3 benefits of using my Cricut for my business

Designing, On Business, Do It Yourself

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you are long time reader of my blog and follower of my business, you know that Cricut has been a huge champion of mine. They were my first corporate partnership almost six years ago. Their values of creativity, kindness, and encouragement of a DIY way of life resonate with me professionally and personally. Yes, this post was paid for by Cricut – BUT – as my real life friends and family would tell you, I love my Cricuts. LOVE them.

In the past 9 years of creating one-of-a-kind events for my clients, it’s the small details that get me most excited. Yes, the lighting and the flowers often make the biggest impact on a room, although those things won’t be packed away in your Wedding Box that you bring down from the attic every year on your anniversary. Those items won’t be framed by your kids to hang on their gallery walls (if gallery walls are still en vogue 40 years from now). It’s these handmade, personalized, tangible items that live on after an event. Whether it’s the goodie bags from a Bat Mitzvah or welcome sign at a wedding, I’ve created numerous event details for my clients with my Cricut that they have treasured.

The three biggest advantages of using my Cricut machines (because who are we kidding, I own four. It’s an obsession) are the ability to quickly create mock-ups, the variety of materials I can work with, and the profitability of by-passing third party vendors. Let’s dive into those.

By-passing third party vendors

In the event design world, a lot of what I design isn’t created in-house. We hire a professional lighting team to install the uplights, rent the linens from a linen company, and work with stationery designers for your paper goods. Some things – like the personalized details that ultimately make your event YOURS – are created in-house on my Cricut.

Let’s talk about time for a second. Say I want to create signage for a wedding that coordinates with the invitations, the linens, and their wedding website. With a third party vendor, my time would be spent sending them artwork files, color swatches, approving digital mock-ups, and paying invoices. With my Cricut, I can spend that time actually creating the item for my clients, giving it my undivided attention to detail, troubleshooting as I go, and finally saving money by not having to pay a third party vendor to create what the Cricut gives me (and my team) the ability to create in-house.

Now, I’m going to tell you about the riveting world of minimums. Minimums are quantities that third-party vendors set to make their production efficient and profitable. Ever try to order 5 printed t-shirts? Or just a few custom bags? It’s almost impossible. Minimums often start at the 25, 50, or even 100 pieces that need to be ordered for the printer to even take on your project. With the Cricut, I can create pieces in-house for clients in any quantity they need.

These signs were created using white vinyl and the print-then-cut feature on my Cricut Maker. The flowers on the welcome sign matched the flowers on the envelope liner of their invitations.

Photo by Anèe Atelier

Leads me to #2…

Ability to Create Mock-ups

One-of-a-kind event details are often shown to clients via digital mock-ups. I use photoshop and illustrator to create a digital representation of what the final piece will look like. This works wonderfully for a lot of different pieces (and especially in this time of Covid), although to be able to hold a few options in your hand is what can really sell an idea to a client. Using my Cricut, I can show the client table numbers in three color options of the actual, tangible, table number at our design meeting. I don’t have to pay for samples from a third party vendor or wait for those samples to arrive. We all like immediacy these days, yes? I want to place an online order and get it in two days. This is what I strive for with my clients. The Cricut products let me show you mock-ups of details of your event in real life – making the meeting more fun and your decision process easier.

The Variety of Materials and Techniques

If I listed all of the materials I could cut with a Cricut Maker, this blog post would be so long you’d be like…”byeeeeee.” Then add on the techniques that are available besides cutting: scoring, perforation, foil press, iron-on, influsible ink, and I’ve got myself one unstoppable array of products to let my creativity go wild. Want invitations made of cardboard? I got you. How about 100 perfectly cut and sized hexagons for an escort card display? Let’s do it. Oh, and you want just a few custom shirts for your best girlfriends? Yep, I can do that too.

We are only limited by sturdiness of materials and our imagination.

Below are my favorite items that we’ve designed in-house on my Cricut for past clients:

Photo by Zoe Rain Photo

Photo by Inbal Sivan Photography

Photo by Jonica Moore Photography

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Powder Room Design with Photowall

Personal Style, Do It Yourself

Anyone else looking around their house that you’ve been sitting in for the last five months thinking “hmmm…what can I wallpaper this week?” No? Just me. Ok then. I took that quest I had for wallpapering and redid our small powder room.

When we moved in, the room was FINE. It was basic. Everything was the cheapest fixture you could buy. It was a strange color of purple. It felt…ugh. Luckily, Photowall reached out to me about a collaboration at the perfect time. My wallpaper dreams were finally going to come true.

I’ve always wanted a powder room because it feels like a space that you can take design chances in. The door is usually closed, it’s small enough to renovate in a weekend, and you don’t spend a ton of time in it. My goal was to make this room modern, kind of quirky, surprising, and with interesting little twists.

I started with one piece of decor to base the room off of: a framed tea towel. The graphic nature of the flowers, the bright colors, and the stark black border were the jumping off point of the room. Next came the wallpaper…

Photowall has almost too many choices for wallpaper. Since this is real wall paper, not removable, I leaned towards a pattern that could possibly work with different color schemes in case (who are we kidding…when) I want to redesign the room in a few years. You know I love geometrics – the grafo in white was perfect.

On Mother’s Day, one of my gifts was a full day to wall paper this powder room in peace. Without interruptions. If you have kids, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. A full 8 hours of lovely, uninterrupted, time to finish a project. While writing this post, I’ve been asked for milk, a snack, a cuddle, broke up a fight, changed a diaper, yelled, fetched someone another snack, and cleaned up my coffee that was dumped by a flying Hot Wheels car. And that was all in the last twenty minutes. Eight full hours of project time was my version of heaven.

Photowall is giving all of you lovely readers a discount so that you can take a weekend and wallpaper those walls you’ve been starring at for the past 5 months. Scroll to the bottom for discount.

Here’s a few photos of the before. It was…gross. It smelled weird. The previous owners hadn’t cleaned the floor in what seemed like years.

Drumroll please….

When you walk in the room, you see this view of the towel ring and the vanity. As you turn your body to find the toilet – BAM – this floral wallpaper from Chasing Paper hits you in the face like “oh man, two wallpapers in one room!??! I’m stunned by this creative genius.”

Then you look closer. Is that artwork of all butts?? Yes M’am, it is. And is that a print calling me a bitch and telling me that I’m doing great? Yes M’am. You’re welcome. You have now peed and had a mini pep talk. Now go flush, wash your damn hands, open an LLC, and take over the world.

Who’s ready to tackle a wallpapering project? Head on over to Photowall for 25% off with code michelleedgemont25.

Sources:

Vanity: Home Depot, Faucet: Lowes, Geometric Wallpaper: Photowall, Floral wallpaper: Chasing Paper, Tea towel: Maker’s Collective, Art prints: Society6, Floor tile: Tilebar, Sconce: Sazerac Stitches, Toilet paper holder and towel ring: Newmadela,

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Wellness Favors to Help you Celebrate your Big Day

Do It Yourself

Wedding favors are a great way to thank your guests for their love and support throughout your lives, and especially on your wedding day. It’s a huge day of celebration, tears, good food, and lots of dancing. By the end of it all, there’s no doubt you and your guests will be eager to crash and may need a recovery day or two.

That’s why wellness favors are the perfect way to say “thank you.” After all, we know favors more often than not end up in the trash. Giving your guests something they can enjoy immediately after your wedding makes sure that nothing goes to waste and the favors will be well appreciated.

The best part about most wellness favors is how easy they are to DIY. They’re super cost-efficient and you can customize them to match your floral and event design. Check out these easy recipes and other wellness gift ideas to help celebrate your i-dos.