This past weekend we picked up the new Dolittle DVD along with some other essentials using the Walmart Pickup Service, and it was the perfect choice! We all loved it, and the boys have already watched it three or four more times {which I can tell is just the beginning}.

Both my boys love animals and have aspirations of becoming zoo keepers. Actually, their plans have become more elaborate over the years. They now plan to own a zoo where Cooper will be design and build all of the exhibits, and Beckett intends to open an elementary school at the zoo.

So you can imagine, that the story of Dolittle – a doctor who can communicate with animals – was quick to capture their imaginations, and they loved the story of adventure and friendship. But it also offered plenty of laughs for the adults as well. Definitely the perfect choice for a family movie night.

In fact, the boys loved the Dolittle DVD so much, that we’ve ordered the full set of Doctor Dolittle books for the boys to read.

In the meantime, I decided to create some fun Dolittle activities to keep the boys busy between re-watchings. And since I know all us moms are working hard to keep our kids occupied and engaged at home right now, I wanted to make these available as printables for your kiddos as well. You can download them below.

Best of all, these printable Dolittle activities sneak in a little educational value as well – I give you permission to consider these the spelling lesson for this week.

My eight-year-old loves trivia, so I created the Dolittle crossword puzzle with him in mind. It’s filled with clues straight out of the movie, ranging from easy to a little more challenging. And if any of the clues really stump the kids and they have to watch the movie again to catch all the details – well, then it’s a win-win!

But don’t worry parents – I’ve also got an answer key that you can download, because I’m definitely not trying to create more work for mom and dad.

I also created a Dolittle Word Search to appeal to my six-year-old. He’s still learning to spell, so I worried that the crossword puzzle would frustrate him without help {although, he was very proud to help his big-brother solve a few of the trickier clues.}

The word search allowed little brother to work independently while learning the spelling of lots of animals. But it’s also challenging enough that big brother was enthusiastic to try his hand at searching all the Dolittle-themed words as well.

DOWNLOAD THESE FUN PRINTABLE DOLITTLE ACTIVITIES
Dolittle Crossword
Dolittle Word Search
Answer Keys

This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #DolittleAtWalmart  http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

The post Printable Dolittle Activities appeared first on Blue i Style.

The night before Easter, I opened the box of Legos and emptied all of the pieces into a bowl. Then I filled each of our plastic Easter eggs with a handful of pieces, dividing them up evenly between all of the eggs.

Most years we attend a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt at the park, and then we always do an indoor Easter egg hunt at home. Here’s a pro parenting tip – make yourself a quick cheat sheet that notes how many eggs you hid and lists their locations. It might seem obvious, but a few years we’ve been lazy and didn’t make notes for ourselves, and we’ve always ended up regretting it.

We hid the Easter eggs all around the main floor, and then we chose a different spot to hide the Lego instruction book, and created a scavenger hunt to lead the boys to the instructions.

We always make the boys find all of the plastic eggs before they are allowed to start opening them.

They could hear things rattling around inside, and they were so eager to find out!

When they were finally able to open the eggs, they found all the Legos, along with a note inside one of the eggs that started the scavenger hunt.

Scott wrote riddles that led them to 4 or 5 different spots around the house in search of the Lego instructions. They were so eager to find out what they’d be able to build with their new Legos! Big brother read the clues and then they worked together to solve them.

The final clue on the scavenger hunt had them searching their own bedroom.

We had tucked the Lego instruction booklets into the slats of the bed frame below the lower bunk bed mattress.

The boys were so excited when they discovered that their new under the sea Legos (affiliate link) would allow them to build a shark, a crab, a SCUBA diver, and more. And they wasted no time getting started!

We’ve come up with a lot of non candy Easter Egg fillers over the years, but there’s no doubt that the Lego filled Easter Eggs were the biggest hit of all. In fact, they boys have already put their request in to the Easter Bunny for more Legos this year.

For less than $15, the 230 pieces of this Lego set were more plenty to fill the 24 or so plastic eggs that we hide each year for our indoor Easter egg hunt. In fact, it cost me less than I would have spent on candy or other little trinkets.

Looking for more creative Easter ideas?
*A Colorful Spring Tablescape
*14 Everyday Items to Repurpose as Flower Vases
*The Best Easter Brunch Recipes

The post Easter Egg Lego Scavenger Hunt Ideas appeared first on Blue i Style.

BACK TO SCHOOL ORGANIZATION IN THE KITCHEN

1. Plastic wine racks work perfectly for organizing water bottles on cabinet shelves

These stacking wine bottles holders are the perfect size for both kids’ and adults’ water bottles. They keep the bottles neatly organized and prevent that domino effect of bottles falling out when you open the cabinet door. Get more cabinet organizing tips.

2. Use baskets or drawers to create dedicated spaces for kids’ breakfasts, school lunch foods, and after school snacks

Organizing categories of food into labeled baskets makes it easier for every member of the family to find what they need. The floor space of a pantry is often under utilized, but stacking drawers can allow you to take full advantage of this precious real estate. 

The contents of the stacking drawers on the floor of my pantry change from year to year as my kids’ tastes change, but they are always the perfect spot for storing items that we buy in bulk for packing school lunches and mom approved after school snacks. 

Want more pantry organizing tips? Read my full post on our organized pantry with a 5 step organizing process.

3. Keep reusable lunch packing containers in a dedicated space

To make lunch packing quick and easy, I keep all the small reusable containers that we use for school lunches contained in one drawer. It saves time to keep all of the lunch packing containers that are already labeled with the kids’ names separate from the tupperware that we use for leftovers. 

I’ve used these same square containers for lunches since the boys were in preschool, but I also recently fell in love with some containers with ice packs that snap right into the lids which work perfectly for keeping fruits and other foods fresh until lunch.

4. Use a freezer basket to keep lunch box ice packs together

I place ice packs in my kids’ lunch boxes each day, and also usecontainers with smaller ice packs that snap into the lids for the snacks that the kids take to school and soccer practice. Until recently, all of these ice packs were just floating around in my freezer drawers and I was always searching for the size I needed.

I recently reorganized my freezer, and these

divided freezer bins are prefect for keeping our ice packs all in one place so that I can quickly grab what I need as I pack lunches and snacks.

If you don’t have wall space in the pantry to hang lunch bags, give lunch boxes a dedicated basket or drawer in the pantry or another kitchen cabinet so that everyone knows right where to find them.

 

12. Give each kid their own drawer in the coat closet

We used to be dig through the coat closet each morning trying to find a matching pair of gloves for each kid, or searching for a lost snow boot on the way out the door. It was stressful and frustrating – not a great way to start the day! When we designed a new closet system in the coat closet, my number one requirement was a drawer for each member of the family, and now everyone can always find their own hats and gloves. We also added two shelves on the side to keep boots in place.

If your coat closet is smaller, or you don’t want to install a custom closet system, plastic stacking drawers on the bottom of the closet are a great alternative. And adding a hanging shoe bag to the back of the coat closet door provides lots of extra space perfect for storing hats, scarves, and gloves. Get more small coat closet organizing tips.

13. Use clips to keep name labels in easy reach

I label all of my boys’ water bottles, snack containers, jackets, and other winter gear. I am not a big fan of writing on their things with a permanent black marker. I prefer to order waterproof/washable name labels from Label Daddy. It seems like nearly every day something new needs to be labeled, so I always keep a few clipped to the mini clipboards on our pantry. The mudroom or coat closet would be another great place to clip up name labels for easy access before you head out the door

See how I customized these clipboards with my boys’ art and also turned them into chalkboards for school notes and reminders.

The post The 13 Best Back to School Organizing Ideas appeared first on Blue i Style.

HOUSE FIRE PREVENTION TIPS

• Never leave cooking unattended
  • Never store cooking oil near the stove where it could overheat and ignite
  • When cooking with oil, keep a pan lid and a container of baking soda near by to suffocate the flames if a fire were to start; never put water on a grease fire
  • Make sure that combustible items, like dishtowels and pot holders, are a safe distance away from the cooking surfaces
  • Ensure that the stove, oven, and all other heating elements are completely off before leaving the room
• Clean the dryer lint trap after each load, and clean out of the dryer vent twice a year
• Clean the chimney flue at the beginning of each fall
• Don’t store flammable liquids, like gasoline, cleaning agents, and paints, near a heating source; keep them in cool, ventilated areas
  • Read my post on how and where to safely store different kinds of paint
• Keep candles at least a foot away from anything that could ignite and never leave candles unattended
• Don’t let anything rest against a light bulb where it can overheat and ignite
  • Keep stacks of clothes and linens on upper shelves should be kept away from closet light fixtures
  • Don’t use lampshades that are too big for your lamp and could cause it to tip over, leaving the bulb resting against something flammable
• Keep lighters, candles and matches out of reach of children
• Use caution with real Christmas trees and make sure they get plenty of water, and if you opt for a fake tree, make sure it’s flame retardant
  • Check your strings of Christmas lights to make sure there are no frays or broken bulbs that could have an exposed elements
  • Don’t leave Christmas lights unattended
• Store piles of firewood well away from the house – if a fire starts nearby, these could easily become kindling

FAMILY FIRE SAFETY TIPS

Over 100 million homes in the US are not protected with smoke alarms, and 3 out of 5 home fire deaths occur in homes with no working smoke alarms. Additionally, carbon monoxide is the number one cause of accidental death, yet 40% of homes do not have a single CO alarm.

You might be thinking that you don’t need to worry because your house has smoke and CO alarms, but pause for a moment and ask yourself:

• Do you have enough smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and are they in the right places?
• When was the last time you replaced the batteries in your alarms?
• Do you have fire extinguishers, and do you know how to use them?

Taking inventory of your smoke alarms, CO alarms, and fire extinguishers is a great way to get the kid involved.

My kids used to be terrified of our smoke alarms and cried anytime we said we needed to test them. It makes sense – that sound is pretty loud and scary, and it forces you to imagine the possibility of a real fire. With our boys, we’ve tried to emphasize that smoke and CO alarms are our friends and work hard to keep us safe!

We recently installed a First Alert’s Onelink Safe & Sound smart smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarm in the boys’ room. The Onelink has an Alexa enabled speaker and a nightlight built in, so it immediately won the kids over. The kids really just love that they can ask it to play the music they want for their dance parties, but I rest easier knowing it keeps the kids safe. In the event of a fire or CO emergency, the Onelink sends push notifications directly mom and dad’s phones, and provides the kids with verbal directions to leave the house. This has been a game changer for us in terms of alleviate the kids’ fear. {Read all about our Onelink fire and CO alarm in this post.}

Now that the kids aren’t so scared of our alarms anymore, we wanted involve them in making sure our whole house is properly equipped. Our First Alert Fire Safety Kit came with a coloring and activity book full of information presented in a way the kids were drawn to {pardon the pun}. You can download the same printable fire safety activity pages for your kids.

After they colored the superheros and warmed up to the idea of talking more about fire safety, we turned to the page that showed all the places in the house that you should have smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and fire extinguishers. Then we walked around the house and the looked for alarms in all the right places.

Do the same with your family. Take a tour of your house and make sure that you have:

• At least one fire alarm on each floor, one in each bedroom, and one outside each sleeping area
• At least one carbon monoxide alarm on each floor of the home
• Always have at least one fire extinguisher in the kitchen, in the laundry room, and at least one on each floor of the home

Keep in mind that smoke and carbon monoxide alarms don’t last forever. Alarms need to be replaced every 5 to 10 years, depending on the model. And the batteries in your alarms need to be replaced twice a year. Replacing batteries each spring and fall with the time change is an easy way to remember. Or, better yet, eliminate the need to replace batteries by upgrading to First Alert’s 10-year sealed battery alarms.

Read more in this post: How to Protect Your Family From Carbon Monoxide

FAMILY FIRE SAFETY PLANNING

After talking with our boys about the steps we can take to prevent a house fire, and ensuring that our house is properly equipped with alarms, we were ready to make our family emergency plan.

Before we had kids, a lot of our parent friends warned us that having the master bedroom on a different floor than the kids rooms would be problematic someday. Thanks to video monitors that allow us to hear the kids if they need us, and our home security system that gives me peace of mind, having the master bedroom a floor above the kids has really never been an issue for our family.


However, there is one aspect of the distance between our bedrooms that does give me a bit of anxiety. If we were to have an emergency at night, will the kids remember what to do? What if I’m not able to get down the stairs to their room?


For years we’ve been talking about our family safety plan. We’ve told the kids that if they hear the security alarm at night, they should come directly upstairs to our bedroom, but if they hear the fire alarm or carbon monoxide alarm, they should leave the house and go straight to our designated family meeting place across the street. 


We’ve made sure the kids know the different sounds of each alarm, and the OneLink in their room helps a lot since it verbally states if smoke or carbon monoxide are detected. We’ve even had a few drills. But I still worry that if there were a fire at night, the boys would be scared or confused and try to come upstairs to look for us rather than just getting out of the house to safety.

Now that Beckett is a strong reader, and Cooper is learning to read, we decided we should put our family emergency plan in writing and place it on the back of the boys’ bedroom door.

Fire safety should be a family affair, so be sure to get the kids involved. First Alert’s “Super Prepared Family” of superheros helped us start the conversation with our boys, and they have a ton of great online resources for kids. This video is a great introduction to the importance of fire safety:

I’d love to hear your tips, too! What else have you done to prevent fires and make sure your family is safe in the event of a fire or carbon monoxide emergency? Please share your tips in the comments.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

The post How to Make a Family Fire Safety Plan + Free Printable appeared first on Blue i Style.

KIDS’ COMMAND CENTER SUPPLY LIST: 

• Magnetic Strips
• White Animal Head Magnets
• Gold Animal Magnets
• Translucent File Boxes
• File Folders
• Command Picture Hanging Strips

The post Kids’ Art Display & Organizing School Papers appeared first on Blue i Style.

SUPPLIES FOR DISH SOAP RESIST PAINTING:

• Art canvas
• Acrylic Paint (matte finish)
• Paint Brushes
• Dawn Dish Soap
• Spray Paint (NOT spray lacquer)

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 1

TIP: HOW TO GET PAINT OFF YOUR HANDS

TIP: HOW TO CLEAN PAINT BRUSHES

It’s always best to clean paint off of your brushes while the paint is still wet. For wet paint, you’ll need nothing more than warm water and Dawn Dish Soap to get the brushes clean. This works for craft paint, latex, oil-based paint, and even stain. Not only is Dawn gentle on the bristles, it’s also gentle on your hands, unlike many harsh paint solvents.

If the paint on your brushes has dried completely, a stronger solvent may be necessary. Methods like acetone and rubbing alcohol can be effective on dried paint, but they will also dry out the bristles, which isn’t good for your brushes. After cleaning with solvents, you can counteract the drying effect by giving the brushes a final rinse in warm water with Dawn Dish Soap to moisturize the bristles. Rub the dish soap into the bristles, rinse the soap out, and then reshape the bristles so that they dry in the right position before storing them.

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 2

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 3

RESIST PAINTING: STEP 4

ENTER THE GOLDEN DUCK CONTEST:

What could be more fun than creating this simple art project with your kids? How about a VIP Wildlife Experience?!Dawn wants to show you the amazing things their wildlife partners do! To celebrate their 40th anniversary of helping save wildlife, they are hosting the first ever Golden Duck Contest. From now until 11:59:59pm ET on October 6, 2018, follow these steps to enter:

1. Visit your local Target and purchase a 40th Anniversary Bottle of Dawn Dish Soap (here’s a coupon!)
2. Take a photo of the full receipt
3. Submit the receipt photo here, and complete the registration form for a chance to win an exciting wildlife experience.

The winning families will be flown to Dawn’s wildlife partner locations for a behind-the-scenes look at how they are helping wildlife and the animals they save.

The post Clean Up After Painting: How to Clean Paint Brushes and Get Paint Off Hands appeared first on Blue i Style.

Thank you First Alert Onelink for sponsoring this post. Onelink Safe & Sound – Meet Your Family’s New Best Friend. #ONELINKSTORY

SAFETY FIRST

When we bought our house before having kids, many of our parent friends warned us that having the master bedroom on a different floor than the kids rooms would someday be a problem. But thanks to a home security system that gives me peace of mind, and video monitors that allow us to hear the kids if they need us, having the master bedroom a floor above the kids has really never been an issue for our family.

SIMPLE INSTALLATION

The boys were both eager to help dad install the new alarm. Cooper put on his yellow hard hat, and studied the “constructions” as he calls them. We gathered the few tools the instructions said we might need: a Philips head screwdriver, needle nose pliers, and wire strippers.

Scott started by removing our old smoke alarm and its mounting bracket.

The kids were on the ready as daddy’s helpers, but the whole installation process only took about five minutes and ended up only requiring a nothing more than a screwdriver.

HAPPY PARENTS! HAPPY KIDS!

The post Making the Kids’ Room Safer and More Fun With Onelink Safe & Sound appeared first on Blue i Style.

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Melatonin is the hormone that helps to regulate your body’s internal clock. As it gets dark in the evenings, melatonin increases and helps to induce sleep, and then it decreases when it becomes light outside again to incease wakefulness and alertness. Of course, when daylight savings kicks in each spring, and we start asking kids to go to bed when it’s still light out and often wake up before the sun, we are fighting against that natural cycle.

If you’re a regular blog reader, then you know that we’ve been using Hive Active Light bulbs to set schedules and control lights all throughout our home for about a year now.

In the fall, when it was getting dark early, I set a schedule for the lamp in the boys’ bedroom to come on at the time they normally start getting ready for bed, so that they’d never have to go upstairs to a dark room. And, because our Hive smart home products integrate with Amazon Echo, I loved being able to ask Alexa to turn on the lights upstairs if the kids wanted to head up early to read or play before bedtime.

Now that we’ll be dealing with the opposite problem – getting the kids ready for bed when it’s still light outside – I’m setting a new schedule for the Hive Active Light bulb in the boys’ bedroom. I’m scheduling the lamp to come on 45 minutes before their 8 pm bedtime, and to gradually dim by 30% every 15 minutes. That way, it will gradually get darker in their room as we read books and go through the regular bedtime routine.

We typically leave their lamp on with the bulb dimmed to 30% all night as a nightlight, but I’m dropping that down to 20% for the coming weeks to make it just a little darker in their room, and hopefully help them to fall asleep a bit easier during the daylight savings transition period.

Using the Hive app on my phone, it’s so quick and easy to set exactly the schedule we want, and to make adjustments to it as needed. And I love that I can set a different schedule for the weekends when we typically let the boys stay up a little later.

Here’s the schedule I’ve created to automatically dim the Hive Active Light bulb in the boys’ bedroom for daylight savings:

Make it Lighter in the Morning. Dimming the lights as bedtime approaches is a great way to ease the transition at night, but we need a little help in the mornings as well.

One of my sons is a morning person, but the other… not so much! He’s a pretty happy kid if he wakes up naturally on his own, but if I have to wake him up, there’s a lot of crankiness and complaining to deal with. To make our mornings a little easier, I’ve also set the Hive Active Light bulb in their room to brighten from 20% to 60% at 7 am each morning. By gradually brightening the light in the room at the time he’s used to waking up, it will help keep the morning schedule the same and let him wake up naturally.

These light bulbs allow you to set schedules to control the brightness as well as adjust the warmth of the light automatically, so you could set a schedule with warmer light at night to help the kids relax and get ready for bed, and then adjust it to a cooler light temperature in the morning to help kids feel more alert as they get ready for school.

Light is obviously one of the best natural cues for our kids to know when it’s time to sleep and when to wake up, but there are other cues that can help as well. Our boys used to fall asleep to white noise, but now prefer quiet music at night. Since they’ll need to start waking up when it’s still dark out, I’m going to also use music to help gently wake them in the mornings {because no kid wakes up happy to an alarm clock!}.

At night, we plug the boys iPad in to charge and turn on Pandora with a sleep timer set for 30 minutes. I’m also going to start setting an alarm for 7 am – but rather than an obnoxious sound, music will begin playing at the same soft volume they fell asleep to. The music, combined with the lamp in the room getting brighter, should help them wake up naturally.

Of course, it only takes a few hours for the iPad to fully charge, and then it’s plugged in the rest of the night for no reason. Since we are always looking for ways to save energy, I decided to add a Hive Active Plug and I’ve set a schedule so the plug is only on from 8 pm, when the boys go to bed, until 1 am, when the iPad will be fully charged.

In addition to saving money on the electric bill, setting Hive Active Plugs on a schedule is also a great way to prevent overcharging the battery on older devices with batteries that aren’t designed to stop taking charge once they are full.

• MAKE GRADUAL CHANGES IN ADVANCE: Doctors suggest that in the days leading up to the time change, you should gradually adjust bedtime. In the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep, you can start putting kids to bed about 15 minutes earlier each night, so that when the time change rolls around, you’ve adjusted them to going to bed an hour earlier to make up for the hour we lose. Then, on Sunday, when we move forward an hour, bedtime can return to its normal time.
• DON’T SKIP NAPS: If your kids still nap, don’t skip naptime in an effort to make them extra tired. Rather than making bedtime easier, this will likely make bedtime harder because overly tired kids get grumpy, and can then be harder to settle down to sleep.
• STICK TO YOUR ROUTINE: Kids get confused when the daily order of things changes, and the time change will likely make their naturally rhythms feel “off.” Help counteract this by keeping your bedtime routine consistent and doing everything in exactly the same order that you normally would. The fewer things that change, the easier the transition will be on your kids.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Hive. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.

The post How to Make the Daylight Savings Time Change Easier on Kids appeared first on Blue i Style.

I couldn’t stop laughing! I don’t even remember telling them this, but I must have said it at some point in time, and they’d been having a debate about whether it was really true. Of course, I wasn’t going to break it to him that I usually just know what they are up to because they are still pretty predictable at this age, and because aren’t good at being sneaky yet {they whisper “don’t tell mom” loudly enough that I can usually hear them from the next room}.

As soon as I opened the box, I could see how much attention had been paid to the detail of the design.

The Hive View comes in two color combos – white and champagne gold, and black and brushed copper. The camera itself, a sleek cube, attaches to the curved base arm with a magnet, so you can grab that cube and carry it with you to another room anytime you want {off the base, the battery lasts more than one hour}. The magnetic mount also means that the cube can be attached the arm at any angle to capture the best view of the room. The base also comes with a mounting bracket, if you prefer to attach is to a surface or wall.

I’ve seen a lot of indoor smart security cameras before, but never one stylish enough I’d really want to see it sitting in my living room. But the Hive View blends right in in our living room!

The white camera will be really versatile, since I plan to move it around our house, but just think how gorgeous the black and copper version of this camera would look on the piano!

It only took me a couple of minutes to set up the Hive View, connect it with my Hive app via Bluetooth, and have it fully up and running. After admiring the style in the living room, I took it down to the basement family room/playroom where I wanted to test out my plan to let the Hive View be my extra set of eyes and ears while the kids play.

The boys are old enough now that they can play independently, and fortunately they get along really well and love spending time together. But they tend to get loud, as little boys do, and sometimes, from a distance, it’s hard to distinguish if they are fighting or laughing. When I’m up in the kitchen cooking dinner, for example, I’m constantly running to the other side of the house to the top of the stairs to hear what’s going on and determine if I need to intervene.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Hive. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed on other websites owned by the sponsoring brand.

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These cute, reusable number tags would be great for any sort of Christmas countdown or advent you might do with your family. They could easily be sized down to be attached to smaller gifts, or hung on a cute advent display!

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A CRICUT MAKER

What would you make this holiday season with Cricut? Gift tags, decorations, ornaments, DIY gifts for your friends and family, cute jewelry for all the festive parties? The options are endless – especially if you are the lucky winner of a new Cricut Maker! Enter to win, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

HOW TO MAKE REUSABLE NUMBER GIFT TAGS
WITH THE CRICUT

 

SUPPLY LIST

Let’s start with the supply list, and then I’ll show you how to make these reusable number gift tags. This post contains affiliate links for your convenience (read more about that here).

I have the Cricut Explore Air but I’m wishing for Santa to bring me the fancy new Cricut Maker, which you have a chance to win! If you missed the giveaway above, scroll back up enter really quickly!

• Cricut electronic cutting machine
• Cricut Access Fonts
• StrongGrip Adhesive Cutting Mat
• Black Pebbled Faux Leather
• Gold and Silver Adhesive Foil
• Deep Cut Blade (optional)
• Scissors

I’ll walk you step by step through the design process, including teaching you how to use the weld and slice tools. But if you love these tags exactly the way I made them, then I’ll save you some time – you can access my finished design file right here: Cricut Number Gift Tag Design File.

To start, open a new file in design space, and click “Text” on the left side. Then click “Font” on the top bar to browse the font options. I love that Cricut Design Space will allow you to use any font on your computer, but I always seem to find exactly what I’m looking for in the Cricut fonts. The fonts are very easy to browse thanks to the preview screen that shows you what every character looks like.

I wanted a thick font for my number tags, and ended up selecting a Cricut font called “Annoucement,” and I used the bold option. I typed in my first number, and the set the size. Since these tags would be used on big children’s books, I wanted them to be pretty large. I decided on a height of 4.25 inches, and input that number as the size on the top design bar.

Rather than creating a new text box for each number, I just typed 1 through 9 into the text box, and then used the ungroup tool.

Clicking the ungroup tool automatically turned each number into its own layer.

For the double digit numbers, I started by using the duplicate tool to duplicate the number 1, then added the second number to make each of the teens. The automatic “letter spacing” between characters is set to 1.2, but in order to cut these as gift tags, I needed the one and zero to be touching.

Setting the letter space to 0 made them touch – but barely. To make the tags more durable, I wanted a bigger connection point between the numbers, so I adjusted the letter space down to -.5. For the numbers in the 20’s, I set the spacing between some numbers as low as -2.5, but I just tested each one until it looked right.

 

Here comes the most important step in the whole tutorial! In order to make these double digit numbers cut as one gift tag, the numbers must be welded together. Even though these numbers are overlapping, Design Space still sees them as two separate numbers. If I cut this file without welding the numbers, this is what would happen…

You can see on the cut preview that the one and zero would be cut separately. To fix this and cut the double digit numbers as one piece, use the weld tool at the bottom of the right panel. Select the text layer, and then click “Weld.”

You can see that your weld was successful by looking at the layer list in the right panel. Repeat this action to weld each of the double digit numbers.

In order to use these numbers as gift tags, you’ll want a hole or two in the top of each to string ribbon through. To create these holes, start by click on the shape tool on the left menu, and draw a circle. I made the circle for my hole .25″ in diameter.

Drag the circle to position it in a good spot over the number one, then duplicate the circle and drag it on onto the number two. For the double digit numbers, I decided to do two holes, one at the top of each number.

To turn these circles into holes that will be cut out of the numbers, use the slice tool. Select both the number and circle layers, and then click “slice.” Now delete the circle layers and you’ll be left with this…

Repeat this step to create the holes in each number.

The number gift tags are now ready to be cut. Begin by cutting a full set of numbers from the faux leather, which sticks best to a StrongGrip cutting mat {the instructions on the leather recommend regular grip, but I found the leather to move around too much}. I also used a deep cut blade based on recommendations I had read, but it cut into my mat a bit. I didn’t try it with a regular blade, so I can’t say for sure if it would have cut through cleanly, but I’ll test it next time to avoid cutting my mat.

My letters cut very nicely, but they were pretty curled, I think just because the leather was rolled up to start with. I was worried about how these would look on the wrapped books, but after putting the stack between some heavy books overnight, the flatted out really nicely.

To finish off the number tags, I decided to add some silver and gold foil to create a color-block look. Rather than editing the file to cut just the sections that I wanted to cover in foil, I just cut a second full set of numbers – half from silver adhesive foil, and the other half from gold.

I then used scissors to cut a rectangle around each number, then cut off the portion of each number that I wanted to apply on to of the black leather. I worked one number at a time, varying the positioning of each – covering a portion of the top or bottom, left or right of each number, or an angle across some.

I couldn’t be happier with the way these number tags turned out. Not only were they easy to make, I’ll be able to use them again year after year!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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