Lots of Layers - Worth the Work

This card has a simple design but it's not-so-simple!  I have been helping our neighbors get settled into their temporary house while they wait for their home to be rebuilt after the fire.  I was thinking of doing some vinyl for the walls in the children's rooms since it is a rental and they shouldn't do much painting.

In thinking about the types of images that would be good for the walls, I thought about all sorts of girly things like flowers and fairies.  I remembered that I had the Tinker Bell  & Friends cartridge and that I had never opened it.  I got this cartridge a long time ago on sale at Michael's for $29 - it seemed like too good a price to turn down.  I finally opened it up to try a cut.

I decided to try one of the flowers and I chose this image because it looked like a lily of the valley (one of my favorites),

I wanted to make a Thank You card, so I looked on the Wild Card cartridge for a quick sentiment.  I usually weld my own words in Design Studio, but there are plenty of nice pre-welded words and phrases on a lot of the cartridges.

I chose the "thanks"  and adapted it a bit for my card.  In this screen shot you can see the word as it would cut at a 6 1/2 inch setting (remember, the sentiments on some cartridges are sized to fit on a card cut at the dial size and are smaller than you expect).  I actually stretched the word to make it a bit taller so it would fit my card better.

When I plan a card in Design Studio, I always place a rectangle or square in the appropriate size on my mat as a guideline.  By doing this I can be sure that the elements will fit nicely and conserve paper since I don't need to make any "trial cuts" to check sizing.  This rectangle is not cut and can be deleted or moved to another page before you finish the file.  I sized my flower at 3 inches.

I also make sure to find all of the layers for a complicated cut like this and then determine a good way to lay out the mat to cut them in one pass if possible.  Here you can see the mat set up with all of the pieces I need to cut.  The squares represent the pieces of paper I need to place on the mat (these were added to the screen shot - they are not Design Studio elements).

Here you can see my real mat after cutting the pieces all at once.  I used Core'dinations cardstock in three shades of green for the base and some pink and yellow gemstone Core'dinations card stock for the flowers, leaf center and sentiment.

The design did cut well but the pieces are ever so tiny and hard to keep track of.  I used my mat to hold all of the tiny pieces before I glued the design together.

Here you can see the first three large layers put together.  I used three shades of green - dark, medium and light - to emphasize the layers with color contrast.

The little tiny pieces for the flower are very tricky.  Be sure not to start working on an intricate layered design like this if you are not prepared to be patient!  When you add the tiny pieces, it is easier to put the glue on the base cut and settle the pieces into the glued area.

The final result is lovely with all of the details.  The mat layer is cut at 4 x 5.25 inches from yet another piece of Core'dinations cardstock with a lovely texture.  The flower is raised up with foam squares for added dimension.   The card base is an 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch sheet of cardstock in "Lavender Moon" from Papertrey Ink (scored and folded in half).  A card like this would make the person being thanked feel extra special.

I will have to try a few more of the cuts - and maybe start looking for vinyl in the right colors to match the kid's rooms next door!

Don't Forget to check out the new Cricut Cake and go to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to enter the great giveaway - The Cake debuts at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, April 14th - not much longer to wait!