That Time I Made a Topiary Out of Paper

As mentioned in a few posts before, the autism center my boys use is amazing. Most of the work on this project was done there. I cut out everything at home, then colored, shaped, and assembled most of it at the center. The topiary is from the kit Thank You For the Music at SVG cuts.

This is kind of picture intensive, so please be patient with me. There were a lot of components.

I took pictures of some of the process. I’m always amazed I can start with flat pieces of paper and make something substantial and dimensional. So I included pics for other people who might feel the same way 🙂

First, the focal points – the flowers. There’s two types. The main flowers and the fillers. Each main flower has 5 parts. I cut them out of blue paper, then added white to the centers, dark blue to the edges, then blended with a shade of blue somewhere between the color of the paper and the dark blue. I believe there were 32 big flowers.

I wanted a fuller topiary, so I used more filler flowers than called for. I used the same process of coloring them as I did for the blue flowers, just different colors.

 

I also wanted to add clovers and leaves to the base. The clovers are from the Springtime Box Cards kit at SVG Cuts. The leaves are from the pumpkin in the Harvest Sunset Kit, also from SVG Cuts.

I started with white paper  and colored the clovers and leaves the colors I needed them. I used a mix of ink and colored pencils.

 

 

And I just HAD to have a hummingbird. And wouldn’t you know it, SVG Cuts has one or those, too! This one is from their Hummingbird Box Card. Instead of cutting out different colors of paper, I cut all the pieces out in white, then colored the individual pieces before assembling. I made a mirror copy that I used to sandwich a wire between so I could make it hover by the topiary.

 

 

So those are the elements 🙂 Here’s some pics of the finished product. Thanks to my daughter who helped me get the pics 🙂

The clover.

 

The topiary and the hummingbird.

The whole topiary

And the card. I used a kit in my Craft Artist collection and designed this card. The flowers weren’t colored, which I LOVE because it allows me to color them 🙂 I used a combination of copics and colored pencils for the flowers on the card.

That Time I Made Some Box Cards…Again

I really do love box cards, probably because I love dimension. Creating something 3D out of paper always seems like magic to me, even though it’s not new.

So, here are a couple of box cards.

This one can be found in the Silhouette Design Store and was for someone in the hospital.

This one can be found at SVG Cuts. I made it for a friend of mine who unexpectedly lost her dog last week. I had NO idea she had a thing for hummingbirds, but she does, so this was a perfect fit.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Signs That Adoption is Close

During the last 21 months or so, the baby has been visiting his bio mom twice a week.

In the beginning, there’s always a parent aid involved. When parents make enough progress toward reunification, the parent aid role diminishes until parents finally get unsupervised visits which lead to over nights and even whole weekends with their child.

Our parent aid was involved until the very last visit. This woman, who was a stranger in the beginning, now feels kind of like family. She’s a woman who has been part of my son’s life since the beginning. A woman who made a tough, scary situation for me so much easier. A woman who likes hummingbirds.

So when I decided I wanted to make her a thank you gift for our last visit, I knew I wanted it to have hummingbirds 🙂

Because I still want to vinyl all the things, I knew vinyl would be part of it.

Here’s what I came up with.

I liked the tile, but it’s big and bulky. Also, I wanted to color. So I took the image I put together for the tile and made it work for a card, too. My Silhouette cut out the vinyl for the tile then I tried really hard not to cuss (I was successful) while I tried to get the transfer tape to work for me. It finally did- mostly.

For the card, I printed the images and card design. I then had my Silhouette cut all the pieces out. I love dimension and knew I wanted it in this card. I used my markers and pencils to color bird and flowers then affixed the images on to the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Some days I make something and look at the finished project and I’m happy with it. Some days, I’m shocked because it turned out better than I hoped. Those are the times I sit back and say, “I can’t believe that worked.”

This week, there were no days like that. I feel like I struggled for every card I finished – and I only finished three of them. I’m not even posting one of them. I know if I force a project and it’s just not my “thing,” I hit walls like this. But that wasn’t the problem this time. But I also know, that I need to push through those walls. Sometimes pushing through leads to ideas I’d never have thought of, and they worked.

This week, there were no days like that, either.

But I thought I’d share, and even show some of the things that just weren’t working for me.

First up, is the happiness card.

I designed the strip along the side in Craft Artist 2 (so sad they’re not around anymore) using a combination of paper layering and then stenciling (all digital). Once I had what I wanted, I exported the pieces and dragged them onto my Silhouette work space. I used a saying that I love, but up until now haven’t figured out a place to use it. I’m still not sure how I feel about using it here, but it’s done 🙂

The challenge here was finding the best way to transfer all those letters onto the card in one piece – I don’t enjoy lining up letters and words just right, it takes too long and I could be doing something fun, like coloring 😉

So the answer I came up with was matting the words. This worked great. I created the mat for the saying using the Offset feature then filled it in with black. It wasn’t quite what I was going for – the letters and words weren’t as connected as I wanted them to be – so I did another offset.

It looked great but cut terribly.

After printing the elements I needed, I loaded my paper into my Cameo. Instead of doing one cut to cut out the exterior mat, it tried to cut out everything. I tried over and over to get it to do what I wanted. Finally, on like the 5th try, a light bulb went off over my head. And in case someone else finds this helpful, I’m going to share that light bulb moment.

When using the offset function, you’re essentially creating another layer. I typically group those layers so I can move them around my workspace easier. Now, remember how I wanted that third mat/layer? I selected my grouped item and used the offset function. What I didn’t realize, was that it was creating a mat for BOTH layers. When I went to cut it, it wasn’t cutting how I thought I’d designed it. THE FIX – ungroup them, “unstack” them, select ONLY the mat that was just created, and offset just the mat. After I had all my pieces done, I layered them, centered them, grouped them, and printed the saying (again), then FINALLY, SUCCESSFULLY cut that thing out how I wanted it.

So here’s the next card.

Once again, I designed the background in Craft Artist and got it into my Silhouette work space. I added a sentiment I found in the Silhouette Design store and then added a bird on a branch silhouette (I’m sure you’ve noticed, there is no bird on a branch on this card). I actually tried two or three different bird on a branch silhouettes. The plan was to add the details in and color it – like I’ve done with so many other projects.

It didn’t work.

New idea.

Use one of the stamp and metal die sets to find something that worked – a humming bird fit what I was trying to do. I colored it – and I was happy with how it turned out. Then I lined the image and the metal die up, taped things down and ran it through my die cutting machine. I went to remove it and realized my die slipped at some point and it didn’t cut the image correctly. I stamped and colored again, then lined up everything, added extra tape this time to keep things in place and it FINALLY worked. I put that bad boy together and declared the card done.

Here’s a picture of the card with some of the things that didn’t work. There were more things, but I’d already thrown them away.

I hope you had a better week doing whatever it is you do.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

Thank you, Butterfly saying, stamp and die set, bird I didn’t use

I Appear to Like Hummingbirds

I have another hummingbird card. Used my copics and twinkling H20’s.

I used one of my metal dies to cut it out then designed the background in Craft Artist 2 which I then moved into my Silhouette design space and cut out a few separate pieces and put it all together 🙂

Thanks for stopping by 🙂