Sunfold Dying with Inkodye

Last summer when I was pregnant I bought a few bottles of Lumi Inkodye to make onesies. I never really got the effect I wanted. I couldn't ever get my printed negatives dark enough I guess. But they looked okay for homemade.

Last summer's Inkodye experiments. 

This summer I bought another pack of plain white onesies for heat transfer vinyl crafts, but then I remembered I still had a bunch of dye in the basement I didnt use. Instead of doing designed prints, I wanted to try sunfold tie-dying. I followed the instructions from the Lumi website. Well kinda, I never really follow instructions. I just sorta wing it.

I did the sunfold process twice. The first time I used blue and a little bit of black. Then I washed out the onesie and did it again with a mix of blue and red so I would get a violet color.

I love how this came out! I'm probably going to make a few more and experiment with mixing other colors together. 

Making Return Address Labels with your Cricut Explore

I saw this great tutorial on how to make return address labels with your Silhouette and I really wanted to try it on my Explore. It was very easy and it only took a few minutes.

1. First draw a square

2. Unlock it to make it a rectangle. I made mine 3.5 X 1 (I will say these are a little big, next time I’ll make them more like 2.5 x 1)

3. Then write out your last name in the font of your choice. I picked Pilgi from my system fonts.

4. Select both your name layer and the rectangle layer, then weld them together

5. Next write out your address. I picked a cute san serf font. Then select both the label layer and the address layer and center horizontally align them so the address is on there straight. 

6. I wanted to use the Print Then Cut feature, so I changed my address to Print.

7. I’m using Firefox, so I know my Print Then Cut dimensions are 6”x8.5”

8. Then select both layers and click 'Attach' so the address stays on the layer when you go Print then Cut. You can change the label back to 'Cut', but I left it as print but changed it’s color to white. My printer, and most home printers, do not print white so it’s essentially doing the same thing. 

9. Then duplicate the label as many times as you like or as many times as will fit in your printable area. Again, I will say I think mine could have been smaller.

10. Then select all and attach again.

11. After you hit GO, click "More Mat Settings" and uncheck your bleed setting. You don’t need bleed for this project.

12. Then print out your labels and cut! 

Easy peasy! If you want an even simpler way, just use the write feature for your address instead of the Print Then Cut. 

If this tutorial helped you out, Pin it on Pinterest so others can find it too! 

So Shrinky Dinks are still a thing

While looking for craft ideas on Pinterest I stumbled upon lots of cool jewelry made with Shrinky Dinks. I totally forgot about those! I never tried them as a kid but they looked like something that would work in my Cricut Explore. 

I went to Michael's to get them and I found there's lot of different kinds. I ended up getting the white printable pack. They were more expensive than the other ones but I had a coupon. I always have a coupon.

For my first project I wanted to make a birthday gift for a friend at my powerlifting gym. We both crochet and powerlift, which is some what of a strange combo. So we joke that we need to make club for the crocheting powerlifters. 

I designed us a sweet logo, then lightened the colors by 50% as it said to in the instructions. It looks really weird, but I promise it turns out okay. Then I uploaded it into Cricut Design Space. I also added a 1/8" hole to the top so I could add a keyring later, but a standard hole punch would have worked too. 

For cutting the Shrinky Dink material I made a custom material setting. I cranked the cut pressure to 340 and changed the multicut to 3x. I used my standard mat and standard blade for cutting. 

I hit GO and printed my design on the material and proceeded with the cut. It cut out really well. There was just one or two places where it didn't cut all the way though but it was really easy to snap right out. 

I then followed the instructions on the Shrinky Dink package on how to bake it. I set my oven to 350°, lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper and baked it printed side up. The instructions said to bake for 3-5 minutes but mine took a few minutes longer to completely flatten out. I'm so happy with how it turned out! Just to be safe I added a layer of matte acrylic sealer over it to make sure the ink doesn't wear off. I also cut out a cute little gift bag to put it in. I found the bag design in the Cricut subscription of images.

This made a really affordable and easy gift. I can't wait to make more things out of Shrinky Dinks! I've got to make up for all the time I never made them as a kid. 

When life give you tile..

...Make coasters! :) Last week I went to my local salvage store and found tons of great 4 1/4" ceramic tiles for super cheap! I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but I knew I couldn't pass them up. 

I decided I could make some awesome tile coasters for a friend. I've got four designs made that I want to put on them, but of course getting them done during Raven's nap times can be challenging to say the least. So, for now here's the first one I got done and all the steps it took to make it so you can make your own too.

1. First, I loaded my design into Cricut Design Space and scaled it to just the right size for my tile. 

Sized up and ready to go!

2. Next, I cut my design out of the two colors of permanent vinyl I wanted. I had the cut setting set to Vinyl.

3. After it was all cut out I weeded out the vinyl. Because the letters in the middle of the design are so thin I took my time, being carful not to accidentally pull any up. For intricate designs I like to use a needle to weed out the little parts.

4. Then I applied the green vinyl part of the design to the coaster using clear contact paper and then the pink.

5. The last thing I did was cut out a piece of felt the same size of the tile and glued it to the back. If you have cork, that would work too.

One down, 3 more to go! As I get them done I'll share those too. I can't wait to see what the set looks like. If you want to make your own, you can get the design from my Etsy shop.