Drawing the printable templates for my flower lessons, I asked myself: Ok, what if you make them Cricut files? Also, a client of mine somehow pushed me to think in this direction. Buying my tutorial, she asked is it possible to make SVG or PNG files. Adding the printable templates I was curious why she needs cut files too. And I asked her.
“I don’t want to hurt my fingers”, she answered. Fair enough. Cutting lots of little pieces makes my fingers painful too. So, I made her the files (they were for the Cactus Master class) and I realised this is the way to give my clients a lot better service and help. Because this is not only a buyer and seller meeting, it is a relationship and we are a society of people with the same passion. We are “sisters” in this. So, I decided to start making my own petals, leaves and stamens this way and then realized I can add lots of details to my flowers that I’d would love to, to create more sophisticated plants without making them a lot more difficult.
As a paper flower maker, I love mixing materials. And also I want to save my time for more experiments, instead of cutting intricate details for hours and hours. Cricut files are very helpful but, as fas as I can work out, there is not very much variety on offer in the market.
First, I was scared
When a newbie opens Etsy, for example, she or he will see a lot of listings with long names and SVGPNGPDFDTFXBLABLANASA abbreviations. Yes, all these files work with the different cutting machines and they all have different purposes. But do we really, as clients and paper flower makers, need them?
My answer is No.
To create a beautiful paper flower we don’t need all these complications. We can create it with simple PNG files, if need a original size plant, or SVG files, if we want to make very big flowers. That’s all we need.
And now I will show you my way to make PNG files and use these files to create this Chrysanthemum.
I did it my way
I will show you how I did the leaves for the Chrysanthemum shown on the cover. I started with my iPad and Procreate, which I use for all my craft projects – flower templates, paper designs, scrapbook elements. Simply draw the shape in Procreate as shown. (All pictures below up until step 6 are from Procreate.)
I decided to make my PNG files fully black first because this is easier and second – to have the best contrast later, when cutting.
Then I am removing the white background. Working with a transparent background helps me to later combine a lot of elements and shapes onto one A4 piece of light cardboard.
As you can see, the white background box is now ticked.
On the photo below you probably don’t see the shape of the leaf, but it is there J The arrow shows that the background box is unticked.
As a next step I send the PNG file to my laptop which is Windows based not Apple, so I send it via email. In the next step I will work with an online editing programme that I access from my laptop.
This PNG file is absolutely fine to work with, so follow option A. But if you need to cut bigger shapes, you will need vector files (SVG), so then is better to save your file as an image – option B. But option B is another story, which I will tell you more about later. It is also very easy, and you need another free program for iPad.
Mixing the files and preparing to cut
Once you have your files saved in a folder of your computer, I suggest using this simple, free and very good online photo editor – Pixlr. The easy level is more than enough to create great files and a lot more.
Open a new file with A4 or Letter size. It will be a lot easier to organize your PNG files if work with a white background.
Then add your PNGs, using the “Add photo” option.
How to organize your PNGs in one file
First place one image. Depending on your flower project you can use just this one image, duplicating it and making it bigger or smaller, as most people do. They simply stretch the existing file. But if you made different files for each different layer (as I did for the Chrysanthemum petals), you will not need to stretch or resize them in any way – just organize them.
Here you can see how I did it with the different petal shapes for the different Chrysanthemum layers.
When the page is full, switch off the white background.
And save your PNG file on your laptop for later uploading on Cricut. You can save it as a JPG (a photo) too, but I prefer the transparent background because it gives me the opportunity to mix different files on different paper sizes and saves me time.
Saving time
Duplicating layers also saves time. If you want the same petal shape more than one time, you can simply press “Duplicate layer”, instead of uploading the same PNG file again.
Also, if there is not enough space on the paper, you can adjust the PNGs, using: A to make them smaller, or B to rotate them to better fit the paper size.
And the next step is just to create your beautiful flower!
Very important note:
When working with heavy crepe (above 140 g), the Pink Cricut mat doesn’t work. It is great for thinner and lighter crepe paper and I easily made my Yellow Rose this way. But when I wanted to make the Iris, it didn’t work.
And believe me I read lots of suggestions of how the roller blade and Pink textile mat work for crepe paper. Well, not exactly correct in my experience. I suggest, for crepe paper above 80 g, that you use the Blue mat and secure the edges of the paper piece with washi tape or other paper tape. Also, reduce the number of small details, because otherwise the washi will not keep the big piece of paper 100% stuck and not moving.
I hope this article was helpful and soon you will create your own amazing flower templates! ♥
This post may contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and buy something, I may get a portion of the sale at no cost to you. With these links I promote products and services that I am using and think are excellent. It also helps me make a living off of this site so I can keep creating content for you.
Thank you for helping me! ♥
For more Chrysanthemums… – check also my Etsy shop:
