Printable paper gemstone rounds

I love magnets, especially the ones that are made by members of my family. These are super easy, but you don't have to use the paper gemstones for magnets. They can also be used as decorations on cards, glued on to bobby pins that have a glue pad, or turned into jewelry for part of a Halloween costume.

So for people who like to print and cut, you'll click below for the larger image, print out this page on card stock and cut out.

Now in a minute, I'm going to tell you how I did them. but the finishing methods for both versions are the same. 2 layers of cardstock are pretty stiff which is why they work as magnets and accessories. If you use any kind of ink that might smudge- spray the color printed disks with a clear sealing spray. After that dries, use Mod Podge to adhere a blank disk to the back of a colored disk. Mod Podge over the top, and let dry. Mod Podge on the bottom and let dry. Now you can choose if you're going to use Dimensional Magic. I did, and I like the look but the finish did crack on a couple. Let that dry for 24 hours, and use a strong glue to attach it to what ever you're using them on! (Small round ceramic disk magnets on mine!)

So what did I do different? Print and cut with the Cricut Explore. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this thing? The new update allows you to print using your home printer and then cut out your image. So all of my disks were perfectly cut and so were the blank backs. So when you update, and go into Design Space, you'll calibrate and watch videos that show you how to use the new update. 

The new update works with PNG files!! So here are those files for you to use (and you have my permission to use them in other Cricut projects)- click on them to download and save the transparent PNGs

So I went to edit, and put them all at 1.5 inches in size- this is what my print preview looked like after getting them laid out. It shows the bleed of my outside color so if the alignment is even a little off, it still looks great. 

Then after I printed and cut that, I flattened all the images, and switched them to cut and cut them from another sheet of card stock. 

Yes, it does work with more detailed cuts. I'll show that later this week! 

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Birthstone and Flower mandalas- a second option for October

I've had mixed feelings about October's Calendula and Opals mandala since drawing it, but at the time I was facing a deadline and pretty entranced with square mandalas.
Then Spoonflower announced a contest for floral themed WALLPAPER. Imagine that. Wallpaper that you can color. If you're a fan of The Birthstone and Flower series of Mandalas you can get it as wallpaper after I order the proofs. Or if you don't want to wait that long, you can vote for it in the contest and if I get in the top 10 Spoonflower will print it before I finish filling out my next sampler of fabrics to order. Voting will be open on April 24th. The design I submitted has all the flower/stone/month names in the corner, double checked for accuracy and consistent layout, it does not have my URL on it. This is the mockup from the Spoonflower site for how it would look as wallpaper. It's laid out in 4 rows and 3 columns. 
VOTING OPEN NOW!

So I redrew the October mandala to fit better with the rest of them. Click on the image for a larger version and print it to color.

Small JPG version:

Large transparent PNG version:

Brilliant Cut Mandala to Color

There is something very mandala like about a faceted gemstone. The cuts are designed to show off a stone in the best way possible and are generally radially symmetric. Done in miniature scale on small rocks that can be ruined so easily. So this simple mandala is inspired by that fine art.

But first a bit about shading diamonds that can also apply to other things. It's hard to color something "white"- the paper is already white! But things like diamonds get their beauty from the way they refract light and break it up into rainbows. If you look at the example above, I used a bunch of shades in gradients with white. You can get the same effect smudging your art media. But even just laid in plain pastels you still get the diamond effect if you use a spectrum of colors rather than just a few. So just an idea for shading them to look like diamonds. You could also just used monochromes to make your own favorite gem stone. Personally, I like emeralds!

Click the images for a larger version to print and color.

Small JPG version-

Large transparent PNG version: