Design Inspiration from a Weathervane

Saturday was a beautiful day so we went out to have a few adventures!  After a quick stop at my favorite stamping and crafting store, we had lunch and then headed out to the Fruitlands Museum to see a new art show in one of the museum buildings.

Fruitlands was the site of the short-lived utopian community that Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott who wrote Little Women) and Charles Lane attempted in 1843.  If you'd like to know more about it, you can read an earlier post about Fruitlands where you will find a link to the official site.

There are several buildings that house various parts of an eclectic collection (Shaker, Native American, paintings...) in addition to this farmhouse where the Alcotts stayed during their attempt at living off the fruit of the land.

You may wonder what this has to do with papercrafting...

The title to the blog post from a couple of years ago was "Inspiration is Everywhere".  I have said that often in the time I have been writing this blog.  You never know what you will see that will inspire a new project, so you just have to keep your eyes and mind open to the possibilities.

A lot of people have been writing to me with questions about the Silhouette machines that I have been using since last spring.  I do find that they cut more precisely than my Cricut machines but the main reason I enjoy using them is the freedom I have to create my own images in the Silhouette Studio software.

I liked the weathervane on one of the buildings at the museum.  The design of the weather vane is interesting - I think it looks like an ornate clock hand.

I zoomed in on my image and then took a screen shot of the portion of the design that interested me.  Then I could drag that image into my Silhouette Studio software (the free version included with the purchase of the machine) and do a trace of the shape.

The post that supports the weathervane wouldn't work for my design so I needed to edit the image after tracing.

Another great feature is the ability to edit the image point by point.  I was able to delete points to take away the central post of the weathervane.

For my purpose, I wanted a totally symmetrical image so I did some additional editing to make the shape symmetrical above and below the horizontal line.

With the base image ready to go, I mirrored and rotated it.  Then I added a shadow behind the delicate lacy design.  This screen shot shows the image I created using the weathervane shape.  I haven't had a chance to try cutting it yet and I may make a few alterations before I try to cut it out with my Silhouette Cameo.

Would you know by looking at the design that it started from a weathervane?
Do you like the idea of making designs this way or does it seem like too much work!

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