Feb 09 2010
Snowflake Wreath featuring When It’s Cold Outside Limited Edition Cartridge (November 2009 Design Team Project)
Snowflake Wreath
I was excited to begin my term as a new Creative Xpress Design Team member with my first assignment being to use the 2009-2010 Limited Edition When It’s Cold Outside Solutions Cricut Cartridge – oh my, all those gorgeous snowflake characters had my mind spinning with the possibilities! I was further inspired when I found an unadorned grapevine wreath while shopping for Christmas décor, and knew this would be the perfect way to showcase the lovely snowflake characters available on this cartridge – even the shadow characters are lovely enough to stand on their own.
The first step in creating my project was to narrow down the choices from the plentiful variety of available snowflake characters. Once I had done that, I began cutting them on white textured Bazzill cardstock with my Cricut Expression in sizes ranging from 2” to 5”. The reason why I chose cardstock over patterned paper for the snowflakes is that the cardstock seemed to better highlight some of the intricate designs of the individual characters against the background of the grapevine wreath.
I then applied Glimmer Mist to each of the snowflake die-cuts in wintery colors ranging from Glacier, Pearl, Silver, Tattered Rose, and Frost. Once the snowflakes were dry, I thought it would be fun to randomly mix some of the snowflakes on the wreath by layering half of them. Layered snowflakes were attached to one another with foam dots, and slightly bent forward for added dimensionality. I then wove some coordinating Christmas ribbon I had in and out of the grapevine wreath strands. To both temporarily position onto the wreath for placement purposes and to add a nice little dimensional element to the center of the snowflake die-cuts, I then added assorted colored stick pins to each of the snowflake centers. Once I had committed to the placement of the flakes on the wreath itself, they were then permanently hot glued to the wreath.
My next step was to cut a big circle out of solid cardstock from Basic Grey’s 12×12 Christmas Eskimo Kisses Collection Pack at 10” using the circle found on the Plantin School Book font cartridge, the purpose being to place in the middle of the open center of the wreath. To achieve this, the hanging hooks of two wire hangers were snipped off and the remaining wires hot glued to the wreath in an “X” formation, and the circle was then hot glued to the front of the wires.
I then layered three random 5” snowflake shadow characters on the large circle. I printed three 1.5” size pictures of each of my children in their winter attire, cut with a 1.5” circle punch, and attached to each of the snowflake shadows. I then added Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses alphabet letters to each of the snowflakes with the letters positioned in an arc formation over the pictures to create the phrase “Let It Snow.”
As a final step, I added a small strip of leftover berry wire garland I had from my stash of Christmas decorations around the outside left perimeter of the frame to add further dimension.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
AnnaMarie Mondro
This is so darling! I bet you can’t wait to get this wreath back… it’ll be a terrific addition to your decor next Winter!
This turned out so neat!