I created these lacing cards for my youngest daughter today, but let me tell you, she had to fight off her older sister for them! They had so much fun weaving the twine through the holes – so even though it says preschoolers, older kids can have fun with them too!
Want to make your own lacing cards? This method is easy and durable! Here’s what you’ll need:
- thin cardboard (think the back of a notebook – I used the back cover of a cardstock pad)
- colored cardstock
- cricut machine or shape dies for a manual die cutter such as the Evolution
- double sided adhesive (such as sticky thumb glue runner) or a glue pen
- Crop-a-Dile eyelet setter
- eyelets
- twine, string, or yarn
(**Don’t forget you can save 20% off at We R Memory Keepers with the promo code MARTHA – almost all of my supplies for this project came from We R!)
To begin, create your shapes in your Cricut software. I created a star, heart, and apple. Yes, I manually added all of the little circles that would become holes, but it really wasn’t that bad. I did a lot of copy and pasting wherever possible. For instance, I only did one tip of the star, attached all the “holes” together and pasted them onto each tip. It all only took about 15 minutes. The words are written with the sketching pen.
Cut a layer on your cardboard and one on colored cardstock. Layer them together and attach with your glue runner or glue pen. Place an eyelet in each hole, and use the Crop-a-Dile to set them. This is such a fun tool to use, because I remember when I first started scrapbooking and was using eyelets – I had a little metal setter that I had to bang with a hammer and it was a pain – not to mention noisy! This tool squeezes the eyelet around both sides of your paper to make sure it stays secure. It’s genius!
After your eyelets are all set, there’s nothing left to do but play! Shoelaces would be ideal, but I didn’t have any so I used baker’s twine. If you use twine or string, just wrap the ends with a bit of scotch tape so the ends don’t split apart.
Aren’t they cute? My daughters adore them. You can lace them however you want – up to you! Wouldn’t it be so much fun to make a set of these for a teacher gift? The cardboard and eyelets make them super durable – just as durable as the ones you can buy in stores for sure!
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