glitter dog and tote bag

While surfing the internet for SVG cutting files the other night I came across this beauty from Wispy Willow designs. It is apparently a dachshund dog.  Which I have no problem with whatsoever. It does, however, strike an amazing resemblance to my DIL dog who is not a dachshund. 

I cut this out on the Cricut and thanked my lucky stars I hadn't decided to go old school with a scalpel and do it by hand like when I used to do papercuts. It took a fair while to cut and as I did I patiently did something else while checking once or twice all was well with the cut.  Then came the fun part the weeding.  Dreading this part as was convinced weeding, or removing the unneeded pieces, was going to take me all day.  It didn't however. Listening to a Terry Pratchett audiobook and a break to chat with my son I had it finished in around 80 minutes.  What I thought was going to be a stressful undertaking turned out to be very calming.  It came out just fine and despite being glitter iron-on by Cricut it behaved remarkably well.

The pile of leftover and weeded pieces give a better idea of how it sparkles.  my DIL got me into glittery things a while back so this particular make had to be glittery and sparkle.

Once pressed onto a tote bag I knew I would be making at least one more at some point soon as love how this came out. 

I really thought this Zentangle style or mandala style of file would be a pain the neck to weed and use but I'm already looking at what else I could do in a similar style soon. 

Sometimes it goes wrong

Not horribly wrong but when it does go wrong you learn from it. I was talking about using what I had. Well I have 2 small A4 sized blackboards and decided to use them with a svg I have. It’s by the maker Digital Gems and was in a bundle from design bundles.com 

As it’s a split Monogram I added our family name and then when our family was established and was happy with it until I added the cut vinyl to the board with transfer tape. The tape took off patches of the blackboard coating. My thought was to reapply and take a few more areas off and to maybe distress the frame slightly. 

All in all I think it will be ok as it makes me smile. Not perfect but done at least. Needs a little something else but I’m not sure what yet. 

For the next board if I use vinyl on it I think I will seal the board first so the paint doesn’t peel off and make sure I rub the transfer over a t shirt or something similar a few times to make it less sticky. 

The project I did before went slightly wrong to. Deciding on a layered HTV project I chose 2 different makes of vinyl and with the heat they both shrunk a little unfortunately the red more than the white. It’s obviously my week of learning from my mistakes. Hubby however is still wearing his England flag proudly so cannot complain it’s not liked. 

So there’s 2 things completed in 2 days. Tomorrow I’m crafting with my daughter in the afternoon so something will get made even if it’s not for me.