We don’t know about you, but we’re starting to hear Christmas bells ring here at Close To My Heart! (Yes, we know it’s still two months away…😬) In all seriousness, the holiday season is right around the corner, and if Christmas cards are your jam, it’s time to start planning for these festive creations! What we have to show you today is truly special, as it allows you to celebrate your dearest relationships and memories by showcasing your favorite photos, right on the front of each card! It also puts a brand-new twist on a favorite art technique—shaker cards! Picture This Christmas is a beautiful way not only to flex your creative muscles, but celebrate your relationships with the people closest to you.
Our Picture This Christmas special is built on the idea that your own personal photos have an incredible power to inspire joy in those you love most, and who doesn’t love to inspire joy and share their legacy? 😄 We are all about expressing and sharing the products of your creativity with those closest to you, and the holiday season is a prime time to do this! Let’s take a look at the amazing opportunities available through the Picture This Christmas special and how you can use these cards to spread a little extra Christmas cheer among friends and family.
One amazing thing about Picture This Christmas cards is the ease with which they come together. Picture This Christmas cards were designed with the Close To My Heart Cut Above® format, which means that the creative process takes just a few minutes from start to finish, and you’re left with an absolutely stunning card at the end of it! With Cut Above® projects, each workshop kit contains pre-cut paper pieces, die-cuts, stickers, and even pre-printed card bases, so all you need to create your cards apart from the Cut Above® kit itself are your choice of adhesive, and a journaling pen to inscribe your personal message on the inside of the cards. Cut Above® projects are a great option for crafters of all types and experience levels.hey can serve as an easy starting point for crafters just discovering this mode of creativity. For more experienced crafters, they make a quick project that they can do in a short amount of time, with minimal effort, whether to wind down or just to catch up on a few crafting goals! With Cut Above®, there are a wealth of creative possibilities to help you realize your crafting vision, whatever it may be!
To showcase just how easy it can be to create with the Picture This Christmas Cut Above® card kits, we’re going to go through each step of how these cards came together. For our Picture This Christmas cards, we start off with a pre-printed, pre-cut card base, measuring 5” x 7”. These cards are larger than our standard 4¼” x 5½” cards for a very special reason. As we mentioned at the beginning of this post, the cards in a Picture This Christmas kit are designed to feature your own personal photos, and by providing a 5” x 7” card base, your cards can comfortably accommodate a 4” x 6” photo!
With card base in hand as a starting place, we next attached a photo to it, taking care to center it, and then continued by attaching the provided frame die-cut. As with the photo in the previous step, make sure to take care when placing your frame, aligning the corners of the die-cut with the corners of your photo. By taking extra care when placing your photo and die-cut frame, you will be left with a more polished card at the end.
After placing the photo and attaching the frame die-cut over it, we used the provided evergreen branch and pennant sentiment die-cuts to add some extra flair and pizazz to the corners of the photo. The addition of these die-cuts helps to add some depth to the photo, and definitely ups the visual interest of the overall card.
And just like that, with only a few simple steps, we created a beautiful, polished card with a one-of-a-kind personal touch! This card, while simple, is an excellent example of how a Cut Above® kit can be used to incredible effect as a quick and easy crafting solution.
If you’re wanting to take the creative process a little further with your own Picture This Christmas cards, we have an outstanding option for that as well! Let’s take a look at how you can really shake things up and take this card design to the next level by adding a full cardfront shaker window!
To create Picture This Christmas cards with shaker windows, we started out by centering the photo on the base, and then attached a perimeter of 3-D Foam Tape and added a few pinches of sequins or other shaker window fill pieces to the center, directly over the photo. To make this a quick and easy process, we offer three different Picture This Christmas Shaker Window Card kits with Gold, Silver, and Iridescent Flower Sequin options.
Once we made our shaker element selection and added it to the center of the photo, we carefully trimmed a 5” x 7” piece of clear acetate from the 12” x 12” sheets included with the Picture This Christmas Shaker Window Card kits and centered it over the photo and base, making sure to line up the corners. Once the acetate was secured, we centered the die-cut frame over the acetate and base and embellished it at the corners with the provided die-cuts. After this final step, our shaker card is complete, and we’re left with a stunning and uniquely personal card, perfect to send to a loved one or friend!
As a fun, final touch, Picture This Christmas also includes the 5” x 7” Envelope Flap Thin Cuts to decorate the flaps of your card envelopes, as well as an exclusive stamp set to add sentiments to the interior of your cards! These stamps and Thin Cuts can be used to further personalize and set your cards apart!
No matter who you choose to send your cards to, or which photos you decide to feature on them, your Picture This Christmas cards are a beautiful reflection of your memories and identity, and are certain to be treasures for years to come! What photos will you showcase on your Picture This Christmas cards? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
We are down to the final months of the year, and that means we have some major holidays just around the corner! There is so much to celebrate, and with all of the memories you are bound to make, you’re going to need somewhere to preserve them. Follow along to learn how to recreate this beautiful scrapbook page, featured on the cover of our new October–December catalog, so you can use it for your memory keeping this coming season!
Cricut Design Space™ File:
To kick things off, click here for the free Design Space™ file that will cut the circle shapes out of a 12″ x 12″ sheet of patterned paper to create the top layer of the base of the page. Since circles are part of Cricut’s “basic shapes,” you do not need to own any Close To My Heart collections to use the free download!
Materials Needed:
Our main focus today will be on creating and filling the multiple circle window spaces. Here’s what you’ll need:
· a 12″ x 12″ patterned paper sheet (for the cutout layer) · a 12″ x 12″ base page, one that will hold all of the window elements in place (we used a sheet of White Daisy cardstock) · 3-D foam tape · small circle shaker window foam + acetate · coordinating shaker window fillers (we used gold star confetti) · glitter paper · coordinating cardstock · additional, coordinating patterned papers
Tip: The glitter paper, cardstock, and patterned papers will be used for the background of the circles, so it’s a great way to use up some of your scraps!
(If you’d like to duplicate our page, exactly, see the recipe at the end of this post for a complete list of products that you will need.)
Instructions:
1. Pair the Design Space file provided above with the 12″ x 12″ patterned paper and cut the top layer for the base.
2. Place the cutout layer on top of the 12″ x 12″ White Daisy cardstock, or whatever you’re using for the base page, and with a pencil lightly trace all of the circles onto it. Remove the cut layer and now, with the marked up base page, you’re ready to start building the individual windows!
3. We will start with the “hardest” windows (they’re really not that hard), and those are the shaker windows. We chose to incorporate two shakers on our page, one at the top of the page and one at the bottom. Both bases for these shakers are 2″ circles, one cut from patterned paper and the other from cardstock.
Using the technique we shared a couple of months ago inA New Approach to Shaker Cards, Step-by-Step, we assembled the shaker windows on the back side of the cutout layer (rather than on top of it). On the back side of the cutout patterned paper, you will attach the acetate, then attach the circle foam tape, then add the filling, and finish by attaching the base.
Tip: For more detailed instructions on how to assemble these shakers from the back, visit the post mentioned in the step.
4. On the solid base page, cover the penciled circles that will not be shaker windows with patterned paper, cardstock, or glitter paper. You can cover all of them or leave a few blank. What you cover or don’t cover is what will show through on your final page.
Tips: You do not have to stay inside the lines. In fact, we encourage you to go over a bit, just outside the lines, so the edges of the circles won’t be visible when the top layer is attached later. You are also not confined to using circles to create these background spaces. All that matters is that you cover the spaces that were drawn on the base page in their entirety. As you cut your paper pieces, refer to the image below to know the size of each circle, if necessary.
5. Add more dimension to the page by embellishing a few of these circle spaces even further using acrylic shapes, die-cuts, stickers, stamped images, etc. You’ll notice that two of the circles on our page are embellished with acrylic stars and heart die-cuts. Unlike the confetti in our shaker windows, these stars and hearts were attached to the prepared base page because there will not be acetate keeping them from falling off the page. Plus, we preferred a more organized look for these spaces 🙂.
6. Once all of your circles are prepared, it’s time to do some additional prep work to attach the two base pieces together! Here’s where you pull out the trusty 3-D foam tape! Depending on where you chose to place your shaker windows and other three-dimensional embellishments is where you will need to add 3-D foam tape to your base page. There are some of us out there that will want to add foam tape all around the perimeter of the page and each of the circles, and possibly a few additional places. If that is you, by all means, go for it! If you’re in the camp of being more frugal with your use of foam tape, then add it where you see that the page will not be supported up by the parts that have already been prepared, including the four corners of the page.
7. With your base page prepared with foam tape, line up the cutout layer with the base, focusing on the edges and corners, and attach!
Tip: Add some regular adhesive to the backs of those shaker windows for a firmer grip in those areas.
And there you have it! It may seem like a lot of steps, but the idea behind this page is simple enough that you will find it comes together easier than you might think!
Mat a photo and add it to the page, along with a few more embellishments and journaling, and you’ve got a gorgeous page worthy of any scrapbook!
Whether you’re backlogged on memories that need a home or are wanting to get a leg up on what you know is to come in these next few months, this type of scrapbook page is versatile enough that it can be used for a variety of themes, not just Christmas. The circles on this page could be used to make constellations and planets for beautiful pictures that come with a night sky, bubbles for those adorable bath time photos or for underwater pictures from a tropical holiday. This type of effect could form the background for flashier New Year’s Eve photos, Halloween costumes, back to school, or any other theme you can think of!
However you decide to use this page, we hope you enjoy this time of year to the fullest and preserve the beautiful moments you are creating!
Scrapbooking is a fun and creative way to preserve memories. Today we’re highlighting the techniques that we used in creating this delightful “Here’s the scoop!” page.
This bright and fun, summer themed page came together with scraps of paper, stickers, and a shaker window that is easier to assemble than it might look. Let’s start by talking about the base page and build our way up from there.
Choosing the right colors and designs for a scrapbook page couldn’t be simpler than when you are working with one of our paper collections, where all of that coordinating work has already been done for you. Our patterned papers, cardstock, and embellishments are designed and paired together so you can focus on the more important part of scrapbooking—telling and preserving your story.
The paper pieced background we built for this scrapbook page is a great way to use a lot of different colors and patterns together. It’s a great idea for any project where you just have too many favorite designs to choose from or you have scraps left over from other projects. All of the strips we used are different lengths, but they’ve all been made the same width (ours are ½” wide). When attaching the strips, we made a point of not lining up the breaks, much like a brick or tiled wall. Working with ½” wide strips also opens the option of incorporating zip strips into the design. (Zip strips are the ½” additional accent paper along the top of each sheet of patterned paper.)
As you build a background like this one, add some visual movement by not completing all of the rows of paper strips along the top or bottom, and from opposite sides. Notice how we started the top rows along the right side of the page and the bottom rows along the left side of the page. As we scan the page from left to right (the way the eye naturally looks at these types of things), our eyes are drawn to the bottom left, guided to the journaling, and then to the photo.
Our eyes will naturally rest on the photo because it’s matted on a solid cardstock color, giving our brains a chance to take a break from the more active elements of the page.
The circle shaker window is one of those active elements on this page that helps draws attention to the photo. A shaker window was an easy way to include a layer of playfulness that our theme called for. And the truth is, with the right set of materials, shaker windows are not hard to make, at all!
1. Die cut a base and frame out of paper, using the shaker window dies.
2. Carefully pull the circle foam tape off the backing sheet it comes on and attach it to the perimeter of your paper base.
3. Add your choice of filling to the center of your base. Don’t add too much, so there is enough room for movement once the shaker is complete.
4. Expose the adhesive on the top of the circle foam tape and attach the circle acetate.
5. Complete the window by adding the die cut frame, covering the foam tape.
6. Attach the shaker window to your project!
While you may be channeling your inner artist to create scrapbook pages, remember that it doesn’t have to be difficult! Just take one scoop of whimsy, one scoop of coordinating products, and you’ve got a recipe for enough creative fun to help you accomplish the most important part of all: preserving your memories!
Follow along with us, today, as we give you an inside scoop into our creative process for designing and creating embellishment clusters of your own!
Embellishment clusters are large, sometimes intricate, paper accent pieces that are capable of standing on their own but can also be incorporated into larger projects, like scrapbook layouts, cards, or gift bags. We call these accents embellishment clusters because we are essentially putting several individual embellishments together, in a cluster.
While there are no set rules on where to begin creating these clusters, and there is no right or wrong way to proceed, we do have a few guidelines and tips to get you get you started on a successful creative experience!
1. Stick to a Color Scheme
When you first start designing an embellishment cluster, we recommend that you stick to a specific color scheme and spice it up with a complementary color or more neutral shade here and there. When you work off of a set color palette, it’s easier to focus your creative energy more effectively, and you’re more likely to end up with an embellishment cluster you really love!
This shaker window cluster is a great example of how to create around a color scheme. By focusing on cool shades of blue, throwing in a couple of green hues, and incorporating a few neutral tones, the elements of this embellishment cluster effectively harmonize with each other for a beautifully coordinated result!
2. Use a Variety of Paper and Cardstock Options
Incorporating different types of paper not only brings variety in patterns but in texture as well. Using our unique patterned papers next to our heavier, solid-colored cardstock helps to bring a nice variance to embellishment clusters.
If you’re looking to keep things a little simpler with the embellishment cluster itself, you can also consider saving more textured elements for the background.
With the card shown above, we kept things a little simpler overall and created exclusively with cardstock. Rather than featuring textured elements on the embellishment cluster itself, we used a large Thin Cuts die and two coordinating cardstock colors to create a gorgeous textured backdrop for this simple embellishment cluster!
3. Layer, Layer, Layer!
A great embellishment cluster often includes a few layers and dimension. Even a simple embellishment cluster should have at least one layered element to make sure it stands out from whatever background you may end up putting it on.
With this embellishment cluster, we made sure to create multiple layers so it will have some extra pop once it’s placed on a scrapbook page. (Using dimensional adhesives, like 3-D foam tape, are a great way to ensure that your embellishment clusters have added dimension, as well!)
4. Follow the Rule of Thirds
Incorporating this photography technique into your embellishment clusters is a great way to ensure that they remain balanced and can even help to simplify your design process. If you’re unfamiliar with what the rule of thirds entails, it’s basically the process of dividing your subject or scene into three distinct sections, making sure that each one is visually balanced with the others.
With this embellishment cluster, imagine that there’s a 3″ x 3″ grid over it. With this imaginary grid applied, you’ll notice that the butterfly and floral accents are fairly close to intersection points on the grid, while the stamped “Bloom & GROW” title occupies the center square. By distributing the butterfly accent, stamped title, and floral accent in this way, it ensures that the entire cluster remains balanced. (Check out our photo composition blog post for a more in-depth explanation about the rule of thirds.)
5. Be Flexible
When it comes to crafting, you don’t always have to use crafting materials for their intended purpose. Take a look at this cute little cluster, for instance:
The envelope you see here was actually created using a stitched hexagon Thin Cuts die, folding the sides of the cut hexagon shape into its center! Re-purposing die-cut shapes, incorporating paper scraps, and even trimming patterns or icons from other patterned papers for use in an embellishment cluster is an excellent way to make sure your work stays fresh, fun, and completely unique!
6. Work Smarter, Not Harder
Once you find a design, color combination, or shape pairing you love, stick with it for a few more embellishment clusters! This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to re-make the same identical embellishment cluster over and over again. Simply switching out a single element can make a huge difference!
If a single, simple change isn’t doing enough, you can do a more drastic re-design while retaining the overall shape and combination of elements. These two shaker window clusters are a prime example of how different colors, patterns, and stamped images can be incorporated into a pre-existing design for a beautiful, brand-new result!
Another way to work smarter is to think about future crafts and prepare for them while you’re in your creative zone! If you use a Thin Cuts metal die to cut an element for an embellishment cluster, cut a few more for future use! If you use a Cricut Design Space™ file to create your cluster, make sure to save it so you can return to it the next time you want to create a beautiful embellishment cluster!
There’s no hard-fast way to create embellishment clusters, but by holding yourself to a few basic guidelines like these, you can fast-track your creativity and make absolutely gorgeous embellishments that are completely unique to you!
How have you been using embellishment clusters? If this a brand-new concept to you, what’s the first thing you want to create with an embellishment cluster?
ATTENTION card lovers! Our new Craft with Heart™ cardmaking kit is out so we’ve got some beautiful new cards to show off today! These fantastic cards are here just in time for summer, and they’re just the thing to get your creative wheels turning. With fun, fresh designs, these cards will even come together in a matter of minutes!
Each card in a Craft with Heart™ subscription box is part of our Cut Above® program, which means that all of its parts and pieces come pre-cut and ready to go as you get to crafting. Some of the paper is also pre-printed, so it’s quick and easy to create a polished handmade card in no time!
The May–August 2020 kit comes with everything you need to make 24 cards (2 each of the 12 gorgeous designs you’ll see here). Along with the pre-cut and printed card pieces, each Craft with Heart™ cardmaking box comes with an exclusive stamp set, a mini ink pad, and even a specialized ultra-thin stamping block. We also provide an easy-to-follow instructional/inspirational guide to help you put your cards together. However, to really help you make these cards your own, the guide also shows a few different options on how to use the stamps included in the kit.Whether it’s a birthday card, a thank you card, or a “just because” card, these cards are the perfect way to show your care for friends and family, all while letting flexing those creative muscles when you thought you didn’t have the time to.
Not only will you love making the cards, they’ll be a special handmade treat that anyone would be delighted to receive! The Craft with Heart™ program truly has creative options for everyone, including two payment options, so you can tailor your Craft with Heart™ experience to what’s best for you.
The cards in this subscription box will only be available until the end of August, so be sure to sign up for your own Craft with Heart™ cardmaking subscription and get started on making these adorable cards yourself! Happy crafting!
We’re going to shake things up a bit today by taking a closer look at some innovative ways to use the shaker windows we all know and love!
For the most basic shaker windows (which are still so much fun!), sequins and paper confetti are placed over a plain or stamped background. However, you can take a shaker window to new heights by switching up your base and adding a few fun embellishments to the exterior of the window.
In this card, a few adhesive-backed dots from our Seas the Day collection turned a plain white overlay into a ship’s porthole. Looking into the window, you can see how artistically torn cardstock has formed white-cap waves by exposing the paper’s white core. When these elements come together, it creates a whimsical card any ocean lover will be thrilled with!
Another way to dress up your shaker windows is to fill them with unique elements. Replacing sequins or paper with a few unexpected parts is a great way to turn the tables on familiar shaker windows.
By bringing some sand home from a fun day at the beach, you can preserve a bit of the actual setting along with the memories you made there.
Any mocha enthusiast will love these fun coffee bean cards!
If you plan to include larger shaker elements in your windows, you should plan to double-stack your 3-D foam tape to leave enough room for the shaker elements inside to move around.
If you really want to add a unique flair to your shaker windows, you can try adding some small die-cut shapes to the interior of your shaker.
By combining these miniature stamped shapes with a few sequins pieces, it’s easy to put your own mark on your cards!
One last example to shake things up your windows is to use them in creative places. In this post, we’ve shown you how to incorporate shaker windows into cards and even scrapbook layouts, but in this example, you can see how a basic shaker window also makes an unforgettable gift tag.
How are you using windows in your paper crafts? Do you use them in cards, scrapbook pages, or in a unique way? Share your fun and innovative ideas with all of us, below!
We are loving National Scrapbooking Month so far, and we hope you are, too! To continue the celebration, we’re going to really shake things up today and show you how to make a shaker window the size of a scrapbook page!
STEP 1. The very first thing you’re going to do is determine the size of window you’d like on your project. For it to fit a traditional 12″ x 12″ scrapbook page, you’ll need to keep your window no bigger than 11½” x 11½”. Next, decide if you’d like the base of the window (the paper that shows through under the sequins) to be the same as your base page or if you’d rather have a different pattern or color show through. If you’re keeping it the same as the base page, skip the rest of this step and move on to number 2. If you’d like the base to be something different, cut a circle* from the patterned paper or cardstock you’d prefer instead. The size and shape you cut here will determine the size and shape of your window. The window on our page is a 10″ circle, so our base is also 10″
*One of the great things about this big window idea is that you’re not limited to a circle shape. Make a square, a rectangle, a heart, a star—your window can be any shape you can cut out from a 12″ x 12″ Memory Protector™. (See step 2.)
STEP 2. Carefully trim the edges from a 12″ x 12″ Memory Protector™; this should leave you with two clear plastic sheets. Take one of these pieces and cut another circle (or the shape you chose for your window) from it. Make sure this second shape is the same size as your base piece, if you have one.
STEP 3. The last thing you will need to cut to create your large window is an overlay. When you cut your overlay, make sure that it is the same size as your other two pieces so they will all match up later when you stack them to assemble your window. On our page, we created an overlay that frames our shape and also has a world map in the center (making our complete project look like a globe). Your overlay doesn’t have to be this complicated. Decide how much of the inside window you really need or want to see. Also take into consideration where you will be putting other elements of your scrapbook page, like photos and journaling.
STEP 4. When you’ve got all your pieces cut, gently rub the base and the clear plastic window in circular motions with an anti-static pouch. This will help reduce static cling and allow the sequins move freely when you shake or turn the completed page.
STEP 5. Carefully place small pieces of 3-D foam tape around the perimeter of your base piece. Keeping your base flat, add a handful of loose sequins inside the frame you just created.
STEP 6. Lay the clear plastic shape on top of the 3-D foam tape and press firmly around the edges.
If you don’t have a separate base piece and are using your base page as the back of your window, add the 3-D foam tape to the perimeter of the plastic shape instead. Then, fill the center of your framed plastic shape with sequins and lay the base page on top of it to attach. Flip the page over to see your window.
STEP 7. The last step in assembling this large window is to hide the foam frame by layering the overlay on top of it. (An adhesive runner should do the trick!)
Now that your window is complete, all that is left to do is to attach it to your project along with all of those extra elements that make a scrapbook page truly yours.
We’ve been having a lot fun with StazOn™ ink in our art studio recently and wanted to let you in on it!
Considering all of the different black ink options available, from the faithful Archival Black to the newer Intense Black, it is no surprise that the StazOn ink pad is often overlooked. Most of us who follow this blog papercraft, scrapbook, or make cards out of paper. StazOn ink, although it works well on semi-porous surfaces, including paper, is better known for its use on non-porous surfaces such as plastic, glass, and porcelain. It stays put on the stamped surface, without pilling, until it completely dries.
We decided to put this trusty ink pad to the test, and sure enough, the results were as expected!
Tip: An inked stamp can be slippery on a non-porous surface, like the acetate circle in the shaker windows above. When you are ready to stamp, we suggest you do so with a steady hand, bringing the stamp straight down. (Avoid breathing if possible! 😉 ) Any slight movement in your hands can cause your image to smudge. Just as carefully, remove the stamp from the surface with a straight lift. Do not roll your stamp away.
Follow-up Tip: If you moved while stamping…it happens…have a damp rag (a wet wipe works!) at the ready to wipe off your surface. This only works on non-porous surfaces. If you are working on a semi-porous surface, like leather or photos, wiping will only spread the ink around creating a bigger smudge. A wet wipe should do the trick. (DO NOT use the My Acrylix® Spritz Cleaner to wet your surface for cleaning.)
Once your image is stamped, the ink will require time to set. We recommend that you plan ahead as you work with StazOn ink. Stamp first and set these pieces aside to dry as you work on the rest of your project.
But what if you want to stamp on something that is porous?
Most inks will seep into a permeable surface and spider out from the original stamped image. The trick, here, is to make your surface non-porous, or less porous. To stamp on a wood surface, like this album cover from our Made with Love mini album workshop, use a clear matte acrylic sealer. Before we stamped on our album cover, we sealed the surface with a clear finish aerosol spray. (If you have access to Mod Podge, it works really well, too!) Make sure to allow the sealant to dry before stamping onto the surface. It shouldn’t take too long, but if in doubt wait a bit longer just to make sure.
What are you stamping with StazOn? Do you have any tips or tricks for using this ink? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
We are so excited to have the talented Amy Robison as a guest blogger today! Not only is she a contributing artist for Silhouette, but is also somewhat of an expert at designing children’s themed parties, gifts, and crafts. Don’t take our word for it, see for yourself!
Hey! Amy Robison here! I’m so excited to share a fun party I created this week with the Shaker Windows & Confetti Thin Cuts, loose sequins, and Hello Pumpkin collection. If you follow me on Instagram stories then you already know that I am obsessed with the shaker windows after trying them out this week. I want to use them on everything! I already have a million ideas for Christmas. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, so I’ll calm down and focus on the party I’m sharing today— a slime making party. If you’re like me, then you hate this slime craze that has been going on for a few years. (It’s the worst!) Who started this? haha! My kids still love it though, so I decided that I just have to embrace it occasionally. Plus, how perfect is it for a Halloween party?
I started out by designing a few characters I could use with the shaker windows that would be festive for the holiday. I’m loving their simplicity and how they turned out. Once they were all designed, I added the shaker windows to each one. If you haven’t used the shaker windows before, I included a simple tutorial. They are a piece of cake and you’ll absolutely love them!
Shake Window Tutorial
Step 1: Remove the outer foam ring leaving the middle square foam adhesive to use for other projects. (Such a genius design so all that empty space isn’t wasted.)
Step 2: Place the foam shaker window ring on your project. It is very sticky, so you know it will stay right where you put it!
Step 3: Fill with sequins, glitter, sprinkles or any other fun media. This loose sequins mix is so beautiful! I can’t get enough of it, and it’s available in gold too!
Step 4: Remove the protective paper on the ring to reveal the adhesive.
Step 5: Peel the protective film off of the acetate circle. Use washy tape to help peel it off. This was a little tip I learned from the Close to my Heart creative team. Such a huge help!
Step 6: Place the acetate sheet on top. Press down to make sure everything is sealed in place.
Step 7: Using the Shaker Window Thin Cuts, cut out the finishing border in your choice of coordinating paper.
Step 8: Glue the border on top to finish.
Step 9: I taped a sucker stick to the back so that I could place them in my kits. These would be cute in gift baskets, too, as a tag to the recipient.
Once I finished all the shaker window characters, I gathered the supplies for the slime kits. I used the Hello Pumpkin collection to wrap and embellish the supplies and containers to make them look more cohesive and “pretty” everything up a bit.
Each kit has everything needed to make slime including fun sequins to mix inside to make it extra special. I love making each guest feel important and special. My guests are usually small children and I love the look on their faces when they see what is waiting on the table just for them. It’s the best and keeps me doing all these crazy parties.
Have you used the shaker windows before? Hopefully I have sparked some ideas of fun new ways you can use them in your next project.
Thank you Amy for all of your creative ideas! Please show our new friend some love in the comments below!
