How to Emboss Custom Party Decorations With the Cricut Cuttlebug ⋆ The Quiet Grove

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Have you ever wanted to make your own custom party decorations?

I love parties. I also love design. For the last few years, I have loved designing my own party decorations. I use to only use printables that I hand cut out. When I got my Cricut machine everything changed. Oh, I still love to design party printables (like my Baby & Co. Baby Shower Printables or my Harry Potter Party Printables) However, more often than not I like to use my Cricut to make my party decorations. I love using my Cricut because it is easy to use and I can upload my own designs. I recently got Cricut’s Cuttlebug (what is that? Well it’s an Embossing/Die Cut machine) I had had my eye on it for some time. After all, a little embossing added to a simple project can really jazz it up. Which is exactly what I did for the custom decorations I made for my youngest child’s recent birthday party.

I have been really busy these last few weeks and didn’t have time to plan a big themed party which I usually love to do for my kids to celebrate their birthdays. However, I still wanted to make my sons 3rd birthday party special. After all, you only turn 3 once. For his Birthday this year, we opted to have a simple outdoor party at a fun local park my kids always beg to play at. I decided to go with a fun Primary Colors theme of Red, Yellow, Blue (and since my son love the color) Green. We kept the party itself simple by having it by a park with just family invited (Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and lots of Cousins.)

In addition to plastic blue tablecloths (because Who knows how clean or dirt those outdoor pavilion park tables are), Yellow Plates, Red Forks and Napkins (left over from my recent RED Party), and Red streamers, I decided it would be fun to make a colorful Happy Birthday Banner and matching Treat Bag Toppers for the party favors which my older kids helped pick out. I even found a birthday cake that was Green with yellow accents. Ahhh twas meant to be.

Knowing that with my Cricut Explore Air 2 it would be a quick and easy project to make the banner and treat bag toppers, I decided it would be fun to take a few extra minutes to pull out my new Cuttlebug and emboss the decorations with fun little dots. Embossing the decorations really took them to the next level. Everyone thought I had bought the decorations because of how nice they looked.

For those who don’t know how the Cricut Machine works here is a short Youtube video I made to explain my favorite crafting tool:

If you want to skip the video, the Cricut Explore Air 2 is the ultimate Crafting Machine. It can cut over 100 different materials in any design you want. It can Draw/Score as well making it easy for you to make custom projects. How does it work?

Basically, you create or upload the design you want to cut/draw in Cricut’s Design Space.
Then You click the make it button which sends the design to your machine.
Next, you select what size material you are using (is it a standard paper size which is 8.5×11 or is it scrapbook paper size which is 12×12 inches etc..)
After you set the material size, then you connect your machine, select what material you are using (the Cricut can work with over 100 different material).
Next, you place your material on your cutting mat, load it into your Cricut Machine and click the start button.
The Cricut will then do the rest! It’s seriously that easy guys!

Here is how I made my custom Happy Birthday Banner and Treat BagToppers with my Cricut Explore Air 2 and Cuttlebug:

Materials Needed:

Cricut Crafting Machine (I prefer the Cricut Explore Air 2)
Cricut Cuttlebug
Design Space
Standard Grip Cutting Mat
Cricut Score tool
Cardstock (in your choice of colors for the pennants, letters and bag toppers)
Embossing folder (I used this classic polka dot one though there are tons to choose from online at Cricut.com)
String (string to hang your banner)
Small clothes pins (to attach your pennants to the string. I got mine at Michaels for only a couple dollars. Though if you don’t want to use clothes pins you can always punch holes in the pennants to string them or tape the string on the back. I have done both in the past.)
Stapler and staples (to attach the bag topper to the top of the Ziplocs for the party favors.)
Non-zipper sandwich bags

If you need to order any of these supplies from Cricut.com use Promo Code: QUIETGROVE to get 10% off + free shipping!!

**Note this code does not work on Design Space Access, digital content, machines, EasyPress, Brightpad

I designed my Happy Birthday Banner and Bag toppers directly in Design Space so if you want to access the canvas to make it yourself, then just click here. It’s all ready to go. If you want to enlarge the banner pennants just select the pennants and letters and then resize them together. Like I said I have it all ready for you. After you cut everything out (which really takes no time at all (especially if you have the Explore Air 2 like I do which has a nifty little Fast mode option) it’s time to pull out your Cuttlebug.

Like I said the Cuttlebug can emboss and create die cuts. All you need is the embossing folders or die cut templates and the rest is as easy as rolling it through the Cuttlebug. Though I got some fancily designed embossing folders with my Cuttlebug I opted for a simple polka dot pattern for my son’s party decorations. You can get it here. Here are the simple steps to embossing your banner pennants and treat bag toppers after they are all cut out by your Cricut:

Start with the A Plate.
Place one of the B plates on top of the plate.
Pull out your embossing folder and put your Banner pennant or treat bag topper in the middle of the folder and place the folder on top of the A & B Plates.
Place the second B plate on top of everything.
Run the whole stack through the Cuttlebug by turning the handle on the side.
Take off the top B plate and open the embossing folder to remove the embossed decoration.
Repeat until done.

Yep, its that simple. It literally took me less than 10 minutes to emboss the Banner and 16 Treat bag toppers!

After everything was embossed, I glued the Happy Birthday letters to the tops on the Banner Pennants. Then I folded the treat bag toppers (where I had my Cricut score them for easy folding) and assembled my party favors. This also took less than 10 minutes. I was soo happy with the results I think I will do this for more projects in the future. Seeing how easy it is to emboss with my Cuttlebug my daughter begged me to make her a custom Diary with an embossed cover. We will be making it tomorrow (stay tuned for the Tutorial!)

What would you use a Cuttlebug to emboss if you had one? For those who already have a Cuttlebug what is your favorite thing, that you have made with it?

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