ECC Day 07 🌼 Easter Shadow Box

If you go down to the woods today… you might just find some Easter bunnies searching for their eggs.

Welcome to Day 7 of the Easter Craft Countdown where I’m sharing a brand new Easter themed Cricut craft project every day for 10 days.

Today’s project is a layered papercraft shadow box design.

This cute shadow box scene has been designed to fit in the shape of an egg outline, for a little bit of extra Easter fun!

This project is part of 2023's Easter Craft Countdown.

View all 10 craft projects

Materials supply list

Here is a list of the materials that I used to make this project.

Please note that some of the links included in this article are affiliate links, which means that if you click through and make a purchase I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page.

Cricut machine
Light blue Cricut cutting mat
Coloured Card
Collall All Purpose Glue
Needle Tip Applicator Bottle
3D foam pads
Shadow box (Mine is a 15x15cm box frame from Hobbycraft)

Video tutorial

Watch the video below to see how to make this project. Keep scrolling for a written tutorial.

Written tutorial (with photos!)

Here’s how to make your very own Easter egg hunt shadow box project using a Cricut machine!

Step 1) Download the cutting file(s) & unzip the downloaded folder

Purchase the Cutting File(s)

This cutting file is available as part of the
Easter Mega Bundle.

Find out more

Already purchased it? Check your invoice email for the link to download the files!.

Or, purchase this design individually from my SVG shop

Before you upload the SVG to Design Space, you need to unzip the download folder that it comes in.

Easter rabbit layered mandala

Step 2) Upload the SVG file into Design Space

Open up Cricut Design Space and start a new Project.

Click “Upload” and then find your unzipped version of the downloaded files for this project.

Select the file called svg-egg-hunt-craftwithsarah.svg

Make sure you upload the file which starts svg- in the filename!!

This is how it should look after you have uploaded the file:

All the layers should appear “on top of each other” as per the image above. If you see all the layers next to each other instead, that means you’ve accidentally uploaded the wrong file type. If that’s the case, click “Cancel” on the bottom-right of the screen and try again.

After uploading, the design will show in your “Recently Uploaded Images”.

Click on it and then press “Add to Canvas” to put it onto your Project.

Step 3) Resize the design

Measure the insert of your shadow box to see what size to make the design in Design Space.

Click the design 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 it.

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.

If your frame is bigger than your cardstock, you can “fake” a front of the frame to allow you to cut the design from your smaller cardstock. I show how to do that in this Halloween shadow box tutorial.

Step 4) Cut out all the layers

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

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 5) Stick the project together

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

Use this guide to see the order to stick the layers together in.

A high-quality, un-watermarked printable version of this assembly guide is included in the folder when you download the cut file.

My favourite glue to use on papercraft projects is Collall All Purpose Glue.

It’s SO good because it doesn’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!

To make it even easier to apply glue to layered card projects, I highly recommend getting some of these needle tip applicator bottles to put the glue into.

The nozzles are REALLY tiny which makes them perfect for putting glue in the pieces of cardstock that make up this design.

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 the relevant layers, make sure you add some in the middle of the pieces of card so it give 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.

Keep sticking all of the layers, following the assembly guide, until they are all attached.

If you put the design in your frame and find that it doesn’t quite sit far enough to the back of the frame so you can’t easily close up the back of the frame then you can add some strips of fun foam to the back to help “pad it out” before putting the back on.