The Dove is a recognized symbol of Peace and this weeks Free design features a column of Doves cut from Card stock and assembled to form a vertical garland. They are topped with a banner which is a print and cut element and reads ” Peace on Earth”. I’m sure it’s something we all desire for the future.
My Doves aren’t carrying the traditional olive branch but I have embossed the card stock with an olive leaf pattern instead. They’d look equally good from plain cardstock too. Here’s a close up:
Inspiration
If you notice my blog byline it says Paper|Craft|DIY|Metal. There’s precious little metal on this blog but a few years back it was my obsession. These card stock Doves are made from my design for metal Dove pendants – they were pretty popular back around 2007. In case you’re interested to see more of my metal work – it’s archived on my old blog here
This one’s in textured Sterling Silver, cut with a jewellery handsaw. I also made made them from copper and brass.
The Options
Righto, I’ve veered off track – back to the card stock Doves!
On the file the doves have either 0, 1 or 2 holes for hanging. Use the “1 hole” pattern for the very bottom dove on your Cascade Garland. They’d also make great little gift tags or Tree decorations, You could use the “0 hole” dove to make place name cards for the table or stickers for gifts. If you’d prefer a garland that strings out horizontally add a couple of holes either side of the wings.
To Assemble
I’ve arranged my doves so they face in alternate opposite directions and are displayed against a wall. The cut file includes the mirror image of each Dove variation.
I laid the banner and doves face down on my cutting mat and used the grid marks to help space the doves out evenly. If you tie the knot around a needle (I inserted a darning needle before tightening the knot ) then you can slide the knot down the twine into the exact position you want it.
This is a view from the the reverse side and my assembly steps.
If you wish to hang your Cascade Garland from a hook so it swings and rotates freely, it may look like this……….
Perfectly fine except….. I don’t like the way the twine is visible along the back of the dove as it rotates. (second from the top) To fix that – Here’s an alternate method of stringing the garland..
Actually, I’ll probably use the second method in future, but I’d already done it the first way which worked great when the garland was against a wall and as I’d already made the first “how to” picture, I’ve left both options and can choose which method will work best for you.
The Files
Here’s the cascading Dove Garland Cutting File for V3
Here’s the cascading Dove Garland Cutting File for V2
and an affiliate link …….
(if you make a purchase I’ll be extremely grateful as I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you – so thank you!)
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Thanks so much – this looks great
My pleasure Glennis.
Hi Pam, Thank you for the dove’s files, you could make 2 of each and then glue them together so you don’t see the twine, it will be between them and it would look great on both siedes, Cheers Anna.
Thanks Anna,
That is a brilliant idea and you didn’t need two photos to explain the process like I did! Ha Ha – why didn’t I think of that? – I was obviously overthinking it LOL! I’ll definitely do it your way next time – thanks for sharing it 🙂
Cheers
Pam
thanks for the dove pattern. I will be making this today.
Thanks Mary, Always pleased when I hear someone is going to use one of my files. 🙂
Love your doves, It is not downloading properly, it copies to silhouette but when I click to put on drawing area I get nothing, can you help please.
Thanks Doreen,
Not sure what the issue is but hopefully one of these suggestions will help.
Have you downloaded the correct file for the Silhouette Software that you are using? I have included a File for each of V2 and V3 versions of the software. The V3 file wont work in the V2 software.
Other than that try saving it on your desktop instead of the Silhouette Library and double click on it to open it that way.
Is it just this file or is it all my cutting files that you are having trouble with? Maybe try a different file and see what happens.
Also, Are you on a Mac or a PC? I’m on a PC and when I click on the link it goes right to my download and a pop up asks which program I want to open it in – I select Silhouette Studio & OK and it opens the program and the design is there on the mat.
Hope this helps – Let me know how you get on.
Cheers
Pam
Disregard my previous comment although I’ve left it up as it could also be a solution to other common download problems.
I now have the actual solution to your issue 🙂
First go to your library right click and delete the file you have saved.
Then go to my post and re download the file you need as usual.
Save to your library.
Now when you open it from your library it should open just fine.
It was a glitch my end – The file had an extra dove that was way off the
mat. That was causing the other part of the main design to appear off the
mat also on the opposite side showing the mat as blank.
The actual design was there it was just hiding off to the side and was not
visible. I hope that makes sense. I have fixed the file now to get rid of
the rogue dove! Sorry about that 🙂
It was only an issue when the file was saved to the library. I save all
files to a folder on my computer so hadn’t picked it up as I only use the
library for the files I buy from Silhouette.
Anyway, hope it works for you now – Thanks for pointing it out.
Cheers
Pam
Thank you so much for sharing all of your fabulous cut files – this is so cool!!
Thanks so much Christi. So glad you like it 🙂