Layered Tulips

Click HERE or scroll down for the ‘making-of’ process video

Products Used

April “Showers” Brought May Flowers

Even though we didn’t actually have any showers here in April (thanks to a not-so-awesome drought in the Bay Area), we have tons of flowers blooming! Last weekend for our anniversary, my husband and I spent some time in the city and spent an entire afternoon in the botanical gardens in Golden Gate Park. To say I love it there is an understatement. That place has become an oasis to me. It spurred me to get right to work when we got back from our getaway to make this beautiful layered tulips decal to share with everyone.

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

TWC 40 Pack Vinyls: Premium outdoor vinyl setting with more pressure
TWC green glossy holo vinyl: Premium outdoor vinyl setting with more pressure
Vvivid 10 roll pack green vinyl: Premium outdoor vinyl setting with more pressure
TWC red opal vinyl: Holographic sparkle vinyl setting with default pressure
TWC black glass flower holo vinyl: Holographic sparkle vinyl setting with default pressure

This project weeded like a dream!! The more I keep notes of settings that do or do not work, the better I’ve been able to work out the best settings for easy weeding. So notating settings here helps all of us! I was admittedly a tad nervous about the Vvivid vinyl, but it also did very well. The outdoor vinyl setting with more pressure seems to be the best universal setting for basic vinyls. Yay! The holo sparkle setting has been a good go-to setting for most thicker vinyls like the opals and holos.

Wrinkle in the Vinyl

The Vvivid vinyl looks great in the final project. It cut super easy and weeded just as easily as all other vinyls in this layered tulips project. What I was not a fan of was the wrinkling that occurred after I placed it on the cutting mat. As you can see below, the vinyl pulled up when laid flat on the cutting mat as a result of being rolled for a long time in a tight roll. This is partially my own fault as I did roll each color from the 10 pack individually and a bit tighter than it came in order to fit in the vinyl holder.

Luckily, when this happens to most vinyls, it is a pretty easy fix. You can see below that I used a brayer to slowly roll out the wrinkle. When doing this, it is important to only move the wrinkle up a small amount at a time in one section and then move the rest up to that point. Then continue working the wrinkle up until it is gone. The third image shows the vinyl good as new after rolling the wrinkle away.

So…Many…Layers!

The layered tulips is officially the most layered design I’ve ever made. This baby has 11 total layers from top to bottom. Whew! Up until now, the project with the most layers was the mandala rainbow with nine layers. I almost feel like this vinyl is more like a piece of particle board since it’s so thick.

Most of the layers are the various green colors making up the stems and leaves of the layered tulips. To get so many greens, I had to pull every shade of green I had from the TeckWrap Craft 40 pack, a holo green, and another green I had on hand from Vvivid to make sure each green was different, yet still worked together when layered. That was certainly a bigger challenge than I had originally expected.

The Finished Look

I kind of surprised myself that I didn’t incorporate more opals, glitters, or holo vinyls. It really didn’t feel right though for the layered tulips. They seemed to be more eye catching with mostly ‘regular’ vinyls. The pop of shiny here and there lends itself to give the overall look more dimension.