Hello and welcome to Craft with Sarah. In this video, I'm going to show you how to make
this gorgeous sunflower frame with your Cricut machine. All of the sunflowers are cut out with
a Cricut machine and then layered together with foam pads to create this 3D effect.
Your frame would probably have glass in the front, but I have just taken mine out for
the video because it was reflecting my camera and looking a little bit weird.
This is a free download from my website, and you can get it from craftwithsarah.com or, I'll drop a
link in the description of this video. Let's find out how to make this beautiful sunflower frame!
Once you've downloaded the file from my website, it will come as a zip folder.
You need to unzip the folder first before you can upload the SVG file into Cricut Design Space.
To do this on a Windows computer, right click on the zip folder and then press
‘extract all’. Choose where you want to save the files to and then press ‘extract’. You've
now got another copy of the folder, but this time, the icon doesn't have the zip on it.
If you're using a Mac or a mobile device, check the description of this video
as I’ll put a link to a post where you can find out information on how to unzip folders
on your particular machine or device. I'm going to double click into the
unzipped folder to show you what's in here. There's a folder called ‘SVG file’,
and that's the one that contains the SVG that you'll upload into Design Space. There's another
folder called ‘other file formats’, and you only need to use that if you're using a different
type of cutting machine - such as a silhouette. In there, there's a ‘dxf’ and a ‘png’ version
of the file, but if you're using a Cricut, all you need is the one in the ‘SVG file’
to upload the SVG into Design Space. Start a new project and then click on ‘upload’.
Next, press ‘upload image’ and drag and drop or browse to find the SVG file. I've got mine here,
remember it's the one in the folder called ‘SVG file’, and then I'm going to drag the SVG
into here. This will load up on the screen and you’ll see it with all the different colours.
Then I'm going to press ‘upload’. It's now in my ‘recent uploads’, so I
can click on it and then press ‘insert images’ and it's going to put it onto my page for me.
There is a weird quirk or bug in Design Space 6.4, which is the one I'm using at the moment,
where when you upload an SVG file it's coming in at 12 inches tall which is really, really big!
You want to make sure that you re-size it to fit your frame before you cut it out, otherwise you
might end up with something that's way too big. In order to know what size to make the sunflower
design and to cut it out, you'll need to measure your frame. I've got a square box
frame here and I've taken off the back and I'm going to take out the spacer that's inside.
You want to measure it from one edge to the other edge.
Mine is 8.5 inches wide, so that will be the size of the main piece that I have underneath.
I've already cut a piece of white card to size, and you can see that'll be exactly the same
size. To get the sunflower design to fit on there, you wouldn't want to make it all the way to the
edge because when you turn your frame over, you'll notice that some of the parts at the front cover
up some of the edges. We need to make sure that our design will still be visible. The easiest
way to do this, I think, is to take the front of the frame so it's facing you and then position
your ruler so that it lines up with the inside of the frame and see how much space you've got.
Mine is just about 8 inches, but I don't want to make it too close to the edge because I want to
make a border to go around there so that the frame has a nice edging to it. I'm thinking for mine,
I'd probably want my design to be about 6.5 inches in width, as that's going to
give me a nice gap around the edge, and it will fit beautifully into the middle.
When I make the mat to go around the edge, that's going to need to be 8.5 inches wide - the same as
my main white piece. I’m having a bit of a think; if there's 8 inches there, then I'll
probably make the middle square 7.5 inches. I want my design to be 6.5 inches wide,
so I'm going to change that box to 6.5 at the top. That's re-sized it for me.
To make the frame for my design to go in the shadow box, I'm going to go into ‘shapes’ and
choose a square. I'll just drag this over to the side of it so it's easier to see.
I want to size this so that it's the size of the outside of the spacer that I measured a minute
ago. Mine was 8.5 inches and it's a square. To make the smaller square in the middle to
cut out to make that frame, I'm going to right click on the square and press ‘duplicate’.
I'm going to make this one white, just so it's easier to see, and then re-size this to the size
that I decided the inside of that frame should be. I need to position this white square directly in
the middle of the grey one. I'm going to click and drag a box around both of them and then go
into ‘align’ at the top and press ‘centre’. That's put that white square directly in the middle. With
those two squares still selected, I can go down to the bottom of the layers panel and press ‘slice’.
That's cut the white square out of the grey one, so I now have three separate layers.
I don't need the first two so I'm going to delete those. I'm then left with this one,
and this is going to be the mat for my vase. What I can do before I cut this out,
is drag the vase inside it to make sure that it's going to fit - which it is, perfectly.
This is now ready for me to go ahead and click ‘make it’ and follow the steps to cut it out
on my Cricut machine. Something I like to do when I'm cutting out things for shadow boxes,
is to first cut out the frame so that I know it's going to fit in my box. I'll try putting
it into the physical shadow box. Then, the next layer I cut out
is the base layer of the layered design - the bottom one. I do that so that I can place it
in my frame before I cut everything else out and double check that I'm happy with the size,
because you don't want to cut out everything and then find out it's too big or too small.
By doing that bottom layer first, which is the biggest layer, you'll know if you've done it to
the right size. Go ahead and cut everything out and I'll show you how to stick it all together.
Here's my bottom layer of the design. I'm going to place the top of the frame over it to
get an idea of what that'll look like. I think there's a lot of light shining
on this so I'm not sure if you can see it very well, but it is fitting nicely into
the white of the middle square, so I'm going to go ahead and cut out all of the other layers.
Here’s all of my layers cut out. When I cut out layered designs, I like to roughly place
everything on top of itself before I stick it together to make sure I haven't forgotten
any layers. This is a really good way to check that you're happy with the colours
and if you're not, at this point and you can re-do any layers that you want to change the colour of,
but I'm happy with how this one's looking so I'm going to split it out
into the different sections ready to be stuck together.
The first layers to stick down are the two layers of the vase, but before I put them on my design,
I'm going to glue this top layer onto the bottom layer. The reason I'm using glue is that this is
really thin and narrow, and I wouldn't be able to cut my foam pads small enough and when you layer
up the sunflowers on top, it would look better if this were glued rather than done with foam.
I'm using tacky glue from Tonic Studios, which I like because it
dries really quickly, it's strong, it dries see-through, and it's got a nice
narrow top so it's going to be nice and easy to put the glue in these small spaces.
This is only a small bit of card so you don't need to go crazy and add tons of glue
because not only might that risk it oozing out of the sides when you stick it to the other layer,
but it might seep through to the other side of the card, which we don't want!
Let's just turn it over and stick it to the other layer. Now I can attach this to my base layer
and I'm going to use some 3D foam pads for that. My foam pads are quite big and so I'm
going to cut them smaller with a pair of scissors. It doesn't need to be too big,
and I don't want to waste my supplies either. Turn the vase upside down and put a couple of
pieces of foam on the back, and then line it up against the bottom of your base layer.
I've got lots of dust everywhere today, I think I need to
have a bit of a cleaning session in my craft room! Line that up and push it down. The next layer
to stick on is the green, which is going to go over the top. When you're adding your foam pads,
make sure you don't put any on this bottom section because that's going to overlap the vase. You want
to make sure there's no foam there otherwise you won't be able to slide it over the top.
Let's turn this upside down. Once again, I'm going to add some foam to the back.
You want to make sure you put a few pieces in the middle so that it doesn't sag under the weight of
the sunflowers once they go on the top. I'm going to stick this…you know what,
I just did exactly what I said not to do! Did you notice? I put a piece on the bottom.
Let's just take that off!
Now I don't have a bit on the bottom, I can line this up so that bottom bit slides nicely
over the top of the vase to hide it with the leaf pattern. The next thing we're going to add
is the bottom layer of the sunflowers. I'm just going to move all these layers apart.
This one will line up along there, and again, this will be a foam pad layer.
Peel off the tops to reveal the stickiness underneath
and then line it up with where the petals are on the green layer.
The next layer is the top of the sunflower. It's up to you on this one if you want to use
glue or foam but I think I'm going to use foam.
I'm going to line this up and for this one, it's easiest to do it based on this bottom sunflower
as then, all the other petals should just line up once you've got that one done.
Next, I've got the middle of the sunflowers. Again, just a little bit of foam on the back
and then stick each circle into the middle of the sunflower.
Now we've got the biggest sunflower to add on.
This is really quite tricky to line up the petals as it's not symmetrical, they're all different,
so it might take you quite a bit of trial and error to get them all lined up,
but the layers do line up so if you're having trouble with it, just keep with it! Keep trying
to line it up and eventually you'll get there. I'm going to put that like that
and then try and get that lined up, so I've got some foam pads on the back of the darker piece.
Hopefully I've not moved this about too much so it'll still line up. Oh no!
Now I've managed to move it - oh dear.
Do you see what I mean about it being a bit tricky? It will eventually
line up so that all the petals exactly match the one underneath.
That should be there…there we go. I'm going to do this one.
I think I'm just going to add one little bit of foam in the middle and that's all I'll need for
that one. I've already got it nice and lined up, so that was easy.
Finally, just the circle left. I'm going to cheat and put the foam on there!
And then here we go, that is our layered sunflower complete! You can see all the
layers and it's looking really pretty and it's now ready to go in the shadow box.
Here is my base and my frame that I cut earlier. I need to stick these together and for this I'm
going to use a bit of double-sided tape. Let's turn this upside down and then I've got a tape
runner here which puts out double-sided tape. I love this it's so easy to use and it's a lot
easier than having to cut the tape manually and peel the backs off it does it all for you.
I'll put a link to where you can find it in the description of this video
in case you want to check it out. But now I can line this up against
my bottom piece. Now I've got my mat on my frame, I can add the sunflowers onto it. I'm going to
glue this on, but I could use the foam, but I think the glue will be a little bit stronger and I
don't want it falling off the backing because it is quite heavy with all of those layers on.
I'm trying to avoid the little leaves that only have this base layer on because I don't
want the glue showing through on the other side. Sometimes it can
if you're adding quite a lot like I am here, I don't want it to show through,
so I'm only adding the glue where I know there's other layers of card.
Bring this in and put it where you want it to go. I'm just going to lightly drop it
to start with so that I can move it about a bit if I'm not happy and then push it down gently
to get that glue to stick. You don't want to push it too hard because you don't want the glue to
ooze out the sides - so just gentle pushes. I'm going to leave that to dry fully before
I try and put it in my frame. I've got some Nuvo glitter drops here and I think
I'm going to add a little bit of sparkle to these little circle bits on the leaves.
This is like a thick glitter glue, but it dries 3D. You could also use some little gemstones
or sequins or just leave it as it is - you don't have to add anything to it.
I'm going to test it out on a bit of scrap card first. It's going to make
a little raised oval of glitter on those circles which I think will look really
pretty as it should catch the light nicely when the frame is displayed.
It's a little bit tricky because I didn't actually put any glue on the bottom of these pieces.
You can see it's lifting up, but if you get the little tails of the Nuvy drop as it comes out,
then you don't need to worry, because it does seem to settle into the drop
and create a nice dome effect as it dries. That's all of those little drops. I'm
going to leave that to dry until tomorrow and then see how it looks in the shadow box.
It's the next day and my Nuvy drops are now all perfectly dry so it's time to put this
in the frame. I'm going to put the glass in first and I'd recommend cleaning it with a microfiber
cloth or some alcohol wipes to get all the dust and things off. Next, I'm going to add the spacer.
There we are. The design will slot into the back and sit on top of that spacer. Finally,
we can put the back of the frame in and close all the little pieces up.
Here we have it. I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial on how to make and assemble your
sunflower frame. If you have, then please give this video a thumbs up leave, me a comment below,
and subscribe to my channel for loads more Cricut craft tutorials,
and as ever, if you want the free design for this one, check out the description of
the video because I’ll put a link to it in there. Thank you for watching. Bye!