3D Cornucopia

This is a tutorial for assembling the 3D Cornucopia die cut that can be found in the Silhouette Online store. For more information about the Silhouette Cameo and other products from Silhouette, click HERE.

To start, cut your body of the cornucopia. 
I cut mine from medium weight brown cardstock. Light weight also works great for this design.
*Because there is such a tight curve at the end of the cornucopia, I suggest that you stay away from really heavy cardstock. Otherwise your paper will crease instead curl.

The two halves of the cornucopia are almost identical. The differences being that one of them has a long tab that stretches the length of the cornucopia and then only half of the small tabs on each horizontal strip.

Apply adhesive to the underside of the shape with the small "half" tabs as shown in the photo below. 

Glue the two halves together.

Line the small half tabs up with the full small tabs. You should be able to see the half tabs on the correct side of the paper. This will be important later on.

Curl your cornucopia.

Next, to help create your cone shape, you will want to put some curl in your cornucopia by pulling and rubbing it on the edge of a table as shown below. It's kind of like curling ribbon with scissors except that the table edge is your scissors and you're curling the paper around the small point.

In the end, you should get a half cone shape like above.

 Shape cone point.
To further shape the point of the cornucopia, form it around the tip of pen or pencil. 

Along the edge of the long tab are a couple of what look like far spread perforations. These are guides for glueing the two remaining ends of the cornucopia together. They are NOT a fold line, just guides. 

Start to make your cone shape.
To start to create your cone shape, start on the wide scalloped end. Line the non-tabbed side up with the "perf" cut lines that were mentioned above. 

Once you have that last step done, you are to the hardest part of the whole assembly, forming the point of the cone!

Finish connecting the two sides above 

all the way to the point. 

You will most likely have to squeeze your fingers through the slats to hold the seam together until it dries. I repeat, this is the most difficult part. If you can get this, the rest can be done. 

This is what you should end up with. 

 

Create the curve of the Cornucopia.
Now to start to form the curve of the Cornucopia. Apply adhesive to the tab closest to the point. It is very important that you start with the this tab, otherwise you won't be able to put the pressure on the connection to get it to stay. 

Attach tab to next ring.
When I mentioned above that you needed the "half tabs" on the outside, this is the reason. You will line up that center line with the center line of the ring next to it. Reach your finger through the next slit to hold the joint together until the glue has dried. 

Repeat with next tab.
Continue with next tab, adhering it to the next ring. All the way down to the last slit.

Repeat for every tab. 
This is your basic cornucopia shape.

Keeping the Cornucopia upright.

One last thing to complete the basic shape. There are perforation lines on the bottom of the largest three rings. This is to help form the cornucopia to stay upright. Crease these perforations by holding the cornucopia or place it on the table and press from the inside.

Ta Da! Basic shape complete!

Because of the length of this tutorial, I've decided to split it into two parts.
Part 2 will cover the accent shapes and final touches.
Please click HERE to go to PART 2 of the 3D CORNUCOPIA TUTORIAL.

It's candy time with a little bit of egg!

Easter is in two days. Here's a quick gift tag I made for my candy dispenser I'm giving to friends. I'll also show you how I packaged the dispenser for giving away!
If you haven't already, go to the Silhouette Online store, and purchase this design I made a few weeks ago:

I am making 3 tags, so I cut 3 of the plain eggs and 3 of the patterned eggs. I brushed an ink pad across the edges of the plain eggs to give them some character. (I used Versa Color in 183 Cement on white cardstock if you were wondering.)

I added the patterned eggs I cut earlier from my blue cardstock.

Then punched holes in them to make tags. I had intended to added circles to my eggs before I cut them so my Cameo could do the work, but forgot. So I just went old school and used a hole punch.

 Since these are for the candy dispensers, I made sure to mention to my friends to break the paper band off that holds the dispenser closed. 

So all I did to keep the candy dispenser closed was cut a strip off of my scraps from the box and formed it into a ring that fit around my box. I decorated the band with another strip of the accent paper. Easy peasy! 

Then I took the lid off my box, closed the dispenser bucket, and slid the band over... 

...filled it with candy, (one package of large Robin Eggs, minus 4 eggs, fills a dispenser perfectly)...

...and added my egg tag!

Have a happy Easter everyone!

ribbon wrapped box tutorial

The "Ribbon-wrapped box" is created from 4 shapes to give you the possibility of contrasting papers like I have done. I made my light blue shapes about 4 and quarter by 6 inches to give you an idea of the largest size you can fit on a 8.5x11 sheet when using only 1 sheet of each color.

The first step to assembly after you have all your shapes cut out is to use your favorite adhesive to connect the tabs of the dark blue to the sides of the light blue as shown.

 Repeat until you have this:

(Notice the the shapes with two slits alternate with the shapes that have one slit)

Adhere your last tab to the other end to create the box shape.

To close the bottom of the box, simple fold down the identical flaps as shown:

 Then fold the dark blue flaps down while tucking the tab inside the slit.

For the next step, I don't have a photo, so hopefully I can explain it. (finished photos at the bottom show this a little)

Feed your ribbon through the slits of the light blue tabs. You will want to make sure at this step that your ribbon is centered (equal length on each side.)

Then flip the box over. Wrap each side over the bottom. 

 Making them cross over each other as shown:

Pull tight and hold while flipping the box right-side up as shown below:

 Next feed your ribbon through the bottom slit of the dark blue. 

And then feed back the other way through the top slit on the same tab. Feeding through two slits is what keeps your bow on TOP of the box instead of under the flaps.  

 Repeat for the other side and you're ready to go. 

3D Steg Assembly Tutorial

So I thought I had done a 3D Steg tutorial before but can not find it. So here it is again. This dino was released last year and would be a great addition to any dino party or decor. 

These are the shapes you should have cut. I will refer to each shape by the number shown in the image below.

To give you an overall idea of how these will go together, 5&6 will fit together, then 3&4. After that, we'll slide the pair 3-4 with the pair 5-6. Lastly, we'll add shapes 1&2. 1 & 2 are actually the exact same shape.

Okay, so to start, grab shapes 5&6 and slide together as shown. 

*To be sure that the legs end up in the correct position, be sure that the lower portion 6 (that the legs are connected too) is behind the lower portion of 5 as shown below.

Next, slide 3&4 together as shown. 

*Again, be sure that the lower portion of 4 (that the legs are connected too) is behind the lower portion of 5 as shown below.

This is what you should now have. I'm going to call the one with the dino head and tail 3-4 since it is made up of 3 and 4 and the other I'll call 5-6.  

It's now time to slide 3-4 and 5-6 together. 

The lower portion of 3-4 should be behind the lower portion of 5-6.  

To place the rings (1 & 2) on the body, you will want to be sure that the slots shown below line up.  

Slide one of the rings over the spikes on the tail and fit any of the slots on the ring into the lower tail slot.  

Should like the photo below. 

Now pull the ring up and over until the slot on the ring the opposite the one you already used is settled into the top tail slot. 

This photo below shows that we're using slots that are opposite from each other. 

Repeat the last couple steps with the last ring fitting it into the slots near at the head end. 

Now comes the tricky part. Carefully tug on the ring while gripping two layers of shapes. Our goal here is to nudge them around the ring to their own slots.  

I like to work one side of a layer and then the next and also work one ring and then the other so there isn't too much pulling on the rings.  

The photo below shows what I meant above by working on one ring and then the other, and then back to the other to reduce pull on the rings.

Once you've accomplished the task of filling each slot of the rings, you're almost done! You could leave your stegosaurus as is, but I think his stance is a bit wide for my liking. 

To fix this, simply bend the legs in a little, and your done! 

As always, if you have questions about any of this, leave a comment and I'll try to answer it best I can as soon as I see it.