I love plants, but I am hopeless at remembering to water them, so I favour a succulent when it comes to house plants and I have lots of cacti and succulent themed things around my house too. So when Concord and 9th brought out a cacti set, I had to play with it and I was really drawn to the idea of making paper cacti that could last forever without being watered at all so I've been making 3D versions this week using the die.
I started with the shorted cacti and die cut it 4 times from green card and folded each down the middle and glued them together. To create the flower I used a fringe die and cut it from hot pink card and then rolled it quilling style to create a tight roll before opening up the fringe to make the "petals". At that point I turned it over and added glue to the base to make the bottom of the roll solid. Once dry I cut a slit across the base with a craft knife so I could slot it onto one side of the cacti (add a little glue to the slit to keep it in place) I finished with a blob of liquid pearl in the centre.
For the pot I used the pot die but you need to chop off some bits to make it make a square pot.
You cut off the top tabs and the overhanging pot rim - basically just follow the diagonal line of the rest of the pot. You can see here what I cut away.
You can either just die cut the pots of use the co-ordinating stamps to add shape and decoration (there are spots, stripes or crosses that fit the shape when stamped twice) Then glue the tabs together, fill with shredded crepe paper or tissue and pop in your cacti.
For the classic "western movie" cacti, I cut two from dark green cardstock and then cut halfway down from the top of one and halfway up from the bottom of the other and then slotted them together to get the 3D shape. (I used a line of glue to make them more ridged so the sides didn't flap and move)
I created the flower the same way but I cut the tops off the fringe before rolling to get a smaller flower - you can get lots of variation from the fringe - even make a multi-coloured flower by rolling different colours of fringe around as you go along.
I popped that one into a tiny terracotta pot and used the zigzag die from the set to add some decoration to it.
That's all from me today - I'll be back on Sunday with my usual blog post and round-up.
Tara
I started with the shorted cacti and die cut it 4 times from green card and folded each down the middle and glued them together. To create the flower I used a fringe die and cut it from hot pink card and then rolled it quilling style to create a tight roll before opening up the fringe to make the "petals". At that point I turned it over and added glue to the base to make the bottom of the roll solid. Once dry I cut a slit across the base with a craft knife so I could slot it onto one side of the cacti (add a little glue to the slit to keep it in place) I finished with a blob of liquid pearl in the centre.
For the pot I used the pot die but you need to chop off some bits to make it make a square pot.
You cut off the top tabs and the overhanging pot rim - basically just follow the diagonal line of the rest of the pot. You can see here what I cut away.
You can either just die cut the pots of use the co-ordinating stamps to add shape and decoration (there are spots, stripes or crosses that fit the shape when stamped twice) Then glue the tabs together, fill with shredded crepe paper or tissue and pop in your cacti.
For the classic "western movie" cacti, I cut two from dark green cardstock and then cut halfway down from the top of one and halfway up from the bottom of the other and then slotted them together to get the 3D shape. (I used a line of glue to make them more ridged so the sides didn't flap and move)
I created the flower the same way but I cut the tops off the fringe before rolling to get a smaller flower - you can get lots of variation from the fringe - even make a multi-coloured flower by rolling different colours of fringe around as you go along.
I popped that one into a tiny terracotta pot and used the zigzag die from the set to add some decoration to it.
That's all from me today - I'll be back on Sunday with my usual blog post and round-up.
Tara
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The Seven Hills Crafts Design Team