Guest Designer at Paper Dolls! and a Giveaway!

Thanks for coming to visit!

If you just came from the Paper Dolls then keep reading for all the details about my guest designer project.

If not, GO visit them right away, then come back! Lol!

So anyways,

I feel especially honored to be one of the first guest designers on The Paper Dolls blog! Tamara and Thienly are seriously amazing and uber talented women! I have stalked admired their blogs and creative projects for quite some time now. Seeing as how they ARE the "paper" dolls, I didn't even want to try to compete with their paper crafting skills so I went another direction with this challenge. The point is to show people ways they can use SVG's right.

Many people don't realize that you can actually cut fabric on your Cricut machine. I'm gonna show you how to do it! Bear in mind, it can be a little frustrating, and the settings that I use may or may not work for your type of fabric, but if you really want to do it, it's worth the adjustments and test cuts to get it right.

I wanted a way to "Thank" these dolls for letting me be a part of their new adventure, and also help them get the word out about their new blog. So I decided to make iron-on fabric appliques for t-shirts and I'm sending each "doll" a shirt of their own! When they wear it they will be getting free advertisement for their blog and at the same time showing off all the fun things you can make with your die-cutting machine.

**Here's the fun part, there is a shirt in it for one of you lucky followers as well!! (I'll explain at the bottom of this post)**

Now let's get down to business!

How to Cut Fabric with Your Cricut:

You will need:
Light cotton fabric
Heat n Bond - iron on adhesive ( I used a no sew, ultra hold type)
    (available at Joann's or local fabric store)
Brand NEW Cricut cutting blade
Iron
SVG's, cut files, or Cricut Cartridges

Okay, got my fabric. Check.

Got the Heat n Bond. Check.

Super Cute SVG files. Check.

STEP 1: Cut a piece of Heat n Bond to your desired size. I cut it into a
12 x 12 square to fit onto my Cricut mat.

STEP 2:  Read the Heat n Bond directions and apply (with an iron) to the wrong side of your fabric as instructed.

STEP 3: Then cut your fabric out around the square. (Ironing the Heat n Bond on first helps eliminate the amount of fraying you will have along your fabric edge.)

STEP 4: Replace the blade in your Cricut cutting machine with a NEW blade.That's very important! Adjust your settings. (For my fabric weight and Heat n Bond thickness I had to use a blade depth of 5 and pressure at MAX.

STEP 5: Load your fabric onto the cutting mat, fabric side up, and Press firmly to adhere. (Helps if you have a fairly new mat also.)

STEP 6: Load the mat into the machine and press cut. It really is THAT easy!

(If this is your first try I would recommend doing a small test cut first, checking to make sure it cut all the way through your fabric before cutting out a whole bunch of stuff.)

When it's done cutting, take out the mat and carefully lift off the pieces. I LOVE my little hook tool that came with my Cricut tool set, so I use that for just about everything. (It's even better than the spatula!)

I pulled the fabric pieces right off the Heat n Bond backing, so I had to later go back and remove all that paper backing from my Cricut mat.

I FILLED up my mat with cuts and after about the 3rd fabric my blade was already dulling. I continued using it however, and just had to snip away a few spots that didn't cut all the way out. You can see them in between the doll's dresses.

Although you could really go through blades quick doing this, I actually got a LOT of stuff cut out with one blade, and it will still be plenty sharp enough for cutting paper.  See all the cuts I got....

You could really have a lot of fun with this stuff! Now all you do is figure out where you want to apply your applique and iron it on. (Again, refer to your Heat n Bond instructions for this part.)

Here's just a few of the designs I came up with, but the  possibilities are endless!

I even made these cute fabric flowers to go on the shirts with some leftover fabric!

Looks cute on bags too!

Like my shirt?!! Now here's the cool part! You could win a Paper Dolls shirt of your own!!! All you have to do is become a follower of my blog, and leave me a sweet little comment on this post telling me you did!  I also have a facebook page, and if you come "like" me over there too you will get an extra entry for the drawing (just leave me another comment telling me you did)! See how much I like comments! Lol!

I will pick a winner (at random) next Sunday before "the dolls" kick off their next challenge, so you have to either come back to see who I announce the winner is, or leave me a way to contact you.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you like what you see, and let me know if you have ANY questions!! Hugs!

Oh, and did I mention how much I "heart" paper dolls?!!!!!!!  :-)