint to paint the sides of the rectangles, but this is totally optional. Chewbacca's belt looks totally recognizable without the color...
I finished the belt with the addition of a small strip of brownie leather down the center.
Prep your last bag of frosting with the lightest color brown, mixed with the darkest color of brown.
Now that we have the belt in place, we can comfortably add the final layer of fur onto Chewy. Doing the belt first allows us to drape some of the last layer of fur over the belt.
Layer the last piping bag of predominantly lightest brown icing in the same direction as the previous layer of fur.
I think this is where Chewbacca really starts to materialize from the cupcake cake blob we started with!
When adding the lightest fur, make sure to throw in some wavy locks, like you see near his chin...that helps with the furry feeling. 🙂
And we end up here!
Now, I know it's not perfect. There are limitations with the shapes of cupcake cakes as we discussed earlier. I wish he had more forehead, etc...but I don't think he looks like Cousin It, or a Berenstein Bear. I think he's decidedly Chewbacca-ish!
I encourage you to watch the video, which I've reduced to about 15 minutes if you want to try this for yourself. There are definitely parts along the way where I fussed too much with eyes, nose, and lips and wish I had stopped earlier, but that's typical of a cake or cupcake decorating project. My husband and I always joke that I took it about 5 minutes too far...
https://youtu.be/oOzcuuqYFm8
I hope you enjoyed this project!
Need some Yoda cupcakes to go with? I got that...check out this post: Yoda Cupcakes
My favorite tipless bags, detail brushes, and icing colors are available on my blog resources page here: https://amandatoryactivity.com/cookie-and-cake-decorating-supplies/ Other supplies used in this video includeWilton carded tip cake icer: https://amzn.to/2DASngYWilton multi opening tip #233: https://amzn.to/3khadXmBaking brushes from Borderlands Bakery: https://borderlandsbakery.com/product-page/borderlands-brush-set-9-pcs/Wilton black sparkle gel: https://amzn.to/2XBjO1eEdible silver food coloring: https://amzn.to/2x8BhUZ
It's official, it's the future. I know this DIY card sound technology has been around for awhile, but for a combination of reasons, I haven't explored it until now. But it's possible to add sound to your cards and customize them in ways that only seemed like sorcery growing up. 🙂
Is anyone else with me? Growing up with my tween years in the 80's, I remember when finding a sound card in the store was a BIG deal. Getting a sound card from someone was an equally big deal, because those suckers cost like $8, even in the 80's (and remember, mortgage rates were in the double digits then, so ain't nobody got $8 for a card with sound in it!)
Anyway, I thought it would be #1, too hard, or #2, too expensive, and I'm here to say that it's neither of those things.
I understand the concept of "too expensive" is going to vary, but you hardcore card-makers out there know that you can pile on the premium papers and embellishments and chipboard pieces and bling and make some pretty "expensive" cards, so this is just kind of next-level.
In order to add sound to your card, you need a card sound device (I know, duh). The company that makes these sound devices is called Big Dawgs, and this is a link to the device I used, which is a 10 second sound recording device and is between $3.50-$4.00 as I write this today in 2020.
I think I may have the only husband on the planet who willingly and thoughtfully purchases craft supplies for me (and even researches things that he thinks I might enjoy, like this!) for gifts, and so I got a bunch of these for Christmas. #myawesomehusbandspoilsmewithcraftsupplies (I'm guessing that're REALLY not a hashtag... maybe I'll start one!)
So, when I got the gift, I was really excited...and then intimidation set in.
I mean, it looks a little intimidating, no?
The little red button on the right side by my thumb is your record button. That's kind of universal for little red buttons though, right? The big red buttons brings you Staples supplies and the little red buttons record things. 🙂
You press the little red button, record your message for 10 seconds, and then you hear a beep.
In order to "save" the message, you need to press the button again afterward until you hear TWO BEEPS.
Trust me, it will save you some heartache. I recorded mine THREE TIMES because I kept hitting the little red button and erasing my message!
Much like many of my tutorials, I made a bunch of mistakes since I was trying this for the first time. But I'm always trying to keep it real with you and save you the pain points, so I leave the boo-boos in place so you can see what not to do. 🙂
The device peels away from it's protective backing easily.
And what you want to pay close attention to are these tiny little notches at the top of the clear tab.
There is one at the top and one at the bottom.
THAT IS WHERE YOU LINE UP THE CREASE OF YOUR CARD.
If you screw this up, the whole thing doesn't work...so this is important. It's also super sticky, so go slowly and try to be careful.
I, of course, kind of dropped the heavier part of the device onto the card and had a hard time repositioning it...
So here's where things went really sideways for me. I was feeling pretty good up until this point.
Once you lay down the device and it firmly attaches itself to the card base, you're left with the little red wires attached to the little red button. And you need to figure out where to put it.
If you haven't already recorded your card, then obviously move it somewhere that is convenient for you to press it later and record your message.
On the back of the button is a little adhesive strip...so you can tack it into place somewhere.
If you're me, you HIT the button as you're tacking it down...and you erase your message completely.
It's really easy to hit the button when you need to press it to stick it down to the card!
Clearly I will need to re-record it.... but let's continue.
The left side of the card is easy, you just glue on an inside panel as you would with any other. There is very little of the clear device on that side.
On the right, however, I found it was best to put down a bunch of dimensional adhesive. I tried to just tack the panel down lightly to hide the mechanics, but that really didn't work. You need some relatively thick foam squares.
I can still see the button on the inside, so I marked the top so I knew where to press it to re-record my message!
If a video tutorial is more your speed, I extracted the adding sound to your card portions of this card construction so you can see the mistakes and corrections.
https://youtu.be/g9iGBQiIT5M
Lori Whitlock card file: https://shop.loriwhitlock.com/extreme-pop-up-card-flowers/
Big Dawgs greeting card sound device:
https://bigdawgsgreetings.com/product/greeting-card-sound-module-rec-10-sec/
Cricut Explore Air: https://shrsl.com/2c9ek
Cricut Access: https://shrsl.com/27tq8
Cricut pink and purple patterned paper: https://shrsl.com/2ezns
Cricut cardstock : https://shrsl.com/21uhj
Cat's Eye Chalk Inks: https://amzn.to/2Y4JX8b
Double-sided adhesive and dimensional adhesive squares found here in a variety of sizes: https://shrsl.com/24rsx
Links to favorite glue and Cricut supplies are on my blog resources page here: https://amandatoryactivity.com/papercraft-supplies/
My son and I made awesome giant gummy bear jelly soaps, and had a ton of fun, AND ended up loving how they turned out, but this project was riddled with mistakes.
I'm leaving all of the mistakes in this tutorial, so you can avoid them if you try making your own jelly soap.
Stephenson melt and pour soap base is kind of my go-to for soap bases when I'm not making a large batch of soap, and so it ends up being what I pick when I work with Spencer on a project. I also think Stephenson's ultra clear melt and pour base is the most clear base on the market. For project when you need uber-clear, like our fish in a bag soap, you can't beat it.
Admittedly, I went into this project a little cocky. I mean, it's melt and pour soap, how hard can it be? I KNOW I could have (and clearly should have) checked the Stephenson website for tips before I started this project, but I didn't...because I was still in the "you melt, you pour, it's not rocket-science" brain space.
Uh...it's completely different than any other soap base I've ever used. It's goo. How do you cut goo? Do you need to cut goo?
But I definitely have some bones to pick with the Stephenson people. I think they were lazy.
They didn't bother to make a jelly soap package. It appears to me that they just put the jelly soap base in the crystal clear soap base container, and added a sticker that says "jelly soap".
Do those instructions still apply? Can I expect this product to function the same way as the crystal soap base whose name is on the package?
NO.
I was trying to determine how much soap was going to fit into each giant gummy bear soap mold, so I wanted to work in a smaller batch amount.
The soap was cut into a half of a container, but not into smaller chunks.
But I plopped it into my microwave safe bowl in one big chunk.
DON'T DO THAT.
I started the microwave process the way I would with any other melt and pour soap base...in 30 second bursts in the microwave.
But after 30 seconds, it looked exactly the same.
Like, exactly the same.
I put it in for another 60 seconds, and it was still just a giant chunk...
With regular melt and pour, this would have been pretty liquified by now.
After another minute, I started to get some melting around the edges, and that's when I decided I probably should have cut the jelly soap base into cubes...
So, I did it in my container using my popsicle stick. Whatever, it worked...it's not like I needed a blade.
and then I made the second big mistake.
Stirring your melt and pour base is normal...and it usually helps the base melt when you stir the little chunks in between microwave sessions.
Again, some package instructions would have gone a long way toward making it clear that there are some key differences in how this base should be used!
What I learned about jelly soap base, however, is that you should stir it as little as possible!
And I stirred the crap out of it!
Stirring jelly soap base creates bubbles (well, stirring any soap base creates bubbles). In a regular melt and pour base, you would spray the bubbles with rubbing alcohol and they would rise to the surface and pop.
With jelly soap, it's so thick, any bubbles you create are basically going to stay put in your soap. You can see below that even once it was melted and I'd squirted it with rubbing alcohol, all of my bubbles just kind of had a party and made a giant pile of bubbles.
That glob never went away. When I do this again, I'll probably scoop it off of the top before I pour!
There's no photo of this, and it's kind of out of order in this post since in the post we haven't actually made gummy bear soap yet. But I wanted to toss it in here while I was busy talking about mistakes.
I left this soap out on the table to cool, but that appeared to have been the wrong thing to do. About an hour into it, I checked it and it was SLIMEY. Not slimey in a jelly soap kind of way, slimey in an it's melting sort of way.
Many jelly soaps, I've learned, benefit from a little cure time in the fridge. After freaking out thinking I'd ruined the project, and the video we'd be filming the whole time, I left them alone in the fridge for a day.
THAT seems to have been the right answer, because they firmed up and lost their slimeyness. 🙂
The giant gummy bear molds came from Amazon (and I think for the purpose of making actual giant gummy bears!), but they worked really really well.
They were super-sturdy, so when you filled them, you could easily move them to another part of the work surface and get them out of your way.
The set came with 4 colors. We learned that a 2lb container of jelly soap base made 3 giant gummy bears, so Spence picked the three favorite colors.
In the tutorial video linked below, I show you each fragrance we used for our gummy bear jelly soaps, but we have a ot of fragrances to choose from and Spence went with a different scent for each color. I will link some Amazon options for you down below, but we also determined while we were making this project that the soap base smells really nice and clean all by itself.
So, if you scent your soap, please be sure to check to make sure you have purchased a skin-safe fragrance. Many fragrance oils are not suitable for bath and body products. Even essential oils need to have their usage rates checked.
Each fragrance oil manufacturer should provide a safe usage percentage for their oils, and for essential oils, I like to use eocalc.com. It's a great free online resource to help you safely scent your bath and body products with essential oils.
To color these jelly soaps, I used liquid soap dye. I got a multi-pack from Amazon and I use it all the time. It was not expensive and I have all of the colors on hand when I need them without having to mix up micas or add a process...
With these liquid soap dyes, add a little bit at a time. A little goes a long way. In our video, Spence got a little aggressive with some of the drops so we had to thin out the red with extra melted soap. 🙂
This was the easiest part! We sprayed our giant gummy bear molds with rubbing alcohol first, and then just poured the melted jelly base in before it got too cool.
Then we just repeated the process for blue and green.
Although, by now we were smart enough to cube the soap first. 🙂
After a stint in the fridge to set up, popping these out of the mold was a piece of cake!
Once you flip them over and lift up a little gravity does all the work for you. You can see here that the soap is just releasing itself from the mold.
Having not experienced jelly soap before, we decided to give it a test.
To use a jelly soap, you rip off a chunk of it (rather than taking the whole soap with you to the sink or into the tub!) . It gets even more slippery when wet.
Spence just ripped off a hand to test with. 🙂
It produced an excellent lather, but was hard to hold onto!
Spencer had the foresight to pull up the plunger before we tested the soap, so we didn't lose it to the drain!
We both agreed it would be a ton of fun in the tub when you already have the stopper in and aren't worried about it sliding down the drain anyway. 🙂
If you want to watch the adventure unfold (and meet Dr. Soapy (!) (?)) you can watch the video below, which is episode 4 of Fun and Son. If this is your first visit here, this post helps explain how Fun and Son came to be!
https://youtu.be/sbz9g63Gd2M
Soap base: Stephensono Jelly Soap Base https://amzn.to/30L0q2x Giant Gummy Bear molds: https://amzn.to/3jBI3pn Soap Colorant: https://amzn.to/2WWFWTE We used a variety of fragrances from several companies, but here are some Amazon options if you want one stop shopping: White Tea https://amzn.to/30JqriT Lemongrass https://amzn.to/2ORV0x8Cherry Almond https://amzn.to/2ZYe1EQ NOTE: IF CHOOSING YOUR OWN FRAGRANCES, PLEASE CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOUR FRAGRANCE OIL IS SKIN SAFE AND SUITABLE FOR SOAP. Some fragrances are intended for only candle-making.
This tutorial is going to be a 2-for-1. First, I will show you how to use the slice feature (or slice tool) in Cricut Design Space. Then, we will apply your newfound knowledge to make our own custom cupcake picks!
Cute, right? They took literally about 30 minutes, start to finish, so not bad at all! Think about all of the custom ninja-turtle-lego-unicorn-minecraft-superhero picks you could make for birthday parties! 🙂
The truth is, once you know how to slice in Design Space, you have the ability to make custom whatevers! Even these, for example, could have easily been printed on sticky paper and turned into stickers. I'm telling you, slicing is where it's at.
If you're already an accomplished slicer, and just want to do custom cupcake picks, you can skip down a few sections, or straight to the video tutorial at the bottom.
I couldn't help myself. If you've read my blog long enough, or seen any of my shop products, you'll know how much I enjoy word play. If this is your first time here, welcome, and this is normal. 🙂
The slice feature in Cricut Design Space is one of the little tools at the bottom right of your project page. It's the tool I use most often, and the one I think is the most versatile.
Think of the slice feature as your virtual scissors...let me show you what to do.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPAL OF THE SLICE FEATURE IS THAT YOU CAN ONLY SLICE 2 THINGS. I'm putting that in caps because it's super-important. It's so important that when you forget, it doesn't work at all.
So, I start my tutorial with 2 shapes, a circle and a square. I grabbed them from the "shapes" section of the menu bar on the left.
If I take that circle and put a score line in the middle, is it still one shape?
Let's try to slice these 2 shapes. It's the same 2 shapes we sliced before...and that worked fine.
Move it into position, highlight both shapes, and go down to your slice button.
THE SCORE LINE IS ANOTHER "THING". I can't tell you how many times I've made this mistake.
If you want to cut these shapes now, you need to remove the score line, slice them, and then put the score line back.
He was not invited to the party, just like the little grey circle. So sad.
I'm always looking for ways to use my Cricut to do the hard work for me, and this is a great example of something I wouldn't want to cut by hand. I HATE cutting circles. Even when you think you got it right, you don't got it right. 🙂 But we are going to make some circular custom cupcake picks, since I think that's the most standard cupcake pick shape.
What's going on your custom cupcake pick? A picture? Sometone's name? An important date? Whatever it is, grab them and put them somewhere you can easily find them on your computer.
I chose to use 12 pictures of my son. Since I had a dozen cupcakes, I used a picture from each month of the year to decorate cupcakes for my husband's birthday.
It's easy to get excited about all of your custom shapes, but don't neglect to consider the back before you move to the cutting portion.
This is a good time to duplicate some more of those circles to make sure you have enough circle backs to match your circle fronts. 🙂
When you hit "make it", Cricut will load all of the images onto a printable page for you. Print that out and let the machine do that hard cutting-of-circles!
And select some paper to cut out your plain circles...
You did it! You made some adorable custome cupcake picks and now you get to decorate!
https://youtu.be/5Wy2s-SP2a4
I use a cardstock paper for heavyweight projects like this. My favorite inexpensive option is this Neenah paper from Amazon.
The flat-topped wooden picks are also from Amazon, you can find them here. As of the time I'm writing this blog post, they're about $5 for 100. 🙂
My favorite glue and other favorite papercraft resources can be found on my resources page!
It's All in the Wrist Roll-On Perfume
by Dayna
I'm All Gears Soap
by Michael Wills II
