I have been wanting to try out cutting vinyl for a LONG time and when I got a fabulous offer from
OhMyCrafts.com I knew it was time to dust off the Cricut and get cutting! Now that I've seen how awesome it, I have a feeling vinyl will be showing up on EVERYTHING!
Oh My Crafts send me a wonderful variety of vinyl to experiment with. When I got my package, with its rainbow of colors, was like Christmas had arrived early! Oh the possibilities that ran through my head...it was hard for me to focus and decide what to do with it. Since it's the holiday season, I just seemed natural to start with three projects to decorate our home.
You all know how much I LOVE monograms and personalizing things. To ease myself into using vinyl I made two cute ornaments, one for each of my children. Even though she's no longer an only child, ER will definitely always be our little princess. I used my Once Upon a Princess cartridge with a sheet of
Grape Vinyl to cut out the crown with her first initial inside and then simply stuck it onto a glass ornament. It blended in seamlessly and almost looked painted on. The purple and green color combo matches our great room. It took me less than five minutes to do and most of that time was spent looking up which buttons to press on my machine!
It's LB's first Christmas so I made his ornament a little bit more elaborate and did a full monogram on one side and the year 2011 on the other, both cut with the Calligraphy Collection cartridge from a scrap of
Chalkboard Vinyl I had leftover from a project I'll share tomorrow. I thought the black would look more masculine than purple and like how turned out. However, next time I would use
Ebony Vinyl, because the chalkboard vinyl is thicker than the other colors, so the edges didn't "disappear" into the surface of the ornament like the
Grape Vinyl. You can clearly see the edges of the chalkboard vinyl on the ornament when you look closely. However the chalkboard vinyl is awesome, and one of my favorites and while not perfect for this application it's great for many others.
Besides personalizing everything, one of my other great loves is hand print projects. This is probably because there aren't too many things more personal than your hand print! I have made hand print
calendars - that's actually my most popular post,
Valentine's,
canvases,
hand stitched ornaments,
displays, done them for
literature enrichment projects, and made even a
hanging bat for Halloween. So I think I HAD to do something in vinyl with them!
It actually solved a problem I was having anyway, because LB is only four months old and pretty squirmy. It's been too hard to paint that little hand and get a good clear print. I just needed a close approximation to his hand's outline so, using a nontoxic ink pad I managed to get a quickie, albeit slightly blurry print. I used it to make a pattern that I traced, along with ER's hand, on
Emerald Green Flake Vinyl to make a hand print keepsake plate. The sentiment is cut with my Alphalicious cartridge out of
Ruby Glitter Vinyl . I actually got a little teary eyed when I finished it, I love it so much. The melamine plate was only $1.99 but's now priceless to me.
The last thing I have to share today is this shadow box for a picture of the first time my little guy experienced snow. I loved using the vinyl on glass; I think it's ideally suited for a shadow box with all the layers. I really adds to the depth of the project. The snowflakes are cut with my Doodlecharms cartridge out of
Lucky Green Vinyl,
Bubblegum Vinyl, and
Pacific Blue Vinyl, which was also used for the sentiment.
As you can see I've had a ton of fun playing around with the vinyl from OhMyCrafts.com. If you haven't tried using vinyl, I suggest you get started right away! My pick for beginners is the
Christmas Bundle with 10 Preselected Colors + 1 Free Transfer Tape. It's just $15.50, which is unbelievable, you can't even get two rolls of vinyl from the craft retailer by my home! You will find that and many more amazing deals on
OhMyCrafts, who are known for their amazing prices on the hottest crafting supplies!
Save 10% off you entire order!
These projects have been linked up to: my own weekly linky:
A Crafty Soiree and...
The 36th Avenue, Made by You Monday at
Skip to My Lou, Craftastic Monday at
Sew Can Do,
Making the World Cuter, Just Something I Whipped Up at
The Girl Creative, Motivate Me Monday at
Keeping It Simple, Market Yourself Monday at
Sumo's Sweet Stuff,
Craft-O-Maniac,
Live Made Lovely, and Tickled Pink at
504 Main
Disclaimer: The projects in this post were all created with complimentary vinyl, provided by OhMyCrafts.com. The experiences and opinions related within are personal and unbiased.
