December's Monthly Cricut Circle Challenge

This month's CC challenge is to make a gift item. Here are the details:

"The theme for this month’s challenge is geared towards helping you cross off one of the names on your holiday gift list! Please create a Holiday Gift Item. Project must be newly created for this challenge and should include the following elements to qualify: use a tag made with a cartridge (there are so many great tags on so many cartridges), use the color red somewhere, use ribbon, and use the Phrase Feature from one of the cartridges

* Use atleast 2 Cricut Cuts
* Use a tag made with a cartridge (there are so many great tags on so many cartridges!)
* Use the color red somewhere.
* Use ribbon.
* Use a phrase from one of the cartridges.

This challenge is open to Cricut Circle Members only. Your entry must meet the requirements above in order for your name to be entered into a random drawing for the PRIZE. You must submit a project to be entered into the drawing. Submit your entry using the InLinkz tool found at the bottom of this post. Entries are due by 11:59 pm MST on Thursday, December 30th, 2010."

For my entry, I finally made the shrink plastic charm bracelets I've been planning for my girls.

My phrase came from Preserves and I can't for the life of me remember where I just cut that tag from about 20 minutes ago, but it MIGHT have been Joys of the Season...  The tags are tied to the bracelets using red ribbon with green edges.  The charms themselves are all from the Cricut Imagine cartridge Best Friends.  Here's a closer view of a few:



I personalized the charms for each girl, so the hair color matches and the older one has a computer and the younger one has a tiara.  They are all made using Shrinky Dink shrink plastic for ink jet printers.  (Mine was purchased in the stamping section of a large Michael's store.)  All of the charms were cut at 1" TRUE SIZE, except the tiara, which was cut at 1/2" TRUE SIZE.  I punched them with a 1/8" hole punch before shrinking them in the toaster oven.  I sealed the charms using a matte Krylon spray sealer.  The bracelets were made using Plaid's "Flavor" Loop Chain and Metal Findings in a reddish color.  (I got mine from the jewelry making section at JoAnn's.)

Just Imagine...

OK, so I've got this Cricut Imagine (thanks ProvoCraft!), and I've been playing around with it but haven't really finished anything.  I REALLY wanted to do Shrinky Dinks with it, and I finally got to one of my regular Michael's stores the other day and got some.  If you want to make these with your Imagine, you MUST have the package that says Shrinky Dinks For Computer InkJet Printers.  In my store, it was near the rubber stamping supplies.

I've got the Best Friends cartridge, and I just knew it was perfect for this project.  I grabbed a couple of images and parts of images and printed/cut them out.  Warning!  I forgot and turned my shrink plastic the wrong way, like you would on the E and lost most of my first attempt.  The plastic must go across the front edge of the mat, as it feeds into the printer or you will just be printing and cutting your mat.  Luckily, extra ink just wipes right off the mat!  Once I had success, I grabbed my hole punch and punched holes at the top, then baked them in my toaster oven following the package instructions.

Here's what I wound up with:

Don't they look cute?  My daughter has recently received her own house key (at the ripe old age of 9), and she has chosen the little laptop chat girl to go on her key chain.  Now I just need to find one that actually has a chain on it!  Next on my list is charm bracelets for my girls for Christmas presents; since they don't visit my blog, I'll be sure to post here when I'm done!