Layered Mandala

While Spain is in lock-down, I am making the most of my time, putting my new Silhouette Cameo 4 through its paces.
Yesterday I made this layered mandala using a cutting file by the designer Olga of Clean Cut Creative. (It can be found on fontbundles.net if anyone is interested).

It comes as seven layers all grouped together, so I resized the group to fit an 8" shadow box I had in my stash, and then un-grouped it.

I went through my stash of plain card and found seven pieces of toning colour sranging from a dark burgundy to a pale peachy-pink.

I cut one layer from each sheet and carefully stacked them with 1mm foam tabs, making sure the pattern was layered correctly each time.

I put it into my deep frame, and to ensure it sat securely I added three layers of bubble wrap behind it to fill the gap, and then fitted the back panel so now it is ready to hang.

It was quite tricky to cut and some layers had to be cut twice. It would seem that my autoblade has failed, despite only being used a few times, so I reverted to an older style of blade fitted into a converter holder supplied with the machine, and that worked fine.

Rudolph Day Challenge # March 2020

If you glance back at my previous post you will see I have been putting my new Silhouette Cameo 4 machine through its paces so I decided to keep with it for my Christmas cards this month. I bought a few cutting files from svgcuts.com and this was the perfect opportunity to try them out.

This is the one I made. It is a box card which folds flat to go in an envelope.

The layers can all be cut from one sheet of 12" x 12" card, and I used some from a pack I bought off Amazon a while ago. The fascia was run through a wood-effect embossing folding to add some texture, and I raided my snippets boxes for oddments of green and red card to cut the wreath. You can see how the layers fit together here.

There was a file to make an arched frame for the back which I stamped with a holly background stamp, and an inner piece which I edged with the same ink pad - Archival fern green, and stamped with a simple sentiment by Stampin' up, leaving just enough space to write on.

To finish with, I added some glitter glue sparkle to the roof edges to represent frost or snow, and red perfect pearls for berries on the wreath.

The files also included one for an envelope which I made as the folded card did not fit in any of my standard size ones.

The card folds very flat and should not be any problem to post.

This is a cute little church so yesterday I cut out three more which are now waiting to be made up.

And while the machine was set up I also cut two sets for this simple card. (Files also purchased from svgcuts.com, probably a couple of years ago). This was a good way to use up some white and green snippets and my only addition was some very pale colour added to the dove's tail and wings. The original card was completely round which wasn't very practical so I decided to trim across the lower part so it would stand. And this one will fit into a standard envelope so  no need to make special ones.

With the likely-hood of me being able to post any birthday cards for a while being almost zero, I am concentrating on Christmas while in lock-down here, so my stash should be building up nicely.

I am going to link up now with Rudolph Day Challenge#March, and Pixie's Snippets Playground, and make a start on next month's entry!