I knew I wanted to make a snowman Christmas card, but I wanted to do something other than using Olaf so I decided to create my own Mickey Mouse Snowman card. With a few images from Design Space and a little creativity, you can create a card like this too.
By the way, this post contains Affiliate Links to companies I have partnered with, such as Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. You can think of affiliate links like tipping your waitress, only it does not cost you anything extra! Thank you for shopping with my links!
Supplies:
- Cardstock
- Tape runner
- Zig two way glue pen
- Cricut
- Cuttlebug or another embossing machine
- Snowflake embossing folder
- Black 651/permanent vinyl
I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl. People have asked me why not Cricut brand, since I use a Cricut machine. Personally I just do not like the way the Cricut vinyl cuts or weeds. I think you should find the brand you love and work with that product. Test things out for yourself. Sometimes it is just a personal preference like how some people would rather have Pepsi products over Coke products.
So once you find your brand of vinyl, where should you buy it? If your favorite brand is sold at the local craft store, then you are lucky in the fact that you can pretty much garantee that you can run to the store and pick up vinyl when ever you need it.
For me, Siser was not always sold in the stores, as it is now, so I had to get it from online retailers. Again, this is where you can either go with your personal preference of stores or go where the best deal is. One day the best price might be at one store, and then the next week it might be from a different retailer. We all do this when we sometimes pick up toliet paper at the grocery store, but then we also get it at Target when it is on sale.
I also love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide. Because of that, I will always share all of the different resource I am connected to and you can choose which one is best for you!
When I first started this site, I had not even heard of MyCraftSource, and now I am an influencer for them! Since all of their inflencers have a special coupon code, that means when you shop at My Craft Source you can get an extra 5% off your order just by using coupon code ShawnMosch at checkout!
Heat Transfer Warehouse is another supplier that I love, and they are actually somewhat close to me. Their headquarters are in North Dakota and I am in Minnesota. They even have their own line of vinyl, and they are partnering with other companies to really bring you a wide variety of products.
You may have noticed that there are a lot of retailers that only ship to places in the United States. This is because shipping prices can really add up. I want to be able to help my followers find their products no matter where they live and that is why I was happy to find some retailers that ship world wide! That is where the next two compnaies come in as options.
Let me introduce you to Expressions Vinyl. When you go to their site, make sure to check out the rewards program. This way you can earn points as you purchase products! Then those points can be redeemed on future purchases.
Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order!
I cannot forget my Canadian followers! Madame Blanks is located in Winnipeg Use coupon code SHAWN10 to save 10% off your order of StarCraft products! If you click on the link and it does not work, just know that the owners are taking a little break but hope to have everything back up and running soon! In the meantime, you could follow them on social media!
Designing the card
First, let’s go through the process of designing this card and the Mickey Mouse snowman in Design Space. If you have never made a card with your Cricut before you can start with my card making tutorial HERE. I used this same process to create the base for this card, and then I resized the whole thing for a larger card. Under Images I searched the word Frame to find the cute little postage stamp frame that I added to the base card.
Designing the Mickey Mouse Snowman
The really fun part was creating the Mickey Mouse snowman! After I talk you through the process I will also have a short video. I feel like this really helps all of the steps come together.
To start, I clicked on images and found a snowman in Design Space that I liked. Next, I added a Mickey Mouse icon since I want this to be a Mickey Mouse snowman. Since I want Mickey’s ears to be on the top of the snowman, I want to get rid of the hat on top of the snowman’s head. Since the hat, scarf and stick arms are all on one layer of this design, the easiest way to remove just the hat will be to use Contour. If you have never used Contour I have a whole tutorial on that topic HERE.
Contour to hide and to create layers
When I click on Contour it opens up a new window that shows me the sections of the cut image. I can now turn on or off the sections I do not want the Cricut to cut. For this project, it is the hat. I can either click on the hat and hat band in the area where I have them circled in blue below, or I can click on them in the side panel where I have them indicated with the blue arrows.
Once I click on those sections to turn them off, they will disappear from the cut image, just as you can see in the image below. I also wanted to make the snowman’s scarf red. To do this I will duplicate this layer and then use Contour to hide things so that I end up with just a red scarf on one layer and just the brown stick arms on the other layer. I also decided I did not want that little swirl on the body of the snowman, so I used Contour to fill that in also. You will see it all come together in the video.
Now I want to join the Mickey Mouse head to the body of the snowman. I move the Mickey over the top of the snowman and adjust the size until it is just how I want it.
Cricut Tip: Select from the Layers Panel
Here is a trick that I am sure you will like. Have you ever tried to pick on just one layer from a grouping but Design Space keeps selecting the whole grouping instead? Did you know that you can select things from the Layers Panel instead of clicking on the actual image in Design Space?
All you have to do is click on one single layer on the layers panel, then hold down the shift key on your keyboard and you can then select a second layer. See in the image above how the layers that I am pointing to with the blue arrows are darkened? This means that they are selected. So if you look at the whole layers panel you can see that only two layers are selected. That is all because of selecting from the layers panel and holding down my shift key on the keyboard. If I had not done that, I would have had to ungroup the image first.
Now I can click the Weld button in the lower right corner of the screen to join the Mickey head with the snowman body. Once I did that, I changed the color of the snowman to white and added the Mickey face and buttons, which I will show you how to do in the video.
Now for the video
I created this video so that you could see the whole process I just showed you in Design Space come together.
Assemble the Card
Once you have all of the pieces for the card cut it is time to assemble the card. This is when I like to use my tape runner and Zig glue pen to add adhesive to the back of each section or piece of the card.
Before I started to assemble anything, I placed a piece of white cardstock in my snowflake embossing folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug. As you can see by the second picture below, the embossing folder leaves a soft impression of the snowflakes on the cardstock. It also helps to add more depth and dimension to my overall card.
Next I assemble the pieces for the base of the card. I add double sided tape with my tape runner to the white embossed cardstock and place that on the front of the card. Then I layer the soft blue piece on top of that. Last I use my Zig glue pen to add glue to the back of the bright blue postage stamp piece.
Now that we have the base of the card created we can start to build the Mickey Mouse snowman.
Building the Mickey Mouse snowman
Using my Zig glue pen again, I add adhesive to the back of the scarf and place that on the Mickey Mouse snowman. Then I glue on the stick arms. He would look cute just like this, but I wanted to add buttons and a face to the snowman.
For the buttons, I used black vinyl so that I would not have to add adhesive to the back of them. To move all three buttons at once, I used Glad Press N Seal instead of transfer tape. The Press N Seal is less tacky so it will hold on to the vinyl but not rip the cardstock of the Mickey Mouse snowman image. I have a video on this process that you can watch HERE.
Since this process of using black vinyl worked so well for the buttons, I used it for the Mickey Mouse face also. The photos below show process I followed. Cut the Mickey Mouse face from black vinyl and weed away the excess vinyl. Place the Press N Seal over the top and flip the whole thing over to peel the backing off of the vinyl. If any portion of the vinyl does not stick to the Press N Seal I use my weeding tools to help it off the backing. Last, position the face over the head of the Mickey Mouse snowman and rub it down so the adhesive on the back of the vinyl sticks to the cardstock.
Now you can use your tape runner again to put adhesive on the back of the snowman and attach him to your base card.
I hope that you enjoyed this post, and that you stop back every day from now until Christmas to see what other Disney Christmas crafts I have planned for you! I am doing 25 Days of Disney Christmas Crafts to inspire you to add more Disney to your life while using your Cricut for crafting. If you want to see the whole line up of crafts you can go HERE.