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With 2020 feeling cancelled these days, we are definitely in need of some joy! The teens in my house have missed out on softball games, birthday parties, prom and high school graduation for my senior. It’s been a tough pill to swallow but, as a mom, I’ve tried to find ways to keep us looking for the positive.
Thankfully I just received my new Cricut Joy and found fun projects that my teens could easily do with this compact yet versatile machine! Each project I came up with was to help with a struggle that my teens were having during this time of staying safe at home. Check out these 3 quarantine crafts for teens made with Cricut Joy!
Although the Cricut Joy is the smallest of Cricut’s line of machines, it still can cut so many materials! This is the perfect machine for my teenagers, who aren’t into major crafting but love to personalize things and create simple gifts for friends and family.
Our first project was making a card. The lack of friend-time these days has by far been the toughest to deal with! By creating cards with a favorite friend in mind, my daughter was able to feel the connection she has been missing. Card making is one of the Cricut Joy’s star features!! With the Card Mat and so many card templates in Cricut Design Space, you can’t go wrong!
Supplies:
Using one of the cards from the variety pack, insert the back side into the flap and then press the front card down on the adhesive top of the mat. Then it’s ready to be loaded into the machine.
Look at how intricate the Cricut Joy can cut!!
Once finished cutting, remove the mat and proceed to use your spatula tool to carefully remove your card from the mat.
Use one of the provided inserts from the pack and place in the cut slits on each corner of the card. No tape or glue necessary!!
This cheery card is ready to be filled out and sent to a dear friend! And it was made in less than 5 minutes!
The second project we worked on was designed to help bring some normalcy back. My girls all have ordered yearbooks and after lamenting that none of their friends would get to sign them, I came up with this idea: yearbook stickers!!
Supplies:
(Can I just give a quick shout out to one of our favorite friends, Natalie Malan, who designed these papers!! They are gorgeous!)
I picked out a couple adorable tag shapes from Design Space, one single layer and one double layer tag.
It was so quick to pair a phone to the Cricut Joy! Through the app, we were able to get our stickers under way in no time!
TIP: So as not to bend your stickers while removing from the mat, bend the mat back to remove, NOT the paper!
Affix the second layer to the double layer sticker.
Now the stickers are ready to be written on!
Remember when we used to write K.I.T. and include our home phone number?? Pretty sure my kids will leave their SnapChat @. I’m old.
The thought is to send one yearbook sticker with a note written for the friend and one blank one for the friend to write on and mail back! My girls are excited at the thought of still having a yearbook full of letters from their besties!
The last craft we made was a vinyl decal for a water bottle. The message of the decal will hopefully serve as a reminder that this will soon pass, as most hard times do!
Supplies:
Notice I didn’t include a mat in the supply list?? It’s because when using Smart products, you don’t need one!! The backing on Smart materials doubles as the mat. Yay for not having to worry about crooked mat application! Cricut also has Smart Vinyl rolls in longer lengths to extend the repeat cut capability. No more changing mats over and over!
I still can’t get over how crisp and detailed the Cricut Joy can cut!
After cutting all of my pieces, we placed them together on the transfer tape.
After placing your decal on your desired surface, make sure to use your scraper tool to apply pressure all over the decal. Once affixed, remove the transfer tape.
Pretty sure this happy decal will be a wonderful reminder of happy times ahead! I LOVE how it turned out!!
All in all, these three projects helped restore some JOY for my teenagers who have taken some hits lately. The Cricut Joy is living up to it’s name! It’s compact size and powerful cutting capabilities make it the ideal machine for my kiddos to create simple, fast and quality projects!
