This is my fall bouquet project for 2023 - but it's taking me a very long time to complete it. So I am adding the flowers to this post as I complete them, and hopefully I'll finish it before I start pulling out the Christmas decorations this November. :-) Here's a look at the flower svgs I've used, and how I have modified them, so far:
Showing posts with label Paper Flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paper Flowers. Show all posts
Paper Sunflower In a Milk Can
My Flowerfest Bouquet
Bouquet made during the Abbi Kirstin Flowerfest, July 2023
It's rare that I do too much with these never-ending summits. I simply don't have time, and there are so very many of them. But for this flowerfest summit by Abbi, I marked the day off on my calendar and told my family I was unavailable that day. (I did still have farm chores, and my grandson here part of the day... but that's about as close to a day off as I can get right now)
Here's a look at what I made, some tips for things I do a bit differently than she instructs, and some free options for the flowers, since this class was free for 24 hours only.
Sunflower & Bee Banner
A Sunflower & Bee Banner, made with a variety of svgs
Here's what I used:
These are the same bee and flower svgs I used to make the magnets.
Unfortunately, the bundle, from Canada Crafts, is no longer available. CC is no longer on Creative Fabrica at all, although they do have a store on Design Bundles - this particular bundle is not on there.
However, there's a FREE, similar svg from:
Daily Dose of DIY has a free bee svg that I like a bit better than the bearly art version:
And there's an entire selection of free sunflower svgs here
The banner I used is my favorite banner base - it's from Special Hearts Studio.
Just use the base - skip the flag and star tops for this. I cut 10 of the base, then glued them together in sets, so I have 5 pieces two pieces thick. That's not necessary with heavier cardstock, but I always find my kraft brown cardstock to be a little thinner than a lot of my other 12x12 papers.
The svg in the center is from a bundle I got in the Dollar Deals ages ago. It's 40 bee designs, and I've used a lot of them on wine pouches and garden flags.
A garden flag made from the same svg bundle
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My Favorite Cardstock Brands - And Where To Find Them
My Favorite Cardstock, The Experts Favorite Card Stock Selections, Price Comparisons, And A Look At My Paper Storage
If you had told me 3 years ago that I'd eventually be buying more paper than vinyl, I'd have laughed and thought that was extremely unlikely. And yet, here we are... with paper projects on my desk every week, and vinyl only pulled out once every month or so! [That may be partially because I put vinyl & htv on EVERYTHING the first two years I had a cricut.... LOL! ]
When I first started with paper projects, I felt like a kindergartner. [A glue stick is still my preferred glue for most layered projects... ] My projects were messy. They sometimes still are, but they have definitely come a long way. Mostly because I settled on better papers. Not expensive papers - I'm too frugal for that, for the most part. Just BETTER paper. I almost always buy something with some texture, or pearlized, or frosted now.
And I don't just stock up on all the colors - I buy the colors I truly love. Which are, most commonly, very deep jewel tones, which can be more difficult to find. Cardstock manufacturers sure do like their brights and pastels.
These are the papers I buy most often. They have all cut well for me, on a regular basis - and they tend to be the best deals I have found. I do buy most of my paper locally, rather than online - at least the first time I purchase it. Too often I find that the color shown on my screen is not true to what it looks like in person. Once I know I love a particular pack, I'll buy it online, but only if shipping is free or it's a fantastic sale.
After I list my favorites, I tell you about what Dreaming Tree, Jennifer Maker, & Lia Griffith, recommend, as well.
And then if you scroll WAY down to the bottom of this post, I share how I organize and store my paper and paper scraps, too.
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How To Make Paper Dahlias [And Free svgs too]
How To Make Large Paper Dahlias
And Where To Find Free SVGS
And Where To Find Free SVGS
Paper Dahlias are made with one circle, for the base, and a bunch of squares. So you don't actually need an svg, your shapes tool will work fine.. but there are some free svgs in here too. :-)
Free Svgs For Making Paper Roses
Where To Find Free Tutorials & SVGs
For Making Paper Roses
For Making Paper Roses
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Making Paper Flowers With Cricut - The Index
Where to find free svgs, tutorials, techniques, tools, and projects, for large paper flowers, rolled paper flowers, paper flower bouquets, and more! [Tutorials and svgs will also work with other cutting machines, I just happen to still own cricut machines, myself. ]
Free SVGS For Paper Flower Bouquets
Where To Find Free SVGS & Tutorials
For Making Paper Flower Bouquets
Large Paper Bunny Flower - With Free SVG
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Making a Large Paper Flower Bunny
I saw something similar to this year year or two ago, done by someone who sells large paper flower displays. I'm pretty sure theirs was a lot fancier than this, but here's how I made my (most likely) quicker and easier version.
St Patrick's Day Flowers
The Poppy SVG from Abbi Kirstin looks like shamrocks. I converted it into green flowers to go on our Lions Club pins, for a meeting this week.
Because there was no way of knowing how many would be present, or would need green for the clubs March requirement that we wear green, I made a bunch of extras, and then made a few more when I realized I liked the look in a crock as a decoration. :-)
The exact SVG I used is from Abbi Kirstin and is no longer free
However, I think that the FREE version by Jennifer Maker looks nearly identical
I had used this same project in the past, for Poppy Pins for Remembrance Day. These are the modifications I used on the original file:
1. After all the pieces are uploaded, select all, align center. Then resize to 6.5 wide. I may even go to 6 wide next time - but 6.5 worked, and the centers still cut well, I cut on cardstock plus for the centers - just to make sure they cut well.
2. I deleted 3 of the 3 petal pieces - making each flower just 3 layers. The 4th layer is nice for bouquets, but for the pins, I wanted a little less fluff.
I used hot glue to attach floral wire to the inside of the first layer, then assembled the rest of the flower. The wires tuck neatly between the magnets on our club pins.
The shamrock mandala is from Special Hearts Studio - Free svg
Those brown things on the sides are Insulator Caps. I have collected these for many years, and when my gram passed away, I found a fantastic collection of them in my grandfathers garage. He had died before I was born, I had no idea he had collected them too. :-) Years later I learned that there's a whole convention in Ohio for collectors! I'm not that serious about my collection - but I would like to go to the convention one year.
"Insulators are non-electrical conducting objects, usually made of glass or porcelain, intended to insulate the current running in a wire from grounding out, especially in fog or rain. Most often they are mounted on wooden pins on the cross arms of telephone poles"
My St Patrick's Day Leaf Gnome is not a free file.
I made this using the fall leaf gnome from Dreaming Tree
3D Printed Tools For Flower Making
My husband used his 3D Printer to print this flower rolling tool. There are a variety of free files for these, but this one is my favorite. I was surprised by how much I like the handle on this.
Making Felt Roses With Cricut - Free svg
Making Felt Roses With Cricut & The Rotary Blade
This is what I bought the Maker for. Well, projects like this at least. I've been able to cut just about everything with my Air 2 - except felt. For felt, you really do want the rotary blade, which means, you have to use a Maker. The Air 2 cannot use a rotary blade. All the frustration I've been through with trying to get a Maker that works (THREE machines. it took me THREE to get one that works - and I'm not convinced this 3rd one truly works as well as it should.. but at least it works.) And I've barely made anything at all with felt.
It's time to change that. I started with an easy one - felt roses. These are really quick and easy to make!
CWS Valentine Truck Larger Than Mat, with Rolled Flowers
A Layered Vintage Valentine Truck, filled with Rolled Paper Flowers
This is the FREE Valentine Truck svg from Craft With Sarah, modified and cut "larger than mat", with a bundle of free rolled flower svgs from JoJo & Bella in the bed of the truck.
I've made it "larger than mat", increasing the size to 14.5, and I have deleted some of the heart layers, replacing them with rolled paper flowers on top.
Here's a step by step on how I did this.
Free Valentine Truck svg found here:
https://www.craftwithsarah.com/cricut-crafts/valentines-day-truck-svg/
First, Unzip the download, upload the svg to Design Space. The svg is the file that looks like an html file, or like a website. For a detailed step by step on how to use svgs in Design Space, go here.
Next, at the top of the design space screen, lock the ratio. That's the little lock on top of the sizes - click on it, so that it is "locked", instead of unlocked. Now you can resize to 14.5.
By default, the size ratio is unlocked in uploads. You will almost always, 99.5% of the time, want the ratio locked.
There's been a glitch in DS for awhile now, where if you forget to lock the ratio, resize and realize that distorted your image, then click undo - the entire image will disappear. You can just add it again from the uploads menu, but it can get pretty annoying. If you get in the habit of always looking at that lock before resizing, it will save you aggravation in the long run. :-)
Now, if you are going to add the rolled paper flowers, there are three layers you can delete - they aren't needed. I have them highlighted here on the right - they are three heart layers in the bed of the truck.
With those 3 items deleted, your project should look something like this.
If you have resized to 14.5 like I did, unless you have the longer sized papers, cricut cannot cut this at this size.
Our local Michaels does carry Recollections Paper packs in 12x24, but they are pricy, even on sale. And they are a pain to store, for those of us with smaller craft areas. I didn't want to buy more paper for this, so I did some slicing. I could have just sliced the 3 pieces in half, then used heavy tape on the back (a masking tape, or even duct tape) to reinforce over the seams. But with the added weight of the rolled paper flowers I planned to add, I decided to make sure my slices overlapped.
Here's what I did:
First I grouped my project, then duplicated it. I hid the duplicate. This is only a precautionary measure, it's NOT needed. But if I make a mistake on my "working copy", I have a back up with the first few adjustments already made, making it easier to start over. Once I have the duplicate copy, I clicked on the eye to the right to hide it, so it's not visible on the mat.
Now if you click make it, you can quickly look at the mats and see which ones are too long. Click Cancel, and go back to your work space, find those three layers in the layers panel. I have them selected in the image below:
Select those three items, and at the top of the layers panel, select the duplicate option. Again, duplicate is not completely necessary - you could just work with the original. But I like to have a saved copy, and a "working" copy, I find it easier to recover when I make mistakes.
Next I drug the pink and black layers off to the side, so I could work with the grey layer first. Again, duplicate. This time it is necessary to duplicate.
I want to cut these pieces in half, with an overlap. So I'll slice both grey images, leaving the front piece longer on one, and the back piece longer on the other.
To slice, create a 9 inch square (shapes menu, on the left in Design Space for computers). Duplicate it. Place the squares over the grey truck layers - one in the front, one in the back.
You can only select 2 items at a time to slice, so select the top grey truck layer, and the top square, then choose Slice, from the menu on the bottom right of the screen (on a computer - menus may look different if you are using an ipad or phone app)
Drag all the extra pieces to the right, to be certain you like the image you are left with.
Delete the extras, and repeat with the second image.
Now your grey layer is in two pieces, with a good overlap to add stability when piecing together.
Repeat the slicing process for the remaining two large layers.
This next step is not necessary, but I like to layer my sliced images, and group them together, so that the two sliced pieces stay together as I move them around.
Now, in the layers panel on the right, find the 3 long solid layers in the project image, and delete them.
Replace those layers with our newly sliced layers.
Note my mistake - for the pink layer, I glued the wrong front on! I caught my mistake quickly and was able to fix it, thankfully. Although my pinks are two different colors, they are very similar shades, and i just was not paying enough attention.
Here is my completed truck base - all glued together and ready for flowers
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THE FLOWERS
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This bundle of Rolled Paper Flowers is FREE for personal use.
To download from this site, you will need to login, or register, first.
Then go to this page for the flowers:
Under license, choose "personal"
Once you choose personal use only, the explanation will take up most of the page- scroll down, and at the bottom will be a "download now" button.
One you download this, you have to extract (unzip) the zip file, then find the folder with the svgs. Upload the svgs to Design Space.
Each file is individual here, so it's a bit of a pain, you have to upload them one at a time. There are 8 flower included, and you do NOT need 8 different designs, you could choose just a few for this project. I uploaded them all primarily because I wanted to make a sample sheet showing what each one looks like when cut.
Rolled Paper Flower Size Chart
Sizes are approximate, and will vary slightly by design, and how tightly you roll.
I chose to resize the flowers to 5.5 wide, allowing me to fit 4 on a 12x12 sheet of paper - or 2 on an 8.5x 11 sheet
Then I used color sync so that there are two flowers in each color.
Just click on the color sync option on the top right.
Then drag images in menu to combine them. The latest update has really made the Color Sync option more complicated to use, I hope that DS will switch it back to the old color sync, but this does still work, it's just more awkward.
I sized all of the leaves 3 inches tall. I think 2.5 may work.. 2 inches tall was too small, the center stems are so very thin that they were just too fragile, at 2 inches tall.
After clicking "Make it", at the top left, I changed the Project Copies to "2" and clicked apply.
This cut two of each of the flowers, for 16 total flowers.
I used the leaves to "fill in" and this fit nicely. If not using the leaves, you may need another 3 or 4 flowers.
When rolling paper flowers, you start on the outside of the circle, and roll tightly until you get to the center. Then let the flower "loosen" a bit, gluing the rolled pieces to the circle base in the middle.
This is what each of the flowers looked like once cut and rolled, cutting them at 5.5 inches wide
I used hot glue to attach the flowers to the truck.
I hot glued bakers twine to the back, to hang this.
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