For this piece, I upcycled an old wall‑art frame and built a completely new design inside it. I started by cutting a bright yellow sheet of cardstock to fit the frame. The stitched heart, needle, thread spool, and the quote were created as a Print‑Then‑Cut element, giving the background a clean, illustrated look.
The dress form was cut separately from black cardstock. For the dress itself, I bonded quilting cotton to Heat‑n‑Bond, creating a firm, double‑sided adhesive layer. I cut the fabric using a 60° deep‑cut blade, fabric placed paper‑side down on a fabric mat. My cut settings were 230 GSM cardstock, force 7, speed 3, and it required five passes to cut cleanly through the bonded stack.
The belt was created as its own small detail. I bonded a blue piece of fabric to Heat‑n‑Bond, then glued a cardstock belt‑shaped cutout onto the paper backing using a glue stick, and hand‑trimmed it with scissors for a precise finish.
Once all the pieces were prepared, I peeled the paper backing from the fabric, & used an iron to bond the fabric dress onto the cardstock dress form and the bonded belt onto the fabric dress. Each element — the dress form, stitched heart, spool, and needle — was mounted onto the yellow background using double‑sided foam tape for dimension. Finally, I secured the completed cardstock panel inside the frame using double‑sided tape on each corner.
The result is a layered, dimensional piece celebrating creativity and transformation — “becoming something beautiful, one stitch at a time.”
Materials:
- Upcycled frame
- Yellow cardstock
- White cardstock (Print‑Then‑Cut)
- Black cardstock (dress form)
- Quilting cotton fabric
- Blue fabric scrap (belt)
- Heat‑n‑Bond Lite
- 60° blade
- Fabric mat
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Double‑sided foam tape
- Double‑sided tape
- Iron
Difficulty Rating: Intermediate — involves bonded fabric cutting, multi‑pass settings, Print‑Then‑Cut alignment, and layered assembly.
