Lacing Cards

I found some those awesome melissa and doug lacing beads at Savers for 1.99 and of course had to snatch those right up.  This activity is a little difficult for my 2 year olds but is a great educational activity I can help them with.  While playing with the beads, I thought about the lacing cards or sewing cards I had as a child.  I decided I wanted to get my cricut out and make some for my kiddos.  There are so many options for lacing cards and I was thinking this is also a great birthday present as well as party favors for birthday parties.  Here are the steps I took to make my lacing cards:
Got my handy dandy cricut and the cutting up cartridge and cute paper:

Then I cut out a J and K for there names but thinking now I wish I just cut there name out so they could see their name in print..

I cut th letters and glued them on cardstock and traced around them with marker to define them alittle more.  Next I cut them out and put them in a laminating pouch and laminated them using my yourstory from provo craft- which I found on sale for $34 at Walmart. Otherwise I would of taken them to get laminated. 

This was the first time I used this so didn't push all the air bubbles out so it got a little wrinkled on the way out

Next you cut them out and punch holes around them. Take a shoe lace and lace or you can use a piece of yarn with tape around the end.  So while I was doing this I thought how cool to repurpose the valentine cards the kids got from their great grandmother "Nanny".  So I cut the card in half and glued the writing part on the back and laminated it.

Punch holes and play. 

For the dinosaur lacing card I used the paper doll cartridge.  I drew the design by removing the blade and using the cricut marker then replacing and cutting out the image.