Something a little bit different

My youngest son has a birthday coming up this month and while I was thinking what I would put on a card for him, I saw this, and it immediately made me think of him.

Ben is the son who writes and sings his own songs, and he can portray a lot of emotion in them. I have seen adults moved to tears by one or two of his songs. So this was perfect for him. I saw it on a Silhouette Facebook page where a kind lady called Merrie Huntley-Burruss posted the cutting file for us to use. (I can't say for sure whether she designed it but I am assuming she did). So I was going to try cutting it with paper for his card, when in a flash of inspiration I decided to try something a bit different.

I chose a sheet of paper from my stash in bright yellows and oranges with gold highlights, and used this inside a clear clip frame. Next I opened the cutting file in my Silhouette software and resized it to fit the frame. I made a musical border top and bottom from individual note files, and cut it all out in black vinyl.

It cut well and the notes were easy to 'weed'. As you can see, I have some scrap paper ready to put the unwanted sticky bits on. The main image caused me rather more problems as it is very difficult to see the cut lines, and some of the script is very fine. but while I was doing it I suddenly realised that it would be better to stick it to the inside of the glass than to the paper, as I could then move it if I made a mistake. 

To do this I needed to cut a mirror image of everything so I had another go. It was even harder to weed reversed as nothing looked right, but I got there in the end. I used transfer paper to lift the whole cut from the vinyl backing paper, and re-position it on the glass. Then I had to rub it down really hard to make sure it was well stuck all over. Here it is on the glass. It has some kitchen roll under it so I could see what I was doing.

Finally I assembled it all so now it is ready to send. 

I have put it back into the polystyrene base that the frame was in when I bought it, and wrapped it in plenty of bubble wrap, and, fingers crossed', it will arrive in one piece. Ben is on holiday on his actual birthday so I will be posting this to arrive as soon as he gets back. I guess if I had been making this for a girl, I might have put it in a 'proper' frame, and prettied it up with flowers and butterflies, but I think plain and simple is the better approach for Ben.