We’re really into paper crafts at the moment and this beautiful geometric gem cloche is ticking all of our boxes.
Made using the Cricut Maker 3 and the awesome Cricut Scoring Wheel (available on Amazon), these paper gems are really quite striking and make for some really gorgeous decorations — ours is currently pride of place on our kitchen windowsill!
We’ve got the full tutorial on how to make this Cricut Maker project, as well as a video for all you visual learners…
Let’s get straight into it…
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What You Need
Classed as an intermediate level project on Cricut Access, thankfully you don’t need too many supplies to complete this project.
Make sure that you’ve got the following to hand:
- Cricut Maker
- Single or Double Scoring Wheel
- LightGrip cutting mat
- 4 sheets of holographic cardstock in whatever shades you desire (A4 or 12″ x 12″)
- Cloche
- Hot glue gun
- Wire
- Wire cutters
Method
Find The Project In Design Space
We found this project on Cricut Access so you’ll be able to make it for free if you’re a member.
A Cricut Access subscription starts from just $7.99 a month and gives you access to over 50,000 images, hundreds of fonts and a slew of ready-to-make projects. Get involved!
Open up Design Space, go to your canvas and search for “geometric gem cloche” under All Projects.
That should bring you to this bad boy:
Simply click on the green ‘Make It’ button in the bottom right hand corner.
Cut Your Mats
That will bring you to the mat preview screen, where you’ll see that there are four separate mats to cut.
We recommend using different color cardstock for each mat so you can add some variety into the finished gems.
If, like us, you’re using A4 paper instead of 12″ x 12″, make sure to adjust the Material Size dropdown to A4 on this screen.
Once you’ve sorted that and you’re happy with the appearance of your mats, click the green ‘Continue’ button in the bottom right hand corner.
Load your first mat with the cardstock of your choice, and you’ll see that Design Space will prompt you to choose your material (Medium Cardstock) and show you which tools you need.
You’ll need to insert your Scoring Wheel into Clamp B. Make sure that you have the Fine Point Blade on hand as you’ll need that once the Wheel has finished scoring and needs to cut.
Load your mat into the machine, select ‘Fast Mode’ on screen, and press the Go button.
Halfway through each cut, you’ll find that the Maker pauses and Design Space prompts you to swap the Scoring Wheel for the Fine Point Blade so it can finish the cut. We told you it was a good idea to have the blade to hand!
Once all four mats have been cut, you’ll be left with the following:
Assemble Your Geometric Gems
Now it’s time to assemble your assorted shapes into their finished gem appearance.
Heat up your glue gun and start bending each shape along its score lines and tabs.
You’ll be gluing along the tabs to assemble them into 3D shapes.
We found this part a little tricky, especially for the smallest shapes, as the tabs are often quite thin — so make sure that you tread carefully with your glue gun. And make sure that you don’t burn your fingers in the process!
Eventually, you’ll be left with the following shapes:
Cut Your Wire
Your next task is to cut your wire into varying lengths — this will be used to hold the gems within the cloche.
The bottom of the wire will be glued to the bottom of the cloche and the top will be affixed to each individual gem. We decided to poke the wire through the bottom of the gems instead of gluing so we could better control the lengths of the wire.
Assemble The Gems In The Cloche
Your final step in making this project is to assemble the gems on their wires into their final positions on the base of the cloche.
You can arrange them however you please — just remember that the rounded dome head of the cloche has to fit overhead so the wires cannot be too high or spread out.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll be left with something that looks a little like this…
Beautiful! And incredibly easy to make.
What have you made so far with the Cricut Maker?
For more tutorials and guides aimed at helping you get the most out of your machine, be sure to visit our How To section.