Gather Wall

Remember my Halloween Specimen wall art?  Now it has been transformed for Thanksgiving and this was so easy – I LOVE the way it came out.  And, I used my Cricut WITHOUT my Gypsy.   Yep, can you believe it?  I also used only one cartridge, Thanksgiving.  It is a Holiday Solutions cartridge with fabulous images.  I absolutely am in love with this cartridge.     This is a super simple and super elegant wall display that I hope you find inspiration from as well.

I started with a 12×12 piece of black chipboard.  It’s really more like posterboard, but I wanted something a little stiffer than cardstock and I wanted it flat matte black, so that is what I had from a chipboard multipack.  I used a rather new mat and placed black chipboard on it and and loaded mat into my Cricut.   I turned on PaperSaver, Fit to Page, and Multi-cut and chose my desired image.   I did one of the female pilgrim silhouette and one of the male pilgrim silhouette.  I also took note that these cut at 10″.

I then used a tightly woven black Bazzill cardstock for my center sentiment and chose “Count your Blessings”.  Since my images above cut at 10″ I chose the same for the width of this.  For this to work, this time I used Fit to Length and chose 10″.   I cut my leaf shadow pieces at 1.50 and cut 4 of these.

I used Helmar 1/4″ round black ZapDots to adhere my silhouettes to the center of my chosen background papers and for the leaves.  My background papers were the same and I used By the Bay papers from Quick Quotes Paper.  The orange was the perfect color and I loved the little swirls in the background.  It coordinated so nicely with the swirls on these cuts.

I still wanted the sentiment slightly raised so I cut out the little sections that divided the round ZapDots to use on the little letters that were too small for the round dots.

To line up my sentiment and letters where I wanted, I first layed them out as desired and used my handy Freeze Frame to pick them up and flip them over so that I could add the dimensional adhesives and lay it all back down perfectly centered again.   I love my Freeze Frame.  This was something I picked up from an Expo a while back.  It uses Magic Mesh much like Sassy Lady’s drywall tape method, but is big enough for a 12×12 layout.  I hate trying to get everything back where I wanted it when I have spent so much time getting it layed out.  (and pictures just don’t work for me).

I put the layouts back into the shadow boxes and hung them back on my wall.

Next, I wanted a vinyl topper again.   So, I cut out “Gather Together” at 18″ wide using my 12×24 mat.  I did use my Gypsy for this part to make sure I had the size I wanted because I wasn’t too sure here.   I’ve been asked about my vinyl application.   It is so easy.   Cut it using the KissKut method.   For that I use the deep cut blade set at 4 and presure at Medium.  This assures that it cleanly cuts through the vinyl without cutting through the backing.

After it is cut, I cut off some of the excess around the desired cut itself.   Then you clean out the negative space – the insides of o’s, a’s, d’s, etc, as well as the surrounding negative space itself.  This leaves you with your actual vinyl cut as it would appear on your final project.

Cut your transfer tape just a little larger than your final cut image and carefully lay it sticky side down onto your vinyl.  Burnish this on well.   Now your piece is ready for transport and/or transfer.   When you are ready to place it on your final project, you remove the original vinyl backing from your image and carefully place it where desired.   Rub/burnish your vinyl making sure to really get around the edges.  Especially for larger pieces, I find it easy to use my cricut scraper and rub the transfer paper/vinyl as you are removing the tranfer paper leaving the vinyl in place on your project.   Vinyl is so much fun to play with.  If you haven’t tried it yet, I really encourage you to give it a try.  Even if it is just a little sticker on your mirror, give it a go!

So here it is again, finished.   Now, I have a great Gather Wall showpiece that took no time at all to cut and put together, though it looks like it did since all the cuts are coordinated!!!

Are you creating any Thankgiving home decor?   I’ve got more to come before Thanksgiving is here so keep checking back.