CRAFT | DIY Paper Floral Woodland Crown

It's that time again…another fun submission for the Cricut Design Space Star Challenge.
My team chose to go with a Floral Woodland theme for our projects this month. The monthly topic chosen by Cricut® was "Celebration/Wedding" so we decided as a group it would be awesome for each of us to choose a specific element of a wedding or celebration so that all of our projects would blend together to create one giant cyber celebration…so-to-speak.  Here are the specifics we decided on as a team:

Team Project Colors:  Mint + Blush
Team Project Elements should include:  Natural wood elements when possible and eucalyptus. All projects should include elements of a "Celebration" that would lend itself to either a birthday, anniversary, baby shower or wedding. Work as a team to combine our efforts/projects to showcase a variety of aspects of the same celebration. 

We also thought it would be fun to create a Team Pinterest Board to reference as we were brainstorming project ideas.  There were SO many pretty and inspiring pins on our Floral Woodland Inspiration board…be sure to peek at it.

I immediately signed up to do a floral crown since my daughter Clara had suggested it for last month's "Fashion" project.  Our team ended up deciding on a Geo theme for our fashion projects in August and I just wasn't feeling the crown idea for that. BUT…the Celebration/Wedding theme for this month couldn't have been more perfect.

I went with a rustic crown by filling a grapevine wreath with paper flowers and paper eucalyptus.
The concept was simple…and there were plenty of pre-designed florals to choose from in the Cricut Design Space. However, there was no eucalyptus so I created a file myself and I am SO impressed with how the Cricut performed in cutting out the intricacies of the fine stems I drew that made up the silver dollar eucalyptus leaves I designed.

MATERIALS LIST

Cricut® Explore Cutting Machine

Cricut® Explore 12x12 Standard Grip Mat

Cricut® Explore Weeding Tool

Glue Gun

Cricut® Design Space 3D Flower File - search 3D flower

Pen + Paper Flowers Eucalyptus Image/File 

*Small Grapevine Wreath (6", 8" or 10" - determined by person's head size)

Colored Card Stock

much of what I used I already had or found at a local craft store but here are similar items:

Moss Green card stock (for 4 Eucalyptus branches)

Blush Pink card stock (for 2 small flowers)

Mint Green card stock (for 3 small flowers)

Ivory card stock (for 4 medium flowers)

* Look for a small grapevine wreath that has the thinnest vines for a "softer" crown vibe - thin enough to be able to use bobby pins to secure the crown in the hair of the person who'll be wearing it. There were some I purchased from Hobby Lobby when I first started gathering supplies and they just seemed too prickly and thick. (and honestly looked more like the thorny crown depicted in images of Jesus' crucifixion - not to get all holy on you - but it wasn't the look I was going for, if you know what I mean). I later found thinner versions at JoAnn's and Michaels.

INSTRUCTIONS
STEP ONE :: Cut/Create Paper Eucalpytus
Using the Cricut® Design Space, upload the Eucalyptus image file. Cut four separate eucalyptus images from 12x12 Moss green card stock. Mine were sized around 6 inches wide.

Use the weeding tool to remove each of the paper Eucalyptus branches. Mine peeled off super easy...no rips or tears!! Yay!!  I've used my Standard Grip Mat several times now so it's not so tacky. Things peel off like butter now.

Can you believe how amazing these Eucalyptus branches turned out!? I think they are so realistic. With this only being the 2nd time I've used the Cricut® Explore, I was super impressed with the ability it has to cut fine, intricate details. I thought for sure it would just shred the fine stems but nope…perfection!!  The Cricut Explore also has a "scoring" feature…it would be cool to see if it would score lines into the leaves…but I'm still a newbie and haven't tried that feature yet.

STEP TWO :: Cut/Create Paper Flowers
Select a pre-designed 3D Flower from the Cricut Design Space.  Cut 2 small blush pink flowers, 3 small mint flowers and 4 large ivory flowers from the three different 12x12 sheets of card stock. My flowers were approximately 3 inches for the small and a little over 4 inches for the large.

Roll your card stock cut outs starting from the outside inwards to create the flower shape. You can do this with your fingers or use a cute party straw to help…see below. These are the EXACT same concept as the Easy DIY Paper Flowers I shared with you some time back…except I didn't have to hand cut a single flower…I let the Cricut® Explore do all of the work and I just have to roll! *wink* Pluse these have darling scalloped edges too.

There are several different 3D floral files to choose from in Cricut Design Space. (see below)
I went with the one I starred below…just because I felt the softer, more shallow scallops resulted in a more rose-like flower. But I think they are all really pretty! *wink* Pick your favorite and go with it.

I didn't end up using the more pointy 3D flowers as shown above…

but this was my only photo of the rolling technique with the straw. 

It's NOT necessary at all…but it's kind of helpful.

STEP THREE :: Assemble Crown

Layout the paper pieces of your crown starting with the Eucalyptus pieces. Add the flowers and make sure you like how they look before securing with a hot glue gun.

TIP:

Consider the placement of the finished crown on the person's head when deciding on placement of the flowers. If the grapevine wreath is more oval vs. round you'll want the narrow ends of the crown sitting at the front and back of the person's head so it sits securely. Keep that in mind when placing your flowers.

Not only is this a simple crown aesthetically…the Cricut® Explore made it simple to make too.
It's pretty enough for a wedding yet simple enough for using as a birthday crown.

I hope you love the project.
And I really hope Cricut® does too…they'll be picking the Top 10 projects submitted by all of the bloggers participating in this Design Star Challenge. The winners of the Top 10 for this month will be announced on September 25th. Once they announce the Top 10…voting will open up to the public and an overall winner for September will be chosen. Then we get to do it all again in October AND November. *wink*

My whole team came up with some fabulous projects too!!
I'll be sharing all of them in a separate post…coming soon!!

A special thank you to my daughter Clara for modeling the crown for me!
She's got gorgeous hair…doesn't she?!

KEEPiNG iT REAL
As simple as this project was…it took me ALL week long to find the time to actually get this post finished and up on the blog.