Tea For Two Paper Decorations made with Cricut Explore!

A few weeks ago I was at the UK launch of the Cricut Explore, an exciting cutting and writing machine that makes crafting and DIY-ing a breeze!

Today I’m sharing my first project, focusing on cutting paper (actually, it’s card!) and using projects and images that are available on the Cricut Design Space.

So, what is my first project? Well, it’s Tea for Two! My son was away for the weekend, and with the glorious weather, I set up afternoon tea in the garden for hubs and I. I’ve often said that I will use any excuse to have a party, and even if that means a tea party for two, then I will plan it, decorate it and make it memorable!

When it comes to planning any sort of party or gathering, the first thing I think about is the colours and style. I wanted our Tea for Two to be pretty and have a slight vintage feel to it. So I broke out the china teacups and saucers, my pink cake stand, then decided on a pink and mint green colour palette.

I then switched on my Cricut Explore and started looking at all the different images that are available – there are tens of thousands of them! Some images and projects are free, some you have to pay for, either individually or as a monthly or annual subscription.

I started off by searching for lace to see what it would bring up, and there were lots of pretty designs for me to choose from. I picked a doily design, and a cupcake wrapper design, then I searched for cupcake wrappers and found a delicate butterfly wrapper. I also searched for tea and found a cute design to use as a cupcake topper.

With my designs picked out, it was time to put my Cricut Explore to work!

You can change the size of each element that you want to cut, as well as the colours. I change them to the colours I am using to make my ideas become clearer in my mind. Once I’m happy with everything, I click on the green Go button at the top of the screen and I’m presented with the mat preview. Here I can change the amount of elements I want to cut and then follow the flashing buttons on the Cricut Explore to start the cutting process. I always watch in awe at the cutting machine do its work!

Carefully peeling the paper from the mat is like a treasure waiting to be unearthed – I chose intricate designs for this project to showcase how well the Cricut Explore can cut. I have to say I was more than impressed! I assembled my cupcake wrappers and glued (using spray glue) the two pieces of the cupcake topper together, before fixing to a cocktail stick to skewer into a cake later on in the day.

I only wanted one more thing for our afternoon tea party, and that was a banner. I remembered seeing an awesome papel picado banner on the ready made projects page, so I found the one I wanted, made by The TomKat Studio, and also read that it takes 27 minutes per banner(!) – there are a lot of things to cut on these banners!! I wanted to customise the colours and the amount first, as well as remove the little flags. Instead of clicking make it now, I selected customize, so that I could do what I had to do.

After an hour and a half, you can see exactly why these gorgeous banner pennants take so long! Look at all those tiny cuts! So worth it though, how gorgeous does this banner look? I would have made a few more, but we were hungry for tea and cake!!

I did cheat and buy the treats for our Tea For Two, but you will find my recipe for White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies and Triple Choc Cookies on my blog!

And if you want a cupcake recipe to make your own butterfly cakes, you’ll find my vanilla cupcake recipe here. Just carefully cut the top off the cupcake and cut that in half to form the ‘wings’, add a little jam and/or buttercream and place the wings back on the cupcakes. We also had some salmon and cucumber sandwiches – with the crusts cut off if you please!

You can’t have an afternoon tea without scones, clotted cream and jam, and whilst hubs brewed the tea, I took photographs to share with you!

I hope you enjoyed reading through and looking at how my first Cricut Explore project came to life – I know that I couldn’t have created any of the paper decorations without this fabulous machine! The Cricut Explore is now available in the UK and you can buy it online now.

The Only Limit Is Your Imagination!

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