Cricut heart tree from January Workshop

I love the fun and patchwork quilt feel this Valentine tree gives.  This is from my January workshop.

I originally saw this idea on pintrest (here is the link), and then thought WOW I can make that, and do it easier using my Cricut Artiste!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You gotta love finding something cute and not only being able to make it your own, but making it faster and easier.

Instead of trying to hand create a cone from scratch or from buying a foam cone.  I used the CONE cut on my Artiste cartridge pg 42. I cut the cone for the larger cone to "fit to page".  For the class I cut them at 7".  I placed a couple staples (because they would be covered anyways) up the cone to be speedy and glued the rest of the way with Liquid Glass.  I recommend doing this ahead of time and placing aside so they are completely dry when you go add hearts.

I cut the the hearts using my Cricut Art Philosophy.  Now I could have stayed with the Artiste, but I liked the longer skinnier hearts on the Art Philosophy.  I really think they laid better than the original samples.  I cut the hearts at 2.25" and "filled the page"; doing that cuts 50 hearts/page.  It takes roughly 1 1/2 pages of hearts to cover the cone depending on how close you layer them (so around 75ish).

I wanted the colors to be random, but controlled random.  What I tried to do to control the spread of patterns, I tried to make sure that I never layered the same pattern over itself and having three patterns made that super easy.

When you start glueing, start at the bottom and work in a circle around the base, then go up a row.  I only placed glue on the tip heart which allowed for a natural flare and dimension at the bottom like real branches. I have seen versions were they curled the top of the heart for more flare, which I thought was cute for Christmas but I liked how the straighter hearts looked like hearts!

For placement it worked great to start the 1st row with a heart between each eyelet cutout.  One the next row, up I fill in

Finishing touch, was to add our Glitz Glitter Gel in coordinating pink Z1770 in dots again randomly on the right corner of hearts.  Okay so maybe that's not so random either (wow didn't realized how OCD I've become while crafting lately lol) I picked one pattern and those are the hearts that got the Glitz:)