Supplies:

1. Round wood circle.
2. sheet of wood to cut
3. laser printer to cut the wood.
4. Inkscape or other program to make design
5. paint and paint brushes
6. Strong bond Elmer’s glue or wood glue
7. optional: ribbon and/or flowers to decorate

I used Inkscape to help me make this piece.  I then used my Glowforge, a laser printer, to cut out my pieces. The pieces on the inside will be cut out, and thus make it easier to paint your pieces.  I cut out several different pieces I was working on all at once, which made assembling and putting everything together a little harder. The assembly is a little time consuming, but this style makes the painting easier and faster.  

I first made my design. Next, I determined the size of my circle, the circumference. I then made a circle in Inkscape with that same size/circumference. I then duplicated this circle. When we do the next step the first circle will go away. Since we duplicated the circle, there will still be one circle left after we do the next step. Next, position your circles where you want your design to be cut. I then selected the circle and my design, and select path, intersect. This will make your design cut too the circumference or the edge of the circle. One of the two circles will be gone when you do this.  

I used the extra circle as my template to determine how large to make my letters, if I liked the positioning of things, and to give me an idea of how the piece will look once it is finished. The fonts I used for this piece are Austin Hearts for the Welcome, and Serif for the Fall.  

Once I had my design to my liking, I changed some of the designs to different colors. This allows me to move the pieces separately in Glowforge. If all the pieces are the same color, then it will think they are the same pieces, and thus need to be moved together. By moving the pieces separately, I am able to place the designs on my wood closer together, and thus not waste any wood. I then ran the pieces and gathered everything out of my Glowforge. Since I did several different projects all in one run, I also had to separate the different project pieces out. I do not recommend doing this especially if a piece has a lot of small pieces or if pieces from the different projects are similar to each other.  If you have a lot of the tape used to protect your piece in your machine bed, then you can use a larger piece of tape to pick up the smaller pieces quickly and easily.

I then started to paint all of my pieces. I decided to paint a darker color for the outside pieces, and a lighter version of that color for the inside pieces. Once everything was painted and dry, I started to glue everything down to my round circle. This round circle I got from JoAnn Fabrics. I started out by applying a strong bond Elmer’s glue (wood glue would also be good) to the back of my outline piece. I used a thin tip bottle to apply my glue in smaller areas. This prevents an overflow of glue when you press the piece down onto the wood circle. Next, I applied glue to the inside of the outline shape where my inside pieces would go, or directly on the back of the larger inside pieces, and put them in place.  

This piece was very relaxing, but time consuming. I enjoy painting, and do not mind taking the time to do so, especially if I do not have to worry about being very precise and detailed with my painting. Do you like to paint? I am not the best at making bows, but a big multi layered bow could look nice on this piece. Since I am not the best at bows, I decided to keep it simple.