Matching Hair Bow & Earrings
We started my project by drawing a bow template in paint.net, Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing (getpaint.net) ( We have attached the png for you to download) after we saved our Template we opened the png within our Cricut design space. Once you have your image the correct size you want, then you can go ahead and click the make it button in the top right hand side of your design space, then continue at the bottom right. The next window you will see is for setting the correct material so your cricut knows what it is meant to be cutting, We chose faux leather (paper thin material). Now you need to turn your attention to your Cricut maker and open up the machine, We used a fine point blade with this project. Once your blade is secure in the housing you can start to look at your materials. We used a standard grip cutting mat and selected 3 different colour's of faux leather, important tip leather must be pattern faced down. Another important point is ensuring your material is securely on your mat, we've attached tape at the corners to prevent the cricut ripping it up. once you've loaded your mat into your machine (double arrow button) you can click the start button (looks like a c). Your cricut maker will feed in your mat and start cut the design for you, once its finished to unload mat you just click the same button as you did when you loaded the mat. once you have cut out all the pieces to your bow you can start to glue it all together. We used strong adhesive be sure to be careful not to get on your skin. we started gluing the biggest circled part of the bow making sure you glue the edges to the middle, use a crocodile clip to hold bow while drying. The oval shape goes over the top of your bow and is glued in place at the back like the 1st bow shape, once the glue has dried you can glue your bow onto the backing part by placing a blob of glue in the middle. Now you need to glue the Centre strip (careful not to put too much glue as this will cause it to leak out the sides and ruin the look of your bow) at the back of your bow fold down the centre strip and use a clip to hold in place until glue dries, finally glue the crocodile clip in place on the back of your bow. Once you wait for it to dry you can get your 5yr old to try it out.
Supplies
Materials For the Faux Leather Hair Bow!
A Cricut maker & a fine point blade. ( If you don't have a Cricut maker you could print out the bow template and cut out with scissors)
A Bow Template (which i will add for you to download)
Faux leather ( You can buy this from Amazon )
A Standard Grip Cutting Mat ( to use with the Cricut, I used 12X12" )
Some tape ( to secure leather to mat )
Strong Adhesive ( suitable for leather )
Tweezers ( to hold and grip your bow while gluing)
Crocodile/Alligator hair clips
Materials For Matching Faux Leather Earrings
DIY Embossing wooden die cutter for leather Earring mold
Transparent block
Hammer
Faux leather
Earring hooks
Jump rings
Pliers
Making Faux Leather Earrings
We used the left over faux leather from the bow to make the earrings to get the most out of our materials, these were so cool and easy to make. We started making these by using a DIY Embossing wooden die cutter ( bought this kit from Amazon) . We selected the shapes to cut out, placed the faux leather over the shape then place your transparent pad over your leather! now the fun part, use your hammer and hit the transparent pad around your shape until it cuts out your earring. once its cut take off your transparent pad and with your hammer hit the top of the earring mold to pierce a hole in your earrings. repeat the process for the top layer of your earrings, once you got all 4 pieces cut out you can start to put them together. place both parts of the earrings together and fix a jump ring to each earring and then attach the earring hooks, use the pliers to close the jump rings to hold your earrings together, you can add rubber backs if you like.