My sister LOVES horses. Seriously, as long as I can remember she has always been drawn to horses! When we were kids she practically had EVERYTHING with horses on it. I’m talking shirts, bed sheets, backpack, purses, and posters! As she’s matured over the years she has developed a more refined love of horses that thankfully no longer includes her having horse bed sheets! However, she still has plenty of horse decorations around her house to showcase her love of these beautiful animals.

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of crafters creating beautiful wall decor with vinyl and paper flowers on canvases. So, I thought since my sister’s birthday is coming up that I would design a vinyl horse head that used paper flowers for the mane. This got my creative juices flowing like crazy! However, after I had spent more hours than I care to admit designing the horse head my hard drive crashed and I lost all my hard work! So……..after I had licked my wounds, I once again started designing this project and I must say I like this version of the horse head better than my first one (total score)!

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What You Need!

• Cricut Machine
• Permanent Vinyl
• Card Stock 65 lb ~ I used Recollections paper color Cape Cod
• Acrylic Paint ~ I used FolkArt Metallic Paint color Pearl White
• Cricut Transfer Tape
• Tacky Glue or Glue Gun
• Canvas ~ Mine Is 12 x 12 Inches
• Large Book ~ Optional
• Free #38 ~ Horse Head With Flowers Free SVG ~ Available in The Pattern Stash! Head on down to the bottom of the page, fill out the form, and instantly receive an email with the password!

Cricut Supplies Used!

• Fine Point Blade
• Cricut Light Grip Blue Cutting Mat

What To Do!

To begin the horse head with flowers canvas you need to download the free SVG from The Pattern Stash and upload it into Cricut Design Space. Need help doing this? Check out my post How To Upload SVG Files to Cricut Design Space for step-by-step instructions! Next, decide what colors you will use for the horse head and flowers. Then proceed to cutting the horse head out of the vinyl and flowers out of the 65 lb paper.

FYI! You could do the flowers out of any colors that make you happy! I used three different colors and cut three sheets of flowers, which turned out to be PLENTY of flowers to cover the mane!

Next, you need to prepare your canvas. There are several ways of preparing a canvas for vinyl, but my favorite way is to use acrylic paint. For this project I used a pearl white metallic paint so it wouldn’t steal the spotlight from the horse head but would still be shiny. Now, you don’t want to add your vinyl to the canvas right after you’ve painted it. If you do the paint will come off (so sad)! So, set aside your painted canvas for at least 24 hours so the paint can set.

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Then after you cut and weed the horse head place the transfer tape on top of the vinyl. Use your Cricut scraper to press the transfer tape down onto the vinyl. Pull the horse head from its original backing.

Next, center the horse head over the painted canvas and press it down. Make sure that you don’t have any wrinkles in the vinyl!

Then take a large book and place it under your canvas. This will help not damage the canvas when you press down with the Cricut scraper in the next step. And…..if you happen to have the complete set of one of the best book series ever written to use (like me) that’s just a plus!

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Next, place the large book under the canvas where you are using the Cricut scraper and press the vinyl onto the canvas. Depending on how large your book and canvas are you might need to move the book around as you move across the entire front of the horse head.

Then flip over the canvas and use the scraper on the back of the canvas to press the vinyl. This helps to adhere the vinyl to the painted front of the canvas. Then flip the canvas back over and carefully remove the transfer tape.

Next, take the flowers you cut and press the petals up making the flowers look like little cups (this gives the flowers a 3D look). This is the part where you can let your creativity loose! The SVG cut file has two sizes of flowers so you can use any pattern your heart desires in adding the flowers to the mane. Now, I started out using tacky glue but could not get the flowers to glue to the vinyl. So, I made the switch to my super trusty glue gun and it worked like a charm!

Then continue adding more flowers to cover the rest of the mane. Now, this is the most time consuming part of this project. So, I suggest get a drink, put on your favorite movie (a.k.a You’ve Got Mail), and just keep gluing! Once you have covered the entire mane you’re done!

Now all that is left to do is hang or gift this super cute horse head with flowers canvas! My sister absolutely LOVED the horse head wall art and immediately hung it up in her bed room! So, what color will your horse head with flowers canvas be?

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