Student-Made Gifts with Cricut

Students are constantly producing work and taking it home. This may happen less frequently in the upper grades, as students will sometimes bring home something like an art project.

However, there are many times when students will create projects to be sent home as a gift to family, friends, or caretakers on special occasions and holidays throughout the year. These occasions can be great opportunities for students to work on fine motor skills, artistic techniques, and practice handwriting or friendly letter writing. Additionally, this can provide a brain break from regular instruction.

Making the most of your time

Parents and caretakers love these handmade gestures, and some even save them for decades! On the teacher’s side of things, these projects can take a lot of time and commitment. From printing supplies to cutting out each individual piece for students, these lessons take a lot of preparation. Spending countless minutes with the industrial paper cutter worrying about accidentally cutting off a finger is not the best use of a teacher’s time. That’s where your Cricut can come in and be the real MVP of the preparation process!

Cricut is perfect for cutting out mass quantities of project materials without having to lift a scissor. You can use it to cut a wide-variety of things such as cardstock, sticker cardstock, felt, fabric, vinyl, and more. Simply design each piece in Cricut Design Space by adding your own elements or choosing from the available images, and choose the fonts, formatting, colors, etc. that you want.

Once everything has been formatted the way you want it to appear, proceed to the next step and actually make it! In the making stage, you can select the quantities of the project you need. Then, Cricut will automatically sort it onto the appropriate mats. Select the material type and follow the step-by step on-screen instructions to begin the cutting process. Make the most of your time and multitask by prepping other materials as the Cricut machine gets to work.

Don’t just limit yourself to cutting out materials! You can even streamline other processes by using scoring or perforating accessories to create materials that easily fold or tear away for cards, banners, hats, and more. Markers and pens can also be used to add written text or drawings, so that projects have a more hand-created feel to them.

Unique student gifts

Using the Cricut cutting machine can help streamline other processes. But did you know other tools like the Mug Press or Autopress can help students to create projects that would not be feasible otherwise?

One of my favorite projects to do is having students create custom mugs using Infusible Ink markers and the Mug Press. Students can also create coasters using the infusible ink pens and the Autopress. Both of these activities allow students to have complete creative control over their products. Let the Cricut cut copy paper to the precise size needed for the coasters and mugs.

Students get to draw the designs they want to appear on the mugs or coasters while you only need to heat press the items to bring them to life. The result is a tangible item that looks impressive and will last for years to come. Using similar techniques, students can design and create whatever they can imagine on surfaces like tote bags, t-shirts, pencil cases, and more.

Utilizing permanent vinyl

Another way to help push students’ creativity is by using permanent vinyl to customize canvas paintings, consumer products like water bottles, flower pots, and boxes. Students will practice skills like peeling, scraping, transferring, etc. New sticker paper by Cricut can transform photos, hand-drawn art, student-designed graphic art, and other images into unique stickers. These can be added to a variety of different projects.

There are so many possibilities for enhancing classroom projects. What will you and your students create today? For more inspiration, be sure to check out the Cricut courses on OTIS for educators. Plus, check out our downloadable instructional guides and tutorials in our Edu Resources section.

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

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