Making Bookmarks with the Cricut Explore Air

Great for back to school!

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I have been neglecting my Cricut for a few weeks! 😱 So I thought it was a good time to whip up something cute and practical. I have been eyeing these bookmarks on design space for a while and today was their day! 🙂

I am using Cricut foam (distressed) and I love the texture of it.

Cricut access- finding projects

I haven’t talked too much about my Cricut access subscription. But I am really glad I have it! There are thousands of images and projects you can use for free with the Cricut access subscription. Literally thousands of images!

And you get 10% off any physical purchases! I have the standard membership which is $9.99/ month.

I used my iPad when I looked for this and just wrote “bookmarks” in the search.

This page shows all the materials needed, experience level and how long it takes. And of course the instructions for assembling. Although this is a pretty easy project so the instructions are very simple.

I then clicked on the “Customize” at lower right corner. This allows me to change the size of the shape, if I so desire.

Customizing

This brings up the shapes in the Canvas. Clicking on “edit” on the bottom toolbar will bring up the current size of the shapes.

The width was at 2.3 and the height at 2 and that suited me just fine. So I didn’t make any changes to the size of the hearts.

But I wanted to make a couple of other shaped bookmarks. So clicked on the image icon on lower left corner.

Adding images from design space

Once I clicked on “Images”, I wanted to search for “bunny” images. The ones with the little green “a” symbol on the top left corners are Cricut access images.

I picked the brown bunny with the pink bow tie and one more bunny with a heart.

I changed the sizes first and then I needed to duplicate each bunny so I could glue them back to back.

Adter duplicating, I flipped each bunny vertically ( for the brown bunny it wouldn’t have mattered because it was a symmetrical shape). For the heart tbunny, when I would glue it back to back I wanted the bow to match with the bow. I know I am not explaining this very well so I apologize ……😳

Hiding layers

MY bunnies had too many little details that I didn’t need for my bookmark project. The great thing about design space is that you can Hide layers and they will not be cut by your machine! Yay! I needed to simplify my bunnies and hid the little pesky layers:

YOU click the eye symbol next to each layer you wish to hide. You can see the layers I have hidden. The eye with a line across it signifies a hidden layer. I have no idea why I have that circle on the left….it happened when I was writing on the photo…ooops.

Syncing colors

There’s is something called “Sync” on the bottom tool bar. When you click it this appears in the sidebar. You can sync layers to be the same colors. MY layers were separated into too many colors. To synchronize you click and hold the 3 horizontal lines and then drag them to the color you want them to be.  THAT bottom heart needs to be with the rest of the hearts so I dragged it up.

Cutting the designs

After  you have your layers the way you want them, then you can make your cut. Before I loaded my mat, I changed my blade to the deepest cut blade as per the instruction on my material package ( Cricut foam, distressed).

It took me a few second seconds to change out the blades.

Then I was ready to adjust the setting of my smart dial.

I set the dial on Custom and then in the app, I chose the exact material.

Then I was ready to continue and load my mat.

I used the strong grip mat because that was recommended on the foam package.

After loading all the different colored foam and the Cricut doing it’s magic, I had my shapes. Then I just used my hot glue gun to assemble the bookmarks.

Here are the shapes after I cut them.

And there you have it…..cute bookmarks for back to school!

I love Cricut access! I like designing my own projects but at times I like to just look up a ready projects and follow the easy instructions. Cricut access is wonderful for that last minute personalized gift or unique birthday card!

And don’t forget all the images and fonts that are free to use with a Cricut access subscription.

 

What do you plan to make with the Cricut for back to school?