Wildflower Mandala

For the ‘making of’ process video, click HERE or scroll down

Products Used

All vinyls used are from TeckWrap Craft on Amazon. Vinyls listed below are from bottom to top.

A Most Unexpected Wildflower Mandala

At some point, I will draft posts during the day, instead of late at night/early the same morning. When I originally spotted this wildflower mandala, I expected some complications and a bit of payoff with a pretty decal. What I got was more work than I anticipated, some struggle, and a hell of a payoff! My new wildflower mandala project box is beautiful. The colors are a beautiful mic of spring florals to make a wonderful wildflower design to celebrate spring.

Cut Settings

As always, remember that the specified settings are specific to the Cricut Maker. For a reference guide to cut pressures for each Cricut setting, check out this handy chart:

materials-to-cut.pdf Download

Matte lavender purple and peach pink adhesive vinyls: premium vinyl setting with default pressure
Glossy emerald green and silver holographic adhesive vinyls: premium vinyl setting with more pressure
Opal coral orange and white adhesive vinyls: premium vinyl setting with more pressure
Glossy shimmer glitter mint and baby blue adhesive vinyls: glitter iron on setting with more pressure

Nothing Seems To Go As Planned

Why would it? There were two big things that created an issue for this project: underestimating the weeding and not planning where to apply the decal. The first was simply using more time to overcome my underestimate of time. When I spotted the design, I thought that even though there is a higher number of layers, they were pretty simple. While that is true for some layers, it was definitely not the case for others. Specifically, the silver, green, and purple layers gave me the most trouble in terms of weeding. It didn’t occur to me while filming exactly how long each layer took to weed. I did notice how long during post processing. YIKES! The overall project took a little over an hour and a half (not including cut time). Weeding the layers was 80% of that time. I really need get better at estimating my time for projects.

Guess I’m Putting It On Something For Once

I did not originally intend to apply this decal to a project box. The original plan was to put together all of the layers and pass it on to a friend or family member to enjoy. The silver holographic vinyl had other plans. As usual when making decals for later application, I started with the very bottom layer and applied the next layer to the top of it. I then usually carefully remove the transfer tape, leaving the layers of vinyl on the backing sheet. The silver holographic vinyl absolutely refused to stay on the backing sheet. Considering how great this vinyl is most times at applying and adhering to surfaces, it was a tad surprising that it didn’t want to let the transfer tape be lifted away.

In order to circumvent the stubborn vinyl and its refusal to let go of the transfer tape, I decided to go ahead and start applying the decal onto a slim project case recently purchased. I purchased ten of theses slim cases in order to help improve my work flow (the very same thing I mentioned on my last post). I do plan to go more into detail about this (hopefully) improved work flow once I’ve put it into practice for a decent amount of time. With one out of ten cases decorated, it looks like I may be applying more decals to the rest of the cases before too long.

I Couldn’t Use My Light Pad

There is one point in the process video where you can see me place a light inside the box in order to help see better to layer. My light pad used for most other layering projects was not quite effective at illuminating inside of the project box, so I came to another solution. I took the largest of my filming lights too use in its stead. I figure since it has a built in battery, it would be most effective with no cords to drag across the filming space. Luckily this hack worked very well, allowing me to layer quite well.

I should have left it in there for the next few layers since the subsequent layers were a tad skewed. At least I know for next time!