School Poster Projects

Decades Poster for the 90's
Music scales were copied, wrinkled, & inked. Title cut from Shall We Dance cartridge.

I don't know about everyone else, but my kids always seemed to have large projects due the very next day--like the teachers didn't give them any advance notice at all, which of course is not true.  And the big thing these days seem to be "group" projects.  Of course my son likes to tell his group that he'll be happy to do the poster projects since he has a "crafty mom".  And it never fails, he is voted unanimously to create the group's poster projects.  Enter--the Cricut!!  For Christmas 2009, my husband got me a Cricut cutting machine and the Gypsy design program!  This has been a lifesaver for last minute projects, I just gotta tell ya!  But before you start thinking that I do my son's projects for him--let me be the first to say, "I don't".  =)  I go through the different cutting designs that might pertain to his project and he decides what we'll cut and the colors he'd like them to be.  He's helped in all the processes, and along the way I might give him some ideas or feedback if I think of something else he can do.  He thinks it's funny that he can sit at the computer and work on other portions of the project, while the Cricut is working behind him.  Of course the Cricut works at a much faster speed than if we sat down to cut all the portions individually ourselves, so it's a great time-saver for those last minute designs. 

I don't think he's realized yet how much work he actually does himself, since I'm mostly just helping with direction-- he does the gluing, the inking, and paper piecing, as well as the research & printing from the PC.  And I don't plan on enlightening him either.   Ha ha...  I have to say though, that the Cricut is a wonderful tool in helping with school projects for the kids--and not just those last minute ones.  I know that Provocraft has donated quite a few Cricuts to schools all over, and teachers have been able to use them for their classroom creations.  And I think that's awesome. 

I don't use my Cricut for all my crafts though, because I enjoy using a variety of crafting tools & mediums.  But I love having it as part of my craft room for so many things besides school projects.  It's especially great when I need a LOT of a certain cut, such as gift tags, Valentine heart confetti, creative name badges, etc (the list goes on & on).  For those of you that have been thinking about getting one, I would recommend checking out some blogs that do a lot with their Cricut at the Cricut Top 40 blogs site.  The Gypsy is a handheld device that lets you do so much more with your cartridges--but I'd recommend becoming familiar with your Cricut first.  I'll talk more about the Gypsy in another post, but please feel free to contact me with questions any time.

In the meantime, here are a few school projects Cody and I put together that uses the Cricut in conjunction with paper crafting. 

Decades-The 90's, Television - one of our old TVs had the same scratches on it.

Sometimes using a white poster & filling in white space with squiggles works wonders.

Cody had to show the differences in weddings between the USA & China.
This was during the Bejing Olympics so we worked that into the design.

This poster had a lot of info about Panera Bread & the Cricut wasn't used at all

Cody's Spanish Album

Thank you for stopping by!  Lisa