If you only use cookie cutters for your holiday baking, then you are missing many opportunities to feature these distinctive shapes in a variety of craft projects. Cookie cutters have several advantages over some stencils – they are sturdier and they create a shape with a single piece as opposed to some stencils with separate elements for details (such as a flower with individual petals, stem, and leaves that aren’t connected). You can use metal or plastic cookie cutters as the basis for many crafts, both for children and adults.
Clay Ornaments and Paperweights
Whether you are using a homemade craft or play dough, natural clay, or polymer clay, cookie cutters give you options for cutting simple shapes that can be embellished with paint or other colors of clay. Turn these shapes into ornaments (punch a hole in the clay with a plastic straw before it dries), coasters, or paperweights.
Cross Stitch Ornaments
Make holiday ornaments or small wall decorations that you can stitch. Trace the cookie cutter onto a piece of grid paper to create the pattern for a small piece of counted cross stitch. You can add details; however, the piece will look just as nice as a silhouette in a solid color.
Stitch the shape and frame it in a small embroidery hoop that’s just a bit bigger than the design. Depending on the number of boxes an inch on the graph paper and the weave of the cross stitch cloth, you may need to make adjustments so your counted cross stitch isn’t a mere inch big. Count how many boxes the design fills on the graph paper and then measure out an equal number of threads on the cloth.
Painting with Stencils
Depending on the number of times you hope to use a stencil you can make it from cardstock, thicker cardboard, a plastic dinner plate, or a sheet of plastic (the type you might find with a book report cover). Trace the cookie cutter onto the material and use a scissors or craft knife to cut out the shape.
You can use both parts as stencils – you can paint around the shape set down on paper or fabric. The shape ends up white (or the color of the paper or fabric) with the paint surrounding it. Use the piece the shape was cut from and you’ll be able to create a solid, colored shape.
Stamp Art
Trace the cookie cutter shape onto a foam shoe insole or a piece of craft foam. Cut out the shape. Hot glue the shape onto a block of wood or any flat surface that is a bit larger than the stamp image. Use the stamp to decorate gift wrap, t-shirts, tote bags, or walls.
Of course, you can also use cookie cutters as stencils for tracing shapes onto paper for cardmaking and scrapbooking. You can always adjust the shape created by a cookie cutter by setting a tracing of the shape onto a photocopy machine that allows you to adjust the size smaller or larger than the original cookie cutter. Depending on how you’ll use the cookie cutters, you may want a set that you use for crafts and one that you use for baking.
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