Have you heard about the Cricut Circle? The Cricut Circle is a membership program for Cricut enthusiasts. Membership is available by a quarterly or yearly subscription and includes benefits such as:

• Cricut Circle Welcome Kit (Includes Exclusive Cricut Circle Cartridge, Official Circle Membership Certificate, Inspirational Bracelet with the exclusive Cricut Circle charm)
• Exclusive Circle Only Cartridges (released once a quarter)
• Extra Rewards Points (2 points for every $1 spent at Cricut.com — This does not include Circle Membership or renewals unless specifically stated)
• An additional 10% off all Cricut.com purchases
• Weekly prizes or Cricut.com credits from the Cricut Circle Blog or Other Prizes/Drawings
• Circlets-Only Message Board
• Monthly Cricut Circle PDF Magazine
• Exclusive Cricut Circle Blog
• And Much MORE!

For those of you curious about the Circle, once a month we will be giving you a “sneak peek” into projects created and featured for Cricut Circle Members. Cricut Circle Members receive over 60 exclusive project ideas a month through the Cricut Circle Blog and Cricut Circle PDF Magazine. And this is a sneak at just one of those!

To find out more about becoming a Cricut Circle Member, please CLICK HERE to visit the Cricut Circle Information Page. Happy Cricuting!

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Hi everyone! It’s Charity Hassel here. Are you ready for Halloween yet? Things are getting spooky around my house and I wanted to show you some fairly simple ways you can use your Cricut products to decorate your home for guests, a party or for your own family.

What’s Halloween without a pumpkin? I am completely inept at carving a pumpkin. So, instead I found a way to make a decorated pumpkin using my Cricut Expression. Use your Expression to cut aproximately 40-45 small bats from black cardstock. I used plain cardstock, but I also cut a few bats cut from velvet paper and glittered paper for added interest. Here’s a little tip- be sure to have a lint roller handy to clean up the tiny bits of velvet or glitter that may get on your mat.

Once you have your bats cut out you will want to place them on your pumpkin in a swirl, or swarm, around your pumpkin. I found it easier to start at the bottom on one side of the pumpkin and add my bats up and around the top of the pumpkin on the opposite side. Start with the bats cut from plain cardstock. Add the bats cut from glitter and velvet papers toward the end. Adhere the bats using glue dots and only glue the centers of the bats to allow the wings to “fly”.

Next, I wanted to make some classic, spooky silhouette candle holders to place on my creepy table. I went to my local dollar store and picked up two tall and three shorter glass candle holders. Use your Happy Hauntings cartridge and choose whatever images you would like for your candles. I found the images that allow light to shine thru them look really neat once the candle is lit behind them. So, for some I chose things like the spooky cemetery gate, the haunted mansion, etc. I also cut some of the images with embossed paper. Measure the height of your glass candle holders to get an idea of how large to cut your images.

Gluing the images onto glass- this was a bit of trial and error the first time, and, while there may be other ways, this is what I learned. First, before I went to glue the image on, I put the image on the round glass to make sure it fit completely and also to lightly bend my image to the shape of the container. There are several ways you could glue the images to the outside of your glass- there are several spray-on glues out there that could be sprayed onto the back of the cut image. I did not have any spray on glue so I used a small, foam paint brush and spread on Matte Mod Podge Glue to the back of my images. Make sure to use only a thin layer of adhesive, you do not want a lot of extra, gloppy glue on your project. Then, the important part- try to place the image in the right spot the first time- the more you move it, the more glue you get on your glass container. I would place the image, hold down the center and then work my way out. The adhesive dried fairly quickly. Add your candles to the container and enjoy your spooky ambiance!

Designed by: Charity Hassel
Cricut Machines Used: Cricut Expression Machine 
Cricut Cartridges Used: Happy Hauntings
Other Supplies: Cricut Vinyl (Raven), Cardstock (black), Embossed/Glittered/Velvet Papers (Doodlebug Designs), Glue dots, Mod Podge, Glass Candle Holders, Pumpkin

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CARTRIDGE CUTS:

Pumpkin:

• Cut 1 & 3/4″<bat2> from black cardstock (since you will be cutting multiples of this same image you can use your <repeat last> button, which will allow you to continue with the same image till you have enough bats)
• Cut 1″ <bat2> from black cardstock
• Cut 1 & 1/4″ <bat2> from black flocked paper and black glittered paper using maximum pressure and multi-cut feature

Candle decor.

• Cut 3 & 3/4″ <Graveyrd> from black cardstock.
• Cut 3 & 3/4″ <Grave1> from black embossed cardstock (use max pressure, multi cut)
• Cut 3 & 3/4″ <Headless> from black cardstock.
• Cut 6″ <House> from black embossed cardstock (use max pressure, multi cut)
• Cut 6″ Layer 1 <Frame7> from black cardstock.

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