Yarn Rainbow Decor

September 16, 2022 by Paula W

This yarn rainbow decor would look perfect in a little one’s bedroom. It’s a great gift idea for kids and makes a lovely baby shower gift too. Customize it with the baby’s name or a sweet little quote like we did.

Yarn Rainbow 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.

Font Used:

New Day

Supply Links:

Yarn Rainbow Decor To Make With Your Cricut 300x296 1

Step-by-step Instructions:

Download the font from Makers Gonna Learn and then unzip the file and install it on your computer.
Grab a square on the Shapes button on the left and size it to 9.5 inches or whatever size works best for your project. Remember to measure the available space you have for creating your project and use that to create this square which will be used for visualization purposes.
Open a text box and type in the text you want. Change to your desired font. From here, you can size the text to fit your project accordingly.
Kern your text by selecting it and clicking Ungroup on the layers panel to the right so you can bring the letters closer together using Letter Spacing. When you are satisfied with it, select the text again and press Weld located at the bottom right under the Layers Panel.
Now, move the text over to the bottom part of the box below and arrange it to fit the way you want it. When you like how it looks, you can delete the box. Remember that you are going to need to leave enough space for the rainbow.
Click Make It and mirror your design since it’s going to be made using iron-on. Set the material to HTV.
Place your vinyl on the mat and then load the mat into the machine. Once the cutting is complete, weed your design.
You will want to have your frame already painted and stained and thoroughly dry before continuing. White heating the EasyPress, you can attach the backing to the frame using the staple gun.
Now place the HTV on the frame where you want it. Use your EasyPress to heat it and adhere it. Let cool for a few seconds and then peel away the transfer sheet.
Lay the white rope inside the frame to determine how long you need to cut the pieces to make the rainbow. It is recommended to cut the rope half an inch longer than you want just to give a little extra leeway to work with.
Wrap around some masking tape at one end to indicate where you want to begin wrapping the yarn. Use your first end as a guide to add masking tape to the other end as well.
For each of the other ropes, you can’t simply just make them the same length as the first one. Since it’s an arc shape, each of the inner ropes will get slightly smaller. So, lay the first one out in the arc shape, and then place more rope in an arc right underneath it. Cut to size. Repeat with each of the ropes. Be sure to wrap the ends in masking tape as you did with the first rope.
Important tip: We numbered each of the ropes on the masking tape so that we wouldn’t get confused later about which order they go in!
Take the wire and tightly wrap it around a piece of rope from one end to the other. After that, get the colored yarn and wrap it to cover the rope. Repeat with each of the ropes.
Attach the first and second yarn-covered rope using hot glue. Glue the 3rd and 4th ropes together using hot glue. Finally, glue the 3rd and 4th to the 1st and 2nd.
Remove the masking tape from the ends. Then, you can trim and fray them as desired.
Now, you can glue your rainbow into the frame above your text.

DIY Personalized Bow Holder

September 14, 2022 by Paula W

If you know a little one who loves to wear hair bows, you are going to love this personalized bow holder! It’s not only a great way to keep them visible and organized, but it’s adorable too!

DIY Personalized Bow Holder

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 Files/Fonts Used:

Cloud 1
Cloud 2
Annie Carol

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Download the font from Makers Gonna Learn. Then, unzip the file and install it on your computer.
In design space, grab a circle and size it up to whatever size you want. This is going to represent the working space available for our finished project. Ultimately, we are using a half-circle but we have to start with a circle. Ours is 8 inches for now, but we will size it up later.
Grab a square and size it enough to cover the bottom half of the circle. Then, with both the circle and the square selected, choose Slice. This will cut your circle in half. Delete the sliced pieces you don’t need.
Duplicate that half-circle and size it an inch smaller. Place that onto your original layer. Repeat this process until you make enough for 7 colors to make the rainbow. You can now change their colors to visualize the rainbow better.
You could just then cut out the pieces of the rainbow as is, but then the bottom part of the rainbow will be much thicker than the others because it will all be layered.
So, instead, select 2 layers (colors) of the rainbow and press Slice. Delete the results you don’t need. NOTE: You can only slice 2 layers at a time. Repeat the same process until all of them are sliced. Whatever you want to slice out, should be on top. So, you will need to select it and move it to the front. After slicing all of them, select all the layers of the rainbow and size it to 11.5 (or your chosen finished size).
Now, working with the cloud-cut files that you have uploaded into Design Space, you are going to see that they are just an outline. So, to get them to be the filled-in clouds we want, you will need to use Contour. Select a cloud. Make a duplicate. With the duplicate, choose Contour. Click on the center part of it. This will contour out the cut-out center. Your cloud should now be a solid piece.
Make a copy of each contoured cloud. For each cloud that you are going to make, you need 2 copies that are contoured and 1 that isn’t. We’ll be cutting the 2 contoured ones out of blue felt and the un-contoured ones out of white vinyl.
Grab a square and size it to 2”x24” or whatever size you want for the ribbon then duplicate them because you need 4 of them. You can arrange the ribbons below the rainbow however you like. This is strictly for visualization purposes. We won’t be cutting the ribbon with our Cricut.
Move the clouds over to the bottom of each ribbon and size them accordingly. If you place all 3 layers of one particular cloud on top of each other and then select all of them, you can size all 3 pieces for each cloud at one time. We like to then adjust the top layer (the un-contoured one) and make it just a tiny bit smaller than the other layers.
Grab a text box and type in the words you want. Change to the font you want to use. You can size the text and decrease the line spacing. You can also ungroup the text to manually move the letters together however you like and when you are satisfied, you can group the text back together again. With the text selected, choose Weld.
Move the text over to the rainbow, and size and arrange however you’d like. You can change the color for visualization if you’d like. When you are satisfied with your design, you can move the text to the side and delete the ribbons.
Click Make It. Be sure to mirror your Go click make it and make sure to mirror the text and the clouds because that will be cut with HTV. Click continue and connect to your machine. Then set the material to Everyday Iron-on.
Put the HTV on the mat shiny side down. Load it into the machine to cut the text. Once it has been cut, you can weed it.
Go back to Design Space to change the material to Felt/Wool Fabric. Insert your rotary blade into your Cricut Maker. Place the felt onto the mat and put the mat in the machine to cut. Once cutting is done, peel the felt off from the mat. Repeat until all of the colors of felt have been cut out.
Now we are ready to start putting it all together. Start by hot gluing the Kraft board to the largest piece of the rainbow.
Then, using your EasyPress Mini, place the HTV on each cloud and heat to adhere. Peel up the transfer tape. Now, hot glue the clouds and cloud backings on the ends of the ribbons. Then, hot glue the other ends of the ribbons to the bottom of the rainbow piece, attaching them to the Kraft board.
Next, you can go ahead and hot glue the rainbow pieces onto the rainbow backing (the piece with the Kraft board) one by one to put the rainbow together. You want to sandwich the Kraft board inside of the rainbow.
Now, place your text on the rainbow and arrange it however you like. Heat it with the EasyPress Mini and peel off the transfer tape.
Lastly, take a piece of felt and cut a rectangle to make a pocket on the back of the hair bow holder for the rod. Hot glue it at the top and bottom and apply it to the back of the rainbow.
Drill a couple of holes into your dowel near each end. . Insert the dowel into the rod pocket. Run a piece of cord into one of the holes at one end of the dowel. Tie it off. Run the other end of the cord into the hole at the other end of the dowel and tie it off to form your hanger.

DIY Book Sling Tutorial

March 25, 2021 by Paula W

How cute is this DIY Book Sling? It’s a fun way to display your books and keep your favorite ones handy!

Just think how cute this would be in a kid’s bedroom, playroom, family room, or anywhere you’d like to keep reading material handy. We’re using one of our brand new fonts being released this week to create the text on this whimsical and fun craft project!

DIY Book Sling

MGL Font Used:

Soft and Sweet

You can find the entire new font collection here.

Supplies:

easy to make book sling that says one more chapter on it

Find the full step-by-step video tutorial here:

Instructions:

First, we measured our wall where we want our book sling and decided on 19”. Then we cut both of our dowels at 19”
Cut the fabric to your desired length. For a 19” book sling we are cutting our fabric at 18” by 20”
Now for the sides that are 18” long, we’re going to fold them half an inch on both sides. Use an iron or EasyPress if needed! Then we’re going to hot glue the seam to hem.
We’re going to repeat the process on the other sides of the fabric, this time folding three inches. These will be pockets for our dowel rods, so be sure not to hot glue the entire fold together, and just the edges of the fold.
At this time you can add your dowels into your fabric pockets to make sure everything fits well. Now add your hooks to the wall measuring to make sure they’re correctly spaced and add your dowel rods to it. At this point, you can measure the available space you have on the front of your book sling and add those dimensions in Design Space. Our space was 17” by 7”
With your chosen font, write out your quote in Design Space. Make sure it looks good on your sized square. If it does, click “make it”. We’re using HTV so be sure to “mirror” your image and set it to the correct material setting.
Allow the Cricut to cut your quote. Once cut and weeded you can remove your book sling from the wall and lay it on an EasyPress mat to adhere to your HTV.
Position your quote and heat. Remove the transfer tape and add your book sling back to the wall. Fill with books and enjoy.

Isn’t this an amazing project? If you make one, be sure to share it in our private member-only Facebook group. We would love to see it!

Hot Air Balloon Wall Hanging

March 18, 2021 by Paula W

How sweet is this Hot Air Balloon Wall Hanging? It’s one of those adorable kids’ decor items you look at and just say “awwwww”, isn’t it? We think it’s just perfect for a kids’ room or nursery and it would make a fantastic baby shower gift too!

We made this wall hanging using one of the cut files in our new Baby Cut File Collection, just being released today! This adds a colorful, fanciful touch to any room decor and we just know it would be so cute in any kid’s room. Check out the tutorial below to learn just how easy it is to make this!

Hot Air Balloon Wall Hanging

MGL Files Used:

Oh The Places You Will Go (SVG, not PNG)

Check out the full Baby Cut File Collection here!

Supplies:

Check out the full step-by-step video tutorial below:

wall decor with hot air balloons and saying Oh the Places You Will Go

Steps:

Sand your wood plank, then apply 2 coats of grey paint and allow to dry.
Bring your SVG into Design Space. Now, add a basic shape the same dimensions as your wood plank, 16” by 3.5”.
Ungroup your SVG and move the hot air balloon layers out of the way on the canvas so you can work with the text. Now, take another basic shape and cover the first line of text with it. Select the shape and the text, and click “slice”. Select and erase all of the slice layers accept for the first row of text that is now detached.
Repeat that process with all of the lines of text until you have them all detached and separated.
Now select all of the layerers and size them down together and place them where you’d like them to go on your wood plank basic shape. Once you like the placement, select all of the words and click “attach”
Now with the hot air balloons selected duplicate them and change the colors of them until you have one of each of your desired color. Don’t forget that you can use the “advanced” color tool to get the precise color you desire!
One by one select a balloon and then click “duplicate”. Select the duplicated balloon then go to the bottom of your layers panel and click “contour”. Then click “hide all contours”. At this point, go to the top of your screen and change the color of the solid balloon to white. Now, drag the solid balloon over the original balloon layer and then go up to the top of your screen and click “arrange” then “send to back”. With both balloon layers selected, click “align” then “align center”. While both layers are still selected go to the bottom of your layers panel and click “flatten”.
Repeat that process with all of your hot air balloons.
Now, begin to arrange the balloons where you’d like them to hang under your wood plank basic shape.Duplicate the colors of balloons you want to use more of, size them accordingly, and continue arranging them until you like the layout. We have many different sizes of hot air balloons in our project. On some strings we will attach two hot air balloons but most strings will get just one.
NOTE: This is a lengthy Design Space project. If you haven’t been saving your project periodically, now is a great time to do so! We wouldn’t want you to accidentally lose all of your hard work!
Once you’re happy with the layout, select all of the balloons and group them together. Duplicate them. Slide the duplicates over so you can work with them. Ungroup the duplicated hot air balloons. Now, one by one, click on them and click “Unflatten”. At this point drag the top colored hot air balloon layer away from the solid white layer and erase it. Repeat this process until you have all of the white solid hot air balloon layers.
At this point, click and drag your mouse over all of the solid hot air balloon layers and go up to the top of your canvas where it says “fill” and click “no fill”. This action will change the layers from a print then cut to a cut layer. These will act as the back supports to our hot air balloon hangings.
With all of the solid layers still selected, change their color to white.
Hide or delete the wood plank basic shape layer, as it was just for visualization and we do not need to cut it out. Change the color of the text to another color. This is because the text along with the solid balloon layers are white, which the Cricut will then want to cut on the same mat, but one will be cut from vinyl and the other from cardstock so we need to make sure those are on different mats, so changing the color allows that to happen.
Load the 80 pound cardstock in your printer and click “make it”. Send the Print Then Cut layers to your printer then cut them out using the “Kraft Board” setting. Then cut the solid hot air balloon layers from 120 pound cardstock on the same material setting set to “more pressure”. Cut the vinyl out using the “Premium Vinyl” setting and weed and apply transfer tape to it.
Turn your hot glue gun on and allow it to start heating up. Transfer the vinyl onto the painted wood plank being sure to burnish well. Slowly peel off the transfer tape. Feel free to add a few coats of polycrylic if you’d like to seal your wood.
Take some time and lay out all of your print then cut hot air balloons under your wood plank how you designed them in Design Space. It’s often helpful to have Design Space in your view so you can remember the layout you wanted.
Once you have them all laid out begin measuring the string from the middle of the wood plank to the middle of the hot air balloon. Cut the string there. Add a strip of hot glue on the back of the hot air balloon and lay the string in the glue. As the glue is drying, find the blank white cut out of the exact balloon you have. Add some glue to it, and lay the print then cut balloon on it and line it up it up before the glue dries.
Repeat that process with all of your balloons.
For this next part, there are probably better ways to do it! If you can think of any, have at it. Make sure all of the strings are the correct width apart and you like their placement. We decided to add a string of hot glue to the bottom of the back of our wood plank, and lay it down onto the strings where we wanted it to go. Quickly pick the plank up, and all of the strings were adhered. NOTE: This method will get hot glue on your work surface so if you choose to do this method it would be best to lay down some parchment paper or a self healing mat before starting this project.
We then turned the plank over and gave each string more hot glue to reinforce them.
Once all of your strings are dry you can glue another piece of string on the plank so you can hang it, or you can add hanging hardware, or just use command strips!

If you make a hot air balloon wall hanging, we would love to see it! Be sure to post pictures over in the MGL member only Facebook group.

Cricut Crafts to Make for Babies

June 26, 2020 by Paula W

Don’t you just love making gifts for babies? They’re so tiny and adorable – and the gifts are pretty cute too! We have so much fun creating something fun and super cute for our favorite babies.

We rounded up these Cricut Crafts to Make for Babies from right here on Makers Gonna Learn and they are some of our favorite craft projects ever. If you need one as a baby shower gift or just because you want to spoil a tiny person in your life, we’ve got you covered.

We’ve got wearables, toys, and nursery decor that you’re going to love. You’re sure to find just the perfect item for the baby in your life. What will you make first?

Cricut Crafts to Make for Babies

When it comes to making gifts for babies, your Cricut machine just makes it so simple. You can use it to customize items with fun sayings or to personalize with names and birth details.

Your gifts are sure to be well loved by the recipients when they see how special they are. Psssst – these make GREAT craft projects to sell in your Etsy shop too!