Baby Jars Part 2

So I was trying to think of a way to decorate the lid to the baby jars for the party favors that I talked about in my last entry. I know a lot of people have gotten labels to stick to the top. But then I remembered that the Cricut has a "center point" function on it. You just position the blade to the center of your image, select the center point function, and cut whatever shape you want. In my case, I wanted a circle.

I printed out several dinosaur images and gave it a whack. I tried cutting circles at several different sizes and even tried using the shadow feature to get a circle between two sizes. Then I realized that I could could change the size adjustment increment on the Cricut. I hit the settings button and pressed OK until I got to the size increment screen. I tried a couple different settings but finally set my machine for millimeters (mm).

Long story short, if you want to have cute DIY labels for your baby food jars here are the steps you want to take. (I used the plantin schoolbook cartridge for my circle, but any cartridge with a circle will work)

Print your image/design on your paper


Change the settings on your machine to allow for millimeter (mm) increments

Place your print out on your mat and load into the Cricut

Position the blade as close to the center of your image as possible

Press Center Point button

Set your size to 49mm

Cut your image (I used the "kiss" cut settings so it would just barely cut through the paper since I was using printer paper: blade depth = 6, speed = min, pressure = low. When cutting card stock I increased the pressure to med)


Use a Zig glue pen (or something similar) and put glue around the edges and in the center of the lid


Place your image on top and press down to secure in place



This was just a practice run with a sample image for me. But I like how it turned out. I used normal printer paper for this test run. I might try printing and cutting white card stock for my actual favor jars. I haven't decided yet. Now I have to finish designing the "label" I want for the actual party favors. Once they are done, I will glue coordinating 1/4" ribbon around the side of the lid. And then my lid will be complete! Not bad for favors that I have spend $0 on. We make our own baby food, so I had a friend donate their old jars.

I will post pictures of the final product. This cricut is seriously making planning my son's birthday party a breeze. I don't know what I would have done for these projects without it.

Answers to Questions from my Last Entry
So a few people asked where to put the etching cream. I took the piece of vinyl that had the hole where the dino shape is and placed it on my jar. Then I "painted" the stencil opening where the dino shape was with the etching cream. Does that make sense? I will post pictures of the actual process the next time I do it.