Hi! I’m poki here with a special gift that I am working on for Mom’s Christmas this year. She loves to do Seek-N-Find word puzzles, she’s always working on them to pass the time, so I thought I
would make her a special FAMILY version as a gift. I love the Fall color palette, and I think it goes well with the burlap canvas that I found in the Walmart craft department (10″x 10″ for less than $10).
There are an abundance of gorgeous Fall kits in the store at The Digi Chick. I selected two kits from Etc by Danyale for my project:
NATURE’S PAINTING
and
AFTERNOON IN THE PARK
I used a CU ok font called Noticia Text to create UPPER CASE alphas in two colors from papers in AFTERNOON IN THE PARK, one gold and one rust.
I used the rust colored alpha to spell out the special words for my puzzle: FAMILY, FAITH, HOPE AND LOVE (I was really pleased with how these words fit together in the puzzle) plus I added our family names: MARGARET, MELVIN, PHYLLIS (which is my given name), SANDY and our last name.
After I had inserted all of the family and special words, then I filled in with the gold alpha, using at least two of each letter randomly in the puzzle. If I made any other words, it was totally by accident! and I didn’t see any.
After the puzzle was completed, I used the align and distribute tools in Photo Shop Elements 10 to make sure that all of the horizontal and vertical lines were centered. Here’s an image of those tools in the tool bar.
You can find some directions for the use of these tools in the PSE HELP menu. I find them invaluable, and use them in almost every project I do! When my puzzle was complete, I printed it as an 8″ x 8″ image on 8 1/2″ x 11″ white cardstock. (I don’t have a wide format printer, so 8″ x 8″ is my maximum size, but it worked perfectly for this project since the finished canvas was 10″ x 10″.)
I wanted to add a little 3-dimensional flower to the final project, so I needed to print another cardstock, this time on both sides. I added an orange paper from AFTERNOON IN THE PARK to one side
and blended two papers (one patterned paper, one rust paper) to create the other side.
These two canvases were printed back to back, and punched with #4 flower punch from The Punch Bunch. The flower has 6 petals, but to give it 3-d shape, I made a slit between two of the petals almost to the center of the punch shape. I then placed the paper shape on a foam pad and used the end of a large wooden crochet hook (size M), to create a hollow indention in the center of both pieces.
Edges of the shapes were sponged with Palette ink in Burnt Umber (my favorite color for smudging!) and I used glue dots to adhere the two petals around the slit together. This formed a cup shaped flower. I put the two shape pieces together, spinning one to alternate the petal placement, and attached them with a flat top brad. I then glued an antique-looking button to the center with my hot glue gun.
Final steps in the process:
1. Attach 8″ x 8″ puzzle printout to 8 1/4″ x 8 1/4″ of cardstock (Bazzill rawhide). Punched holes in 3 corners and inserted brass brads (didn’t put a brad in the bottom right corner because that is where the flower was going.)
2. Attached completed puzzle piece in the center of the burlap canvas. I used the hot glue gun here too!
3. Attach silk Fall leaf in the bottom right corner with hot glue gun, then attached the flower that I made on top of it! Project completed! I know Mom is going to love it!