DIY Gift Ideas for Pets Archives

Dog Paw Mandala Shadow Box

September 15, 2022 by Paula W

Making a mandala shadow box has become so popular! Whether you want to make them for your home or office, to give as a gift, or to sell them, be sure to watch this video to learn the ins & outs so you can feel confident making them!

Dog Paw Mandala Shadow Box

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Cut File Used:

Mandala Paw Print

Step-by-step Instructions:

Upload the SVG file into Design Space and size to 8”. You can ungroup and change the colors of each layer to match a specific color scheme you’re going for, but we’re using the same colors that are already in the file!
Click “make it” and on that screen, it’s much easier to see the paper colors so you can go through your craft space and grab the colors of cardstock you have that match each mat.
Use an older StandardGrip mat or a newer LightGrip mat. Start with mat one, add the paper of the correct color. I’ve found it helpful to use a brayer to make sure the paper is well adhered to the mat.
Select your material, we went with Medium Cardstock. It’s best to put a new blade in your machine as well. Please note if you are using any varying thicknesses of cardstock to be sure and change your material setting accordingly.
Go through all 10 colors of paper and allow them to cut. Once we removed the cut paper from the mat we would use a burnishing tool to scrape the tiny pieces of paper off our mats to get ready for the next color.
Once all your paper is cut out, refer back to Design Space. Ungroup your image and pull your layers out one by one and line them up. This is so you can clearly see how the papers are layered!
Start from the very back layer. Refer to Design Space to see the order of how the layers need to adhere. Flip the second to last layer over and apply ATG along the edges. Turn it over and line it up with the last layer and apply it down.
Repeat that process until you’ve come to the second layer where you will also add the three small circular mandalas. We used the glue pen for those tiny layers!
Once those small pieces are on the larger second piece, add ATG to the back and adhere as normal.
Now, add ATG to the front piece of the mandala and apply it down to finish the design.
Add the mandala into a shadowbox and enjoy.

Dog Lover Home Decor

September 15, 2022 by Paula W

If you know a dog lover, this home decor project would be a great gift for them! It’s not only an adorable piece of wall decor, but it’s practical too because you can hang your dog’s leash from it. So fun!

Dog Lover Home Decor

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Cut File Used:

Life Is Better

Supply Links:

Dog Lover Home Decor With Cricut How To Apply Vinyl On Wood 300x294 1

Step-by-step Instructions:

Make sure to measure the size of the knob and the wood sign so that when working in Design Space you can size your designs appropriately to the size of your surface materials.
Import the cut files downloaded from Makers Gonna Learn into Design Space.
We pulled in a square from Basic Shapes and sized it to represent the size of the sign we are making.
Next, we added a smaller square and sized it to represent the size of the dog head knob.
We could duplicate our Life is Better file and then use Contour to contour out the dog paw to make space for the knob. However, this might not leave us enough space for the knob.
If that doesn’t work, you can use Slice instead. We are going to use a rectangle (an unlocked and resized square) to cover the entire word “dog” (which includes the paw). Highlight both the rectangle and the cut file layers and select Slice.
Delete the layers that you don’t need. Now you’ve got “Life is better with a” separate from the word “dog”.
Use another rectangle and this time, using the same technique as before, you want to slice the dog paw out of the word “dog”.
Now you can size your design to fit the square representing your sign. Put both pieces onto the square and arrange them. Then, select Align, Center Horizontally. Next, click Attach to hold the pieces together.
Make sure the knob is going to fit between the D and the G. When you are happy with your design, click Make It.
Select your material and if your blade isn’t new, you might want to give it more pressure too.
Place your vinyl on your mat and load it into your Cricut machine. Let the machine cut your design out.
After cutting, burnish your vinyl to the mat with your scraper tool. We like to use our Cricut TruControl knife to trim away the excess unused vinyl. Then, using our weeding tool (and the Pin Pen tool for the smaller pieces), we weed away the unneeded vinyl.
Once you have finished weeding, place a piece of transfer tape over your design. Burnish.
Now you can apply the design to your sign. Burnish once more and remove the transfer tape.
Attach your dog head knob and your sign is all finished!

3D Christmas Stocking Box

September 8, 2022 by Paula W

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

We just love this 3D Christmas stocking box! It’s an adorable way to decorate your home for the holidays or to tuck a little something special inside and give as a Christmas gift.

Try personalizing them and using them as table favors for your Christmas dinner place settings. Or use them as vases for paper flowers. Our Christmas stocking cut file is perfect to use in so many ways!

Find more 3D paper projects here.

3D Christmas Stocking Box

Cut Files Used:

Stocking Box

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Due to the complex nature and visual components of 3D files, we recommend following along with the video as you assemble your project. You can always pause the video and re-wind as needed.

Creative Gift Ideas With Your Cricut

May 14, 2019 by Paula W

Hi everyone. Today on the blog, we are talking all about Creative Gift Ideas with Your Cricut. We are so excited to share some of our favorite DIY project ideas that you can use with your Cricut to make fantastic gifts for your friends and family. The number of different types of projects you can make with your Cricut machine are limitless.

Check out this gift idea too! You’re going to love it! – DIY Wine Glasses with Vinyl Designs

That’s one of the things we love about it! It’s just so versatile! Don’t forget – if you’re feeling overwhelmed and need more training when it comes to using your Cricut and making fabulous projects like these, you simply must join our membership here at Makers Gonna Learn.

Creative Gift Ideas With Your Cricut

Want to create a gift to give to someone special? I bet one of these will be just perfect!

PET BOWL

I absolutely love this little bowl because it was made using our adorable little cat font! If you know someone who got a new kitten, you can make them this cute food bowl as a little gift. It’s an inexpensive bowl but it’s been customized and personalized with their cat’s name.

We have a dog font available too so you can create gifts for dog lovers as well. You just know that any pet lover will love getting a super cute personalized gift like this! You can pick up these bowls pretty much anywhere and I just love being able to add adhesive vinyl to it.

PHOTO FRAME

What I love about this gift idea is that it’s super custom. It’s a photo frame built from a very basic wooden plaque. We were able to take this simple little box and stain it. Next, you can actually use heat transfer vinyl on wood to add the fun pretty smile quote and this is a technique which I absolutely love!

How to iron on wood

Finally, we hot-glued that little clip onto it so that you’re able to add a photo of you and your friend as a perfect gift idea. If you’re looking for something inexpensive to make but want something that is so heartwarming and that they’re going to want to keep for years, I highly recommend creating your own spin on this project for a gift that’s really awesome.

GRILLING APRON

Be sure to consider making your dad or grandfather this really fun apron with our King of the Grill cut file on it. You could even put some grill supplies in there too. You can add their name to it if you want and you’re going to have,a really awesome Father’s Day gift idea or a gift for any man in your life for any occasion.

It’s really fun customizing aprons if you have someone in your life that loves cooking, grilling or baking things. This gift idea is just perfect for any of them! It’s also super fun to be able to use heat transfer vinyl on something other than a t-shirt.

HAND LETTERED BOARD

If you’re looking for an everyday gift idea, we highly recommend using some of our hand lettering pieces of art like this Oh How He Loves Us file on different types of boards. We picked up this chalkboard from Michaels and added the cut file.

The hand lettering looks really great! There are thousands of cut files to choose from on our membership site. Be sure to head on over there and check them out.

FLOWER VASE

It’s really easy to add some vinyl designs to simple items like a tumbler, kitchen towels, or this fun container that we turned into a flower vase. We used our fresh flowers cut file which I love but we did it with a bit of a twist.

This is supposed to be a two or three layer project but to make it a look a little bit more farmhouse, we color-synched all of the colors to make the design just black. The flowers and the kitchen towels would go great put together as a gift, say for a housewarming or other similar occasion.

WEDDING GIFTS

Wedding gift ideas are super fun to make with your Cricut and there are so many different things you can do. We were able to make this doormat using our fonts! What I love about it, especially for the doormat, is that we were able to use two complementing fonts.

These make fantastic wedding gift ideas that you could use for your friends. I know that they would appreciate something custom from you and they will love it in their homes forever.

I love these different types of frames because there’s space there – it’s like they know that we wanted to add some vinyl down here and it’s really fun! There are so many ideas and so many amazing things that you’re able to make with your Cricut.

I hope you enjoyed these Creative Gift Ideas with Your Cricut. Which one was your favorite?