Happy Birthday to Me! Enjoy a Free SVG!

Welcome to February! I personally love when we finally reach February each year. January is a bit of a dreary month. Holidays are over. Everyone’s back to work and school. It’s cold and gray. But now, even though we’re still in the trenches of winter for a little while, you can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It helps that I’ve moved to New Mexico, so the weather is much more mild. It is basically how it is in spring back in New Hampshire where I’m from!

February is also my birthday month! To celebrate, I’m giving all of YOU a gift. I have a FREE SVG file for a birthday card. It is a new insert card design I created a few months ago, but up till now has only been available on Cricut Design Space via subscription or purchase. I’m also providing alternative file formats like SVG and DXF. Download by clicking the image or button below.

Already a Cricut Access subscriber? You can also find the project in Design Space HERE ready to make!

Enjoy!

Nicole

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Holiday Projects to Make with Cricut

Ever since Halloween ended, I have been diving straight into holiday crafting mode. Yes, my tree is already up, as of November 2nd! With Thanksgiving in the U.S. next week, and the start of the Christmas season, I thought I would give you all a little round-up of all that I’ve done so far to give you some inspiration for your own holiday crafting.

Please note: This blog post contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission if you make a purchase by following my link to the site.

Since I now design SVG images for Cricut as a Contributing Artist, my main focus lately has been on Cricut-made crafts, especially paper crafts. As such, the projects listed below can all be found in my Design Space profile ready to make.

If you have a Cricut Access subscription Cricut Access subscription, all these projects (and TONS of other wonderful projects on Design Space) will not cost you any extra. (Without it, premium images and fonts must be purchased ala carte.) I am a subscriber, and I have been having so much fun browsing, bookmarking, and making projects from Cricut and the community members. Click HERE to learn more about Cricut Access.

Now on to the projects…

These first three were created as part of a special initiative given to Contributing Artists to come up with projects for the holidays. Many artists submitted original crafts, complete with lists of materials, full instructions, and high-quality photos. Be sure to check them out!

Poinsettia Insert Card

This is a quick and easy beginner project I made with my Cricut Joy and card mat (although it can also be made with the bigger machines). It incorporates both drawn and cut elements. I love the red glitter cardstock shown here, but I made a bunch of other color combos, which you can see in my Design Space photos.

Gingerbread Gift Tags

These are made with layers of cardstock. The design is more intricate, but the assembly is pretty simple. There are drawn elements on the back side as well. These also work great as ornaments!

North Pole Sign

Here is one non-paper craft. I cut this North Pole sign from permanent vinyl and applied it to a painted wooden plaque. This was probably the most complex project—or maybe it just felt that way because I’m not great at using vinyl yet! I love the end result, though.

These next projects weren’t official Cricut Contributing Artist holiday submissions—I just made them for fun as a community member!

Snowflake Photo Ornament

These are layered paper ornaments that are double-sided. On one side, I put space to insert a small photo. The other side contains the year. I made one of these for each of my four kids in different colors.

Christmas Cookie Plate Ornament

This one is also made with layered cardstock. Each little cookie is assembled separately and attached to the plate base. The paper layers give a nice dimensional look to the cookies.

Holly Jolly Insert Card

Last but not least, this is an insert card I designed with a holly theme. This one has elements that are cut from other colors and placed on top of the card base. I used a glittery white insert on this one—love the sparkles, especially for the holidays!

That’s it for this post. I’m sure I’ll be making even more as the season progresses, so you may see another holiday craft roundup before the season is through. ;)

Happy Holidays!

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Fall Craft Projects

The past couple weeks was Fall Break for my kiddos at school, so I was tasked with keeping everyone entertained. I thought it would be a perfect time to break into some fall and Halloween crafting! Keep reading to see our projects and links to help make some of your own.

Please note: This blog post contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission if you make a purchase by following my link to the site.

First, let me show off my kids’ creations, seen below. For context, I suggested that we cut out pumpkin shapes out of some scraps of cardboard and decorate them. Pretty basic. Thank goodness I have imaginative kids, because they sure made it their own!

My youngest stuck with the pumpkin idea. She is only three, so it was pretty much a pile of paint. She dubbed it “rainbow pumpkin.” My second-oldest asked me, rather than pumpkins, to cut out a candy cane, apple, and strawberry shapes from the cardboard. I obliged, and out of this grew some zombie fruit and a black and orange striped candy cane. My oldest asked for a house shape. She then drew a line down the middle and made one side “Christmas” style and the other “Halloween.” So cute. They are now all hanging proudly on our wall.

As for me, I’ve been keeping myself busy with my share of pumpkin crafts…

I took a Halloween sign I found in the dollar section at Target and gave it an Over the Garden Wall fan art makeover. If you’re unfamiliar with OTGW, it’s a fun and quirky animated series with perfect fall vibes. I highly suggest checking it out. It’s currently on Hulu in the U.S. For the sign, I first repainted the surface to get rid of the current design, then I found the title lettering online and converted it into an SVG so I could cut out a stencil in removable vinyl. I painted it with gold paint and redrew the pumpkin face to match a character from the cartoon.

Click on the image to see my video on Tik Tok

I also designed one of my first layered paper pieces to create a pretty autumn pumpkin wall decoration. I kept it simple—only three layers of cardstock to cut. I used patterned paper to add some interest. This is one of my new images that you can find on Cricut Design Space. (Click on the images to view the project page and cut your own!)

By the way, my images on Cricut Design Space are free to use for Cricut Access members. If you own a Cricut machine but are not yet an Access subscriber, I highly recommend it! There are loads of images, fonts, and features that are included, as well as shop discounts. It is a crafter's dream.

Click the images to view the project on Cricut Design Space.

Last but not least, I made this cute little pink pumpkin notebook. I printed out some patterns and dot grid papers. I cut the papers in half, then stacked and folded them into a booklet, which I stapled at the spine. I cut the pumpkin from vinyl to add to the cover. This pumpkin image is also one of mine on Design Space. Click on the images to view the project page.

Click the images to view the project on Design Space.

Psst, if you want to make your own notebook, I’ve made this project into a FREE printable download on the secret section of my website, which you can access by subscribing to my email newsletter. You’ll find lots of other freebies there as well!

So as you can see, lots of creative fall crafting going on here in the Sturk household, and hopefully more to come—unless I decide to skip right to the holidays haha.

Happy Crafting!

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Links to Cricut Projects on Design Space

Watch Over the Garden Wall on Hulu (U.S.)

Make a Mini Newspaper

I recently got a fun idea for my Christmas card this year, and I was so excited about it that I immediately got started on a prototype (even though it was only August at the time). It came out even better than I imagined it would. Even my husband told me it was the coolest thing I’d ever made, haha.

So, here it is… my family holiday newsletter in the form of a mini newspaper!

I currently live in New Mexico (recently moved from Utah) and most of the rest of our extended family is back in New Hampshire and Vermont, so we don’t get much time together in person. In the past I’ve done your typical photo Christmas cards, so this will be something a little more personalized and special for our close family and friends to catch up on what we’ve been up to this year.

I designed and format it for a regular 8.5x11 inch sheet, printed it out on newsprint paper, and folded it like a newspaper. If you look closely, you can see it isn’t finished yet. I still need to write some real text, but I have three months so I’m in no hurry! Eventually, there will be an article dedicated to each member of the family summarizing the year for that particular person.

I’m also trying to keep the final result a surprise for my family and friends who will be receiving it, so I also created a fake mockup with a totally imaginary family to show you all what a completed one looks like. (You can also find a video flip-through on TikTok HERE.)

I had a lot of fun with this project, trying to make it as authentic and newspaper-like in the format and details. I even put in a few fake ads that were relevant to the content, such as a holiday sale (since it’s a Christmas card) and a pet store near the section about the family dog. The nice part about this is that it can all fit nicely into a regular A2 card envelope. (I’ve had trouble in the past with mailing my handmade cards that were odd shapes or too bulky.)

If you think this is something you’d like to try yourself, I’ve made it available in my Etsy shop as a Canva template! Canva, if you’re unfamiliar, is a user-friendly online layout tool for flyers, posters, social media images, and more. While you do need a Canva account to use the template, you do NOT need the paid version.

My newspaper template on Canva

Once you customize your template in Canva with your own images and text, you can download it as a pdf and follow my included instructions for printing and assembling. There are versions for 4, 8, and 12 page newsletters, as well as a template for web-only viewing, if you’d rather email or post on your social media.

Click on the image below to go to my Mini Newspaper Canva template!

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