Create a few new fun things to add to your tiered tray. For this project, we created pinwheels, a wood cart, some polymer clay lemons. Add a sign with your favorite lemon themed quote or saying. The following files were used in these projects.
Lemon Digital Papers & Clipart
Lemon Watercolor Digital Papers Patterns
You’ll also need:
- Electronic cutting machine and software (Skycut and SCAL 5 Pro)
- Craft knife
- Cardstock
- Small wood tags, craft sticks, 1 ½ inch wood squares, toothpicks and a small wooden spool
- Glue gun and glue sticks
- Bearly Arts Precision Craft Glue
- Acrylic Paint
- Printer
- Twine or jute
- brads
- Plastic straws, bamboo skewers
- Polymer clay lemons or make your own
CLAY LEMONS: To make the clay lemons, you’ll need a small amount of light yellow polymer clay. Condition the clay according to the manufacturer’s directions. Shape into a lemon shape. To add a little bit of texture, use a toothbrush. Poke a small hole at each end of the lemon shape. Add a tiny bit of green or light brown for the blossom end. Tuck into the end of the lemon. Reshape the lemon if needed. Bake for about 15 minutes in a 275o F. oven. TIP: If desired, make a few leaves and a stem or two and attach a lemon before baking. Finished lemons are approximately ½ – ¾ inches in length.
LEMON CART:
Build a cart similar to this one. A glue gun was used to put it together. The 1 ½ inch square was trimmed slightly to be used as the front of the cart. The back of the cart was left open, but you could choose to close it by repeating the process. Once the front has been attached, run another bead of hot glue on the inside for a little more stability
The front axle is a bamboo skewer trimmed to fit. The craft sticks have been trimmed using the craft knife as needed for the back stand as well as the pieces to hold the axle and spool used for a wheel.
Use the glue gun to attach to the cart.
Paint if desired using some acrylic paint. Let dry.
Fill the cart with some moss and place the lemons on the moss. You can hot glue them in place or leave them loose.
PAPER PRINTS: Since we’re making 3 pinwheels and 6 banner pieces, Create a rectangle shape 5.5 inches wide by 11 inches high. Copy and paste a second shape and arrange on the mat. The printer used in this project does not print to the edge, so leaving a margin of about ½ inch on all sides worked best. Fill one shape with a print you want to use for the pinwheel. Fill the second shape with the image you want to use for the banner pieces. Make sure the print settings are for 12 x 12. Print using the print command in the File dropdown menu. Let the print dry for a few minutes. Place the paper back into the printer. Make sure that the paper will print on the correct side. Open another page in the software, place a square from the library on the mat and size to 11 x 11 inches. Fill the square with the third image from one of the background collections. Again, print. You’ll have a two-sided piece of ‘designer’ paper ready for use to cut your shapes.
Open the pinwheel file and place the SVG on the mat. No resizing is needed. Copy and paste 2 additional images on the mat. Consider the print piece you printed and place these within the rectangle you created. Cut using the printed paper.
PINWHEELS: Assemble the pinwheel to the straw using the brad. To allow a little more freedom for the pinwheel to spin (if desired). Insert the brad through front of the pinwheel to the back. With the pinwheel face down, place the straw on the back of the pinwheel. Using a shim, between the back of the pinwheel and the straw, flatten the prongs of the brad. The pinwheel should turn. If you prefer for the pinwheel to remain stationery, then fold the prongs tightly against the straw. Repeat for the remaining pinwheels.
BANNER: A tag from the SCAL software library was used for this project. Size as needed and if desired to create the inverted V, you’ll need to place a triangle on the mat and center and adjust the size of the inverted V. In the Path menu drop-down, select Back minus Front. The path should be closed. If not, choose the close path in the Path menu. Ungroup the tag. Copy the small circle. Delete the original. Copy the circle again. Align the two circles and place in the tag equal distance from the sides.
Group the tag and two circles – copy and paste the altered tag an additional 5 times for a total of 6 tags. Arrange within the confines of the second rectangle.
Now that you have your images where you want, place the printed paper on the mat and cut.
Edge each tag with a bit of ink to add a little more interest to the white background of this printed paper.
Thread some jute through the holes of the banner pieces. You can embellish with beads or additional fibers. For this piece, we chose to leave it simple and unadorned. It is attached to the tray using some small clips and can be adjusted as needed.
Additional options for tray décor could include:
Small plants, live, silk or paper creations
Paper Boxes or wood cubes
3D lemon slice
Small signs or large tags.
Fruit
Beads and tassels
AND…. Don’t forget to check your stash for items you may already have and use them. A few treasures have been re-discovered for use in many of the trays we’ve put together this year.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this version of a Lemony Tiered Tray. If you choose to create one, please feel free to tag #creativefabrica and/or #nurtureyrheart on FB or Instagram. We’d love to see what you create.
For more inspiration, please visit Jan’s page here or her blog.
This article was written by
