Gifting inspiration from my Cricut
Learn to love your Cricut and get into some Cricut crafting ready for next Christmas.
It’s never too soon to start.
Invest some time now into sourcing your blanks and those all-important little additional gifts, to save yourself a ton of money and time.
There’s always that one person who is impossible to buy gifts for
I have 4 sisters. That’s a real blessing.
But when it comes to gifting, particularly Christmas gifting, one of my sisters proves to be a challenge every time.
Without fail.
Don’t get me wrong. She’s a wonderful, thoughtful, loving sister and friend.
But she’s also very exacting when it comes to choosing gifts.
In normal years I go for the easy option and get her a boring gift card
To avoid the stress of choosing a gift – followed by the inevitable ‘did you keep the receipt’ response – I went for a change of approach.
No more frustrating post-Christmas return sagas.
Not anymore!
No longer was I going to get it wrong or resort to the predictable gift card.
For I am the possessor of a Cricut.
My Cricut gives me superpowers when it comes to imaginative gifting.
And for gifts, I make myself there is no returns policy. Fact.
In this post, I told you about choosing my Cricut Maker.
In particular, I talked about the additional costs of ownership, from materials to blades.
My conclusion is, that apart from materials that you obviously need to buy; card stock, blanks etc., what comes in the box (of the Maker at least) will get you started.
You do need access to Cricut Design Space but that can be a managed cost as well.
So what did I make for my sister?
I made my sister an advent calendar.
Don’t roll your eyes and say ‘oh, big deal.
Being someone who loves an advent calendar, I gave some thought to why I love them so much.
In particular, I thought about what would make the ideal advent calendar.
Do you get bored with advent calendars?
Here’s a question for you.
Do you get bored with opening a new door on your advent calendar and finding another chocolate in there? A bar of chocolate that looks almost identical to the one you got yesterday?
Perhaps you asked for a calendar from your favourite cosmetic brand.
I did. I got bored with that too.
My bathroom is littered with sample size creams and lotions of things I would never have chosen for myself and that gives you just a couple of days worth of product—certainly, nowhere near enough to decide if you want to buy the full-size version.
And the waste!
So many little packages that can’t even be recycled.
I took my search for the perfect advent calendar and gift rolled into one online.
Online I found the perfect advent calendar
My perfect advent calendar was filled with jewellery.
Enough said.
Thinking cap on
Giving my love of advent calendars a little more thought, I realised why I found most of them so disappointing.
The sheer pleasure of opening a new window each day and finding a surprise inside is great.
But as we’ve already noted, most calendars are repetitive.
To deal with that problem of boredom setting in, I decided to make an advent calendar that would extend the fun and enjoyment of unwrapping gifts to cover the whole of December.
More than that.
MY calendar gift was packed with lovely surprises made, or bought, with the recipient in mind.
And the best part?
I loved every single second of making it whilst learning to love my Cricut.
I loved making her calendar so much that I made 3 others for friends.
Next best part?
Every day I received pictures of the gifts with thanks for the surprises. It was the highlight of their day opening the calendar and seeing what was in there.
My friends told me their calendars were the best gift they received.
Gift-giving doesn’t get any better than that.
Learning to love my Cricut
Personalisation of many of the gifts was my main focus when I chose what to put into each day of the advent calendars.
It’s true that a number of gifts were bought online.
Gifts such as socks or hair scrunchies. Festive themed face coverings for these Covid days.
Delicious truffles and chocolates were added in line with the Christmas theme of indulging ourselves. A couple of little puzzles would keep them busy and drive them crazy, trying to solve them against the clock.
Gifting inspiration
Using Cricut Design Space and a little creativity I included these.
Reusable cotton bag
I found the blanks on the same website I found my blank advent calendar.
Hobbycraft is a great online resource if you live in the UK. They are also a wonderful place to get some much-needed gifting inspiration.
Otherwise, Amazon has a large range of similar products, although I didn’t locate my blank calendars there, to be honest.
The calendar itself was a cardboard box with the insert separated into the days.
You will have seen the advent calendars with pockets to put the gifts into. I didn’t want one of those as I didn’t want the gifts to be visible.
Tree Decorations are a great addition – personalised of course
I found some great mirrored blanks on Amazon for just a few pounds and I added some images from Cricut Design Space by using permanent vinyl to make them extra special.
You could add the recipient’s name and those of other family members to make this extra special.
Amazon has a wooden version on sale now that may be more to your or your recipient’s taste.
I bought some inexpensive silver baubles and added names and images that were significant to my friends and particularly my family.
For gifts that were just too big for the advent calendar window
Some gifts were too large to fit into the advent calendar window.
For those, I added a tag made on my Cricut that instructed them to open a certain wrapped gift.
This lightbox was one of those gifts that I wanted to give, but that was just too big for the calendar.
To make this gift, I chose a cube vase found on Amazon. I added some wording I chose myself and produced the cut file in Cricut Design Space to personalise the gift using permanent vinyl.
The addition of some inexpensive battery lights (I used bottle lights) created a lovely lightbox for use all year.
This simple gift idea was a real winner for sure.
To reduce the cost even further consider this acrylic version available now on Amazon.
I couldn’t resist a picture of the finished product
Just before I packed the advent calendar and wrapped it in a bow I took a picture to remind myself how satisfying I found the whole process of creating a fantastic, unique gift.
I’m convinced you will too.
Related Content
I’m at the start of my Cricut journey, and I’d love you to join me in getting to know and love crafting with my Cricut.
If you’re new to Cricut and want to get to know how to create beautiful things in the company of another Cricut virgin, you should start with my Beginner’s Guide to Cricut.
Try this post for extra inspiration. Cricut Crafting and Falling In Love With My Circut.
