CCC 2024 Day 10: Cardinal Gnomes

Step 2) Size the designs

Click the designs on your canvas and use the width/height boxes near the top of the screen to make it the size that you want to cut.

TIP: Make sure the padlock icon above the width/height boxes is CLOSED before you resize. If it appears “open”, click it with your mouse to close it.

I don’t recommend going smaller than 4 inches wide as some of the details will get hard to cut. Here’s a tutorial on how to cut designs really small with a Cricut.

If you are cutting these designs on the original Cricut Joy machine, you’ll need to make them a maximum of 4.5 inches wide.

If you are cutting the design to fit in a specific frame, watch this video to see my top tips on how to resize it to fit perfectly, or read the tutorial here.

Step 3) Cut out all the layers

When you’re happy with how the project is looking in Design Space, click “Make” and follow the instructions on-screen to cut out all the pieces.

I find it easiest to cut one gnome at a time, rather than doing both the male and female designs at the same time. It gets a little tricky to work out which pieces go with which gnome if you cut them both together, as many of the shapes are similar.

To change the paper size, go into the dropdowns over on the left side of the screen and choose the paper size that you want to use. You need to change it for every single colour.

To save space on your cardstock, you can move things around by clicking and dragging. Make sure when you’re moving things about that nothing overlaps because otherwise, it won’t cut out properly.

TIP: New to cutting cardstock with a Cricut? Check out this in-depth tutorial which goes through every step of the process, including tips for getting the best quality cuts from your Cricut.

Step 4) Stick the project together

Use 3D foam pads and glue to stick the layers together.

Use these guides to see the order to stick the layers together in.

Printable versions of these assembly guides are included in the folder when you download the cut files.

My favourite glues to use on papercraft projects are Bearly Art Glue and Collall All Purpose Glue.

These are great because they don’t “warp” or bend the cardstock like some glues do. You can use as much of it as you want and the card stays perfect – and it dries perfectly clear too!

Bearly Art Glue comes with a tiny nozzle to make it easy to apply glue to small areas of card. The Collall glue doesn’t come with this, so it’s easiest to decant it into needle tip applicator bottles so that you have more control.

The foam pads that I use are from “Dot & Dab”, but any foam squares will work. If yours are big then you may need to cut them smaller with scissors to fit inside the edges of the layers.

When adding the foam pads to larger pieces of card, make sure you add some in the middles of the pieces of card so it gives stability to the middles.

If you don’t add any foam pads in the middles then it can “sag” under the weight of the other layers which doesn’t look as good.

Continue sticking the pieces together, following the assembly guide, until your gnomes are all finished.

Cardinal gnomes layered papercraft designs

After sticking all the pieces of card together, your Christmas gnomes are all finished!

You could then mount them in a shadow box or glue them to the front of a greetings card.

If you’d rather not mount your projects in a shadow box, check out these free easel stands for two alternative ways to display them.

Or, go for a more simplistic approach by making triangle stands or nail hooks.

The triangle stands are completely invisible from the front of the project, making it look like it’s standing up by magic! The hooks allow you to hang the design straight on the wall without a frame.

Happy crafting,
Sarah x