Happy Thanksgiving from Sally’s Angelworks! This year, I gathered my immediate family altogether from around the country and drove up into the mountains of Colorado. We celebrated Thanksgiving in a one-room rustic cabin and enjoyed each other’s wonderful company! It was one of the best holidays!
{my babies in Colorado!}
Now that we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving, it’s time to decorate for Christmas!
This year I wanted to be a little bit more creative with my mantel. I struggled each year with my mantel until several years ago, I made my own stockings. So, my stockings are the center point around which I decorated this year!
First, I found a fun tag pattern in Cricut Design Space to cut out leather tags for name tags for my stockings. I used my Deep-Point Blade to cut these tags out of Metallic Leather (also made by Cricut).
On these leather tags, I used Foil Iron-On and applied our initials with my Easy Press 2!! Love!!! Make this tag HERE!
Here’s what it looks like on the stocking:
For my mantel, I also wanted to whip up something like this PIN here but I wanted wood and words…I found the cartridge called Country Christmas of which I loved every bit!!! Here’s what I made:
Using Adhesive Foil, wood, my weeder tool, my burnisher, and some fun deer ornaments, I made this wood plaque:
I glued it to the smaller embroidery hoop and added it to a larger quilting hoop with more decorations:
I was going for a farmhouse look on my mantel, and I think I got there!!
I hung the wreath on an old farmhouse window we have! Love!!!
Here’s my main project that I made using my Cricut Maker:
My deer picture with the words “O Tidings of Comfort and Joy”. I used the background fabric from Alison Glass’ Kaleidoscope – her denim color. And for the deer, I used a fabric from Windham Fabrics that is more traditional because the color matched my stockings perfectly!!!
I learned a lot about the Easy Press 2 and a regular iron, and why we always, always want to use our Easy Press 2!!! 🙂
Here’s how I made this project…the good, the bad, the ugly, and the gorgeous result!
I picked my fabric and went ahead and applied Wonder Under on the back of it. I cut it out using a 12×24 mat. Those are marvelous!!!! Here is a quick time lapse of part of the cutting process:
A couple of notes on my cutting:
*You should cut bonded fabric with the fabric side down. Instead, I used washi tape to tape my fabric onto the mat. Save yourself some washi tape…cut with the fabric side down!
* When cutting bonded fabric you can use the Bonded Fabric Blade. Or you can do like I did and use the Rotary Blade. This is the beauty of the Cricut Maker...so versatile!!
Next, I cut out my Foil Iron-On text to decorate my deer. Here’s another reason I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Cricut Maker. When I tell it what material I’m cutting, it reminds me to set the Mirror On (cut the text backward) or Off, what Tools to use (blade!), and when to load the mat. For this project, I actually went back and selected Foil Iron-On and loaded my vinyl with the shiny side down.
Love those fonts!!!
Time to weed out all of the excess foil!
Here’s where if you are making this project, I’d do it a little differently!! You should adhere the deer to your background fabric before you apply your foil iron-on onto your deer. And this is why:
This happened when I ironed my deer head onto the background fabric. I thought I was being clever by putting the plastic back onto the vinyl. But of course, a regular iron is too hot for that!!
After you put your deer head onto your background fabric, go to this Guide to see your Easy Press 2 settings:
This is what I used (above):
So easy and fast and beautiful!!
After I messed things up, I reapplied the messed up letters and created a gorgeous portrait!! 🙂
I put the fabric in a frame just the perfect size for my mantel!
To make this project, here is the Design Space link!!!
To finish the farmhouse look, I added a fun truck, rosemary trees, and of course, a nativity scene…the Reason for the Season!
My fave is when we turn the fireplace on…
I’m super excited that the holiday season is upon us…and that I can go into my craft studio and create a million Christmassy things with my Cricut Maker!! You can, too! I hope this fun mantel has inspired you a little this Christmas! Let me know what you are doing for your holiday decorations this year!
Blessings,
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
