Fleur-de-lis Mesh (Home Decor)

One of my favorite things to do with the Design Studio software is to make lace cardstock mesh pages. It is always interesting to see the designs that can be created by simple repetition of one design element.



This fleur-de-lis mesh is made from the fleur-de-lis on the Home Decor cartridge.



Here is a closer view of the fleur-de-lis. I think this is a particularly nice shape with great detail. I made a mesh with seventy fleurs-de-lis (seven rows of ten). That is a very large number of welds - the design is complex and takes a long time to cut. You can call a friend, do the dishes, throw in some laundry and have a cup of coffee and then (maybe) it will be done cutting! Be sure that your paper is well stuck to the mat and use medium weight cardstock with a smooth finish to try to insure a clean cut.



I was lucky - this design cut perfectly the first time I tried it. I carefully lifted the outer edges off the mat.



The border design that results from this cut is rather pretty and I will save this to use for a scrapbook page.



Take your time lifting the full page cut from the mat. I find my wide plastic putty knife to be a very valuable tool for a job like this! (you can get these at the hardware store for a dollar or two).



Once the cut is lifted, there will be lots of bits left on the mat. Of course, I did save the larger shapes (I can't throw anything that might be useful away!).



I don't know what to call these shapes - if you look at the one on the right you might see a viking with fluffy pigtails...



I decided to trim off the "horns" and ended up with these shapes that cold be corner accents...



...photo corners...



or even lined up for a border - there are lots of possibilities.



I also like the look of the mesh turned 90 degrees so the flowers are to the sides - you can see a "3" in the design this way.



The paper I used to test the cut was two sided - above you can see the slightly patterned opposite side (remember, you can click on the photo for a larger view). I think I may try this again with a very bold and bright paper and see how that looks.

If you use this file for a project, I'd love to see how it turns out.


(I am not posting a digital challenge this week - there may be one next Thursday. If you wanted to try Challenge #8 you have an extra week to try it).


Fleur-de-lis full page mesh