Foil Embossed DIY Planner Dashboards Made With The Cricut
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Making DIY Planner accessories is so much fun! Learn how to make foil embossed DIY planner dashboards using your Cricut Explore or Cricut Maker and a scoring stylus! This project includes 11 different options for your tabs. Kick your planner up a notch or two! Read to the end of this post for your chance to win a Cricut!
2017 is coming to an end. I was flipping through my planner the other day, looking back at memories and goals I set for the past year and I realized something– I have been using a planner for a full calendar year! Technically speaking, I’ve actually been using a planner for a solid 18 months, but this is the first year that I’ve made it a full January-December using a planner.
I have had a lot of planners in my days. Every January I start out with the best of intentions to use one, I usually last a month or so and then my interest fades and the planner ends up buried under a pile of papers on my desk.
This year I stuck with it and I’ll be honest, it wasn’t much of a chore. Turns out I might have just needed the right planner for me!
My planner of choice happens to be The Happy Planner. I love that it’s easy to add to and fun to decorate– though most weeks end up being pretty much just my lists of “to do’s”, appointments, classes and extracurricular activities.
I’ve DIY’d a ton of accessories for my planner using my Cricut including my DIY Planner Folder Pockets.
And my DIY Planner Stencils.
To celebrate a full calendar year of using my planner I decided to create some Foil Embossed DIY Planner Dashboards to help kick of planning in 2018!
I used my Cricut Explore Gold for this project. I know that you all have seen me talking about my Cricut Maker a lot lately (want one? Read to the end of this post to enter a giveaway to win one!!!) I LOVE my Cricut Maker, but that doesn’t mean that my Cricut Explore is going anywhere! I keep both of my Cricut’s set up on my craft island. I keep my Cricut Maker all set up with the rotary cutter in place for all of my sewing projects, and keep my Cricut Explore set up with a regular cutting blade for cutting all of my htv, vinyl, paper and everything else!
There have been times when I have both Cricut’s going at once– The Maker cutting fabric for a project, and the Explore cutting a design out of htv that I can press onto it afterwards!
Both machines have been getting a heavy workout lately with Christmas quickly approaching! I love that I’m constantly finding new ways to use my Cricut.
6 months or so ago, I remember stumbling across a pin on pinterest about how to emboss using your Cricut. I went to the page and watched a video and was quickly overwhelmed with how to create an emboss file. About a month ago, I was again on Pinterest and noticed that my friend Sarah from Becoming Martha had created an Embossed Gift Box project using her Cricut. We were heading to a birthday party that weekend, so I whipped up one of the gift boxes using one of Sarah’s templates and created the cutest little gift box with snowflakes on it. I was surprised how easy it was to create such an unique look.
I decided to use that technique for my Foil Embossed DIY Planner Dashboards. Before I got started, I sat down and brainstormed what kinds of sections I would like to add to my planner along with what kinds of dashboards I could currently use. I also tried to think of the needs of other people using all kinds of different planners and what kind of categories they could possibly use.
I ended up with:
-To Do
-Goals
-Today
-This Week
-This Month
-Meal Planning
-Travel
-Healthy Life (for things like calorie counting, workout planning, and storing healthy recipes)
-Budget
-Reading
-Gift Tracker (I was recently talking to a friend telling her that I needed to do an inventory of all of the gifts that I have bought. She told me that she uses a spreadsheet to track all of the gifts she buys all year long. I loved this idea and decided to transfer it over to my planner.)
I wanted the dashboards to be cute so I got to work designing what each dashboard would have embossed on it. The way you create the “embossed look” is by changing the layer attribute for each design aspect from Cut, Write or Print to Score.
You guys, Cricut Access is THE BEST! There are SO MANY fabulous images to use in Cricut Design Space. For example, for my travel dashboard all I did was look up travel under the image search and I quickly found all kinds of designs that would be perfect for a travel dashboard. For best results you are going to want the designs you pick to be embossed to be a single layer, so for my travel dashboard I chose a plane, boat, globe and I added in the word “wanderlust”.
I’ve included the cut file for my planner dashboards below. If there are any dashboards you would like for me to add in the future, please let me know!
I always enjoy watching my Cricut at work but it was especially fun watching the scoring stylus transform a piece of poster board into an awesome embossed planner dashboard!
Foil Embossed DIY Planner Dashboards
Materials:
-My Foil Embossed DIY Planner Dashboards Cut File (find it here)
Directions:
Step 1: Open my Cut File and click Make It. Set your Cricut Explore to Custom and select “Foil Poster Board”. Insert your scoring stylus, put your foil poster board on the light grip cutting mat, load it into the machine and start cutting/embossing.
Step 2: Take your cutting mat out of the machine, carefully remove your dashboards and punch holes in them that fit your planner. (Learn how to punch holes in Happy Planner pages without the Arc Punch here.)
Put your lovely new dashboards into your planner and your all set to go!
Tell me… Do you use a planner? What kind of planner do you use? Do you like to make DIY accessories for your planner?
POST DISCLAIMER: This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
It’s funny that this post came out right after you and I were talking about planners. I’m using a basic one by At-a-Glance from Staples, but I want a proper planner for 2018. Unfortunately the Happy Planner is too bulky for me since I travel for work. I’ve looked at Passion Planner, Hobonichi, Erin Condren, and Plum Paper. I’m interested to hear if anyone has a suggestion for a weekly planner that is fairly thin, ideally with tabs for each month.
Girl, you know I love my planners! LOL. I had tried using a planner for a long time but never found one that took for me. Then I received The Happy Planner as a gift at SNAP Conference and fell in love with it. It’s funny, it was an 18 month calendar that started in June. I received it in April and couldn’t wait to get started, but then when June came I felt so intimidated to use it because so many people do GORGEOUS things with their planners each week. I finally let all that go and just let it be a practical planner for me.
I’m at my desk every single day so the Happy Planner works great for me. I use it mostly for my to do lists, but I also write my appointments and the kids activities in it, PAC events, etc, and it just stays on my desk. I also use a google calendar though to keep Rob up to date on all our appointments and to remind myself of things when I’m not at my desk.
I haven’t spent much time looking at other calendars so unfortunately I can’t recommend any others. Sorry. 🙁
What a great idea!
Thank you so much Gina! I really appreciate you taking the time to swing by and comment. Happy Holidays!
Best Wishes,
Crystal
I’m always envious of beautifully kept planners like these–I love your additions!
What an amazing idea! I’m definitely pinning this for later, and so I can come back more of your planner goodies. Absolutely gorgeous additions to your planner!
All I can say is Wow every time I find more fun things to make with the Cricut! I’m not sure I will ever have time to make all of the fun things I come across. I love my Cricut! Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday. Pinned to the Merry Monday board so I can come back and slow down to read more closely.