Cricut Circle Magazine Challenge - Thrift Store Finds!

I just love this month's Circle Magazine challenge!  It's all about upcycling a thrift store find, and I love a good thrift store.  Here are the rules:

"We are taking the challenge from Lisa’s Design Star Feature for our contest this month!
Find something from the thrift store to repurpose with your imagination and your Cricut Machine. Please use at least four Cricut cuts in your design."  Contest is open only to Circle members.

It may surprise some people to know that my favorite thrift store finds are usually clothes.  I find many brand-name goodies for the kids, and even items for myself.  After all, why spend full price on black pants for work?  Or jeans to wear around the house?  And I can't believe that so far, none of the entries for this contest are using clothing!  So, I found this Old Navy jean jacket that looks like it's never been worn...

You probably can't read that Goodwill price tag, but I paid a whopping $4.99 for this jacket.  So, with my handy Cricut Imagine, I got to work on a design for the back.

In order to decorate the jacket, I pulled out a sheet of Cut Color Wear from PrintOnIt.  I chose my font from the Nifty Fifties cartridge for a retro look, and colored the letters pink using the Imagine.  Following the directions in the package, I ironed the pieces on to the back of my jacket.  Then I blinged up the letters using my I-rock and clear crystals.

For the front pocket, I used OkieLadybug's Cricut Head file to cut my pieces.  (The file uses shapes from George to make this cute bug head - thanks Okie!) I sized it all down in order to fit on my pocket.  First, I had to print and cut a green square on the Imagine.  Then I used the file on my Gypsy to cute the green pieces in the square, and the white pieces in a blank area of the Cut Color Wear.  I added I-rock clear crytals to his eyes, and green crystals to the ends of his antennae.

I'm thinking I still want to add something in the center of the back, but I'm waiting for the next new Circle cartridge, since there are lots of good scrappy images on it!  For now, I like it the way it is.

More Uses for the Cricut Imagine

I have a last couple of Christmas projects to share using my Imagine and the Best Friends cartridge.  The first is a simple t-shirt decal.

I think this saying would be even cuter for a baby girl, lol; it just tickles me to no end!  I made this using the Cut Color Wear product from www.printonit.com - of course they have just now started carrying printable t-shirt vinyl, which is a thinner product.  But this thicker product not only works well with HP inks, but can also be colored with markers; makes it great for letting kids color their own artwork for a t-shirt.

My second project is a set of magnetic paper dolls in a box.  I decorated the outside of the box using printable Cricut vinyl.  I've recently been told that this is now available at Hobby Lobby - glad to hear it because after this experience I NEED some more ASAP!  Check out this cute label:

The main image is taken right from the Best Friends cartridge - SO cute!  Then I cut letters using the Hello Kitty font cartridge and a pattern from the Best Friends cartridge.  (This is one minor complaint I currently have - do you notice that the pattern is slightly different sizes in some of the letters?  The pattern resizes based on the size of the item you are cutting, but because letters are different relative heights, the pattern does not size uniformly.  I really hope this is fixed soon!)

Finally, the paper dolls:

There is a huge variety of little girls on this cartridge.  I chose several and print/cut the versions in their underwear on printable magnet material.  I then selected several outfits and accessories to print/cut as well.  Unfortunately, there is no option for the pants only, so in addition to cutting the entire outfit, I cut some of the shirts separately so they can be layered if desired.  The first picture is the outfit and the second picture has another shirt added over the top.  There are also a ton of cute little accessories you just know you'll need to cut as well!

My printable magnet material also came from www.printonit.com - to save money, I signed up for their newsletter to get coupon codes and notice of sales.  I try to buy multiple products at once to save on shipping.  I also always use the cheapest base shipping cost, and it always gets to me very quickly!  Of course, they are in North Dakota, and I am in Illinois, so if you are ordering from either coast you may want to find out more shipping details before you finalize your order.  They do have live help available during business hours, and I have asked questions while they are offline and gotten an answer right away the next day.

Hope you enjoyed these project ideas and can Imagine more possibilities!  Oh, just to point out - these images are a bit distressed looking, the magnets are not scratched up or anything.  However, this magnet material is rather thin, to make it easily cuttable, so the top layer WILL crack if you bend it too far.  Also, my "test" (using my fridge) indicates that this material isn't really meant to hold much of anything except its own weight.  I had it holding one standard piece of paper to the fridge, but that was all.