Daisy Flower Pot Birthday Card

Mom’s birthday is near Mother’s Day which always presents a challenge – how to make sure she gets double attention instead of cheated out of half the fun.

Since it happens in the Spring, and I’ve been on a paper flower kick for weeks, it’s obvious what her card needed to be this year.

A paper flower pot!

In Adobe Illustrator

To get this project started, I drew a daisy, which sounds much more impressive than it really is. I really can’t draw anything – I can just break items down by shape and then put them together using the computer (or paper).

A daisy is just a bunch of ovals rotated around a circle, with another circle for the center. (If you didn’t want to start this one with your own artwork, there about a jillion choices if you search the Internet for clip-art.

After I had the basic shape, I selected all the petals and copied them. I pasted them and dragged them off to the side, and then used the Pathfinder > Unite command to make a shape that was the outline of the petals. I then used the Path > Offset Path command to create two larger versions of that shape. One I colored light green and centered behind the flower to give the image more punch. The the other I stroked in red because it’s going to be my cutline in Silhouette Studio.

I exported the cutline parts of the file as DXF, and the image part as PNG, because I have the basic version of Silhouette Studio and it won’t open an EPS, AI or SVG file.

To hold the flowers, I also drew off a flower pot shape to be the base of the card – it’s really just a sloping rectangle  with a duplicate version with glue flaps. I added a little scalloped trim piece (which is just a rectangle with circles edging the bottom) and a little oval for the pull tab. See how everything is just a bunch of shapes?

I exported all of these pieces as DXF as well.

In Silhouette Studio

In Silhouette Studio I set up my Design Page settings as 8.5 x 11, and turned the registration marks on because this part is going to be a print and cut.

I merged in my PNG flower file, and the DXF cutline, and then centered them to each other. I duplicated this group three times, and then using the text tool, added my text. At this point I saved my file because if you don’t save, and get distracted and close this file, you won’t be able to cut the file later. Trust me on this.

I clicked the Printer icon in the left corner and printed two sheets of these flowers because I want this to be double sided.

I placed one of the printed sheets on my mat, making sure that the little square corner mark is in the upper left, matching the view on the screen. I set up my cut settings and sent  file to cut, weeded the three flowers and then repeated with the second sheet.

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After I weeded the flowers the second time, I created a new Silhouette Studio file and merged in the flower pot dxf file. I don’t need registration marks this time because this is going to just be a cut file. I moved the pieces around until they fit my paper size and then sent them to cut.

Final Assembly

I used double stick tape to put the flowers together – I put a strip on one flower and then sandwiched a length of twine between it and the matching flower. I used the scallop trim piece as my spacer to keep the flowers equal distance apart.

 

To adhere the front of the flowerpot to the back, I used double stick tape again. Remember my tip here – don’t be me and buy really wide double stick tape or you have to trim it every time.

At the bottom of the flower string, I tied a small knot. I used a stapler to tack this string to the inside of the flowerpot. By stapling just above the knot, it won’t slip out. I used tacky glue to stick the oval pull tab at the top of the twine.

The scalloped edge hides the staple on the front of the card. All that’s left is to tuck the flowers into the flowerpot, being sure to leave the pull tab visible.