For my upcoming birthday my Mom got me a new Cricut Explore. Yippee!!

Okay, I’ll be honest.

She and my Dad overheard me giggling at work and asked what on Earth I was up to.

When I admitted that I was checking on my Explore order, she decided that would be my birthday present from them.

Pretty much the same way I got my original Cricut and Silhouette machine. He he.

So, the past few days I’ve simply been playing around with it seeing what it can and can’t do.

Last night I loaded the scoring stylus and made several heart pillow boxes.

My boxes~

I started with a Make It Now Project by TomKat Studios; however, I couldn’t see paying .99 cents for a simple heart.

Especially since I planned to use my layered heart punch and the cork stack.

My cork hearts~

So, I customized the project by changing the size of the box and by getting rid of the heart.

Easy peasy.

And even better free.

I used~

DCWV The Gilded Paper Stack, The Cork Stack Pastels
EK Layered Heart Punch, Papertrey Ink Twine and American Crafts Twine
Heart Pillow Boxes by The TomKat Studio cut @ 5.5″ wide