Layered daisy

After spending three days stitching a Mother’s Day card for my mum, I really needed to come up with a less time-intensive design for a card for my other half’s mum. Not that this was a particularly quick process — I have never been someone who can knock out a finished card in under an hour — but I definitely didn’t have time to do another embroidered card.

I’d already been uninspired by my digi stamp selection when I was deciding what to do for my mum’s card, so I turned instead to my Cricut Maker. And found nothing inspiring in my selection of cut files either. DesignBundles to the rescue: there are loads of places that you can get cut files and clip art and other digital designs, but I fell into using DesignBundles, taking advantage of their free resources and Dollar Deals. (No affiliation, just a useful resource.) And even buying the occasional product when I needed something specific, like for this card. After much browsing, I settled on these 3D layered daisy flowers.

The file is sized to create 8½” artwork, which is obviously way bigger than I need for a card, but I successfully cut it at just under 10cm tall. I did put a fresh blade in before I started, but I am continually impressed by how well the Cricut Maker handles cutting intricate designs in both delicate and heavier materials.

Assembling the six layers of paper was the fiddliest part. I picked a wet bookbinding glue and used a damp sponge to spread it over the back of each piece; this gave me a decent coverage of adhesive without there being so much it oozed over everything, and gave me a bit of wiggle room if I didn’t get it lined up perfectly first time.

Once the flower was assembled, I just had to decide how to put it on the card. In the end I kept it simple, cutting a panel of patterned paper with a die from the Hero Arts Nesting Postage Stamps Infinity set.