Lace and Pearl Medallion

There is no such thing as a design that is too complex or too intricate to me.  I like lace patterns with tiny openings and I challenge my machines to cut them out perfectly.

Out of the first things I cut out with my Cricut Explore was the yellow doily on the left above.  (I wrote about this back in February, see THIS POST). The 3 1/2 inch cut was amazing - such perfect circles and tiny wedge shaped pieces around the edge.  This image is from the Teresa Collins Basics digital set (and it is part of the Image Subscription).

I wanted to see how well the machine would do with a cut that I designed that was similarly intricate.  I was not disappointed -  the pale lavender cut on the right above is my doily design cut at 3 3/4 inches.

I imported my file as an SVG and sized it to fit on an A2 card front.

This is a very intricate design and the Design Space took a little while to show the preview but I did not get a notice that the design was too complex (I have seen that once or twice when I had a very large number of intricate items in a file).

With this level of detail, it took a while for the file to cut.  I have noticed that the Explore cuts fairly slowly but I would rather have a perfect cut that takes a little longer than a fast cut with lots of errors and incomplete details.

The finished cut lifted off the mat nicely.  There were a few tiny pieces that lifted with the image but they were easy to brush away since the cuts were complete.

This shows the inner pieces that were left on the mat - it is so close to perfect that if you squint your eyes a bit you think you are seeing a green doily in the empty space left on the mat.

The cardstock is a fairly thick shimmer cardstock in a very pale lavender color. The weight is listed as 250 gsm which is similar to 90 pound cardstock.  I kept my dial on the regular cardstock setting and everything cut beautifully.

The lace has a few solid areas that I planned as spots where tiny gems could be added.  I used two sizes of flat back adhesive pearls

To add a larger pearl brad to the center of the medallion, I used this Cricut weeding tool to pierce a hole in the center.

After inserting the brad, I flattened the prongs and cut a large foam dot in half to accommodate the height of the metal prongs.

This side view shows the shadow lines that are created when an element is raised from the surface of the card.  I am still marveling at the quality of this cut with so many very tiny openings.

I put the medallion on an A2 card made from  lilac Bazzill cardstock.  The background of dark shimmer blue cardstock is cut at 4 x 5 1/4 inches with a white layer cut at 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 inches to help frame the card. 

I will be sharing the SVG file for this lace medallion with everyone on my email list, so be sure to sign up if you haven't already.  You can join the list HERE.

If you had a feedburner subscription and were receiving email updates, your information was added to my new list. Some of you had written to say that you were no longer getting emails with my blog posts.  I believe this new email system will solve that problem.

Subscribe to Capadia Designs if you would like to have new posts delivered directly to your email. 

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product using the link I may receive a commission. I only participate in affiliate programs for products that I use or can recommend without reservation