Go Canada Go Mandala Sign

2022 the year of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and it has been a crazy few years leading up to it. There has been the COVID 19 pandemic and all kinds of sporting events have been postponed or canceled with no rescheduled date. A lot of the Candians women's hockey team tournaments and games were canceled again with no rescheduled dates that I am aware of. The team with its current players and past players have been working so hard to women's hockey the recognition they deserve and put the spotlight on female athletes. All the cancellations made it even harder. All the athletes have been training and working so hard to prepare for it and had to leave their families for months to make it all happen. For some of the players this could be their last Olympics and for some this is their first. I wanted to create something that would show our support of the players and I am a huge hockey fan.

Honestly, if you watch women's hockey you will not be disappointed. The players are fast and skilled. Watching the women's hockey team win the gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics was awesome. The game was after 11 (past my bedtime) and when the game was over I stayed up for the medal ceremony and when that was done it was after 2 am. It was a really long night but worth every minute to stay up and watch. 

These are just some of the names of the amazing women past and present who have represented women's hockey all over the world: Haley Wickenheiser, Marie-Philip Poulin, Sarah Nurse, Melanie Daoust, Natilie Spooner, Brianne Jennier, Meghan Agosta, Ann-Renee Desbiens, Jamie Lee Rattray and Shannon Szabados. Please take the time to support such incredible women in their journey to put women’s hockey on map by watching any chance you get!

I created this really cool sign saying Go Canada Go with 3D mandalas made out of layered cardstock. If you aren’t sure what a mandala is, a design that has intricate designs that have multiple layers and done in different colours or shades. There is also a lot more to it than just the design I suggest googling it they are really cool.

Making theses can be really intimidating at first but once you start making them they are so much fun and there are so many options out there. They can be used for gifts and house decor. In some of the groups that I am a part of on Facebook others have made them with fairy lights in a shadow box. I made some for gifts and put them into a shadow box but didn’t do the fairy lights. That will be another challenge in the future.

Materials:

• 12 x12 pieces of cardstock - maple leaf different shapes of red, the letters red & white
• Adhesive foam dots - to make it 3D 
• Regular adhesive - regular layering no 3D affect
• Cricut machine - any cutting machine
• 12x12 green standard mat(s) - I suggest having multiple the machine wants you to feed constantly 
• Fine point blade
• Scraper - scrape unwanted pieces of cardstock off and adhere cardstock to mat(s)
• Spatula - help lift the cardstock if needed
• Foam board/poster board - to attach the mandalas to (optional)
• Tweezers - to help place the foam dots
• Exacto knife or scissors - to cut the foam dot smaller for thinner edges
• Self healing mat - for cutting the foam dots on 
• Cricut design space on device - computer, tablet or phone

Instructions - broken down into sections and this could be applied to other mandalas 

How to make:

Uploading and cutting your images

1. Open Cricut Design Space and search for leaf mandala, letter G mandala and Letter O mandala. I cut each mandala for example the leaf as one project.
2. Add the mandala to the Canvas and make it your desired size. Write down the size so you have for the others if you are doing each mandala individually. 

Cutting the cardstock

3. Add cardstock to the green mats and then take your scraper and run it over to help adhere the cardstock to the mat. I suggest having more than one mat to keep loading the machine as it wants to keep cutting.
4. Go to make it and follow the prompts (remember to set your material to the proper weight)
5. Feed the machine following the colour order it tells you too or just in the colour order you want. I have done it both ways and just took my time matching up the colours.
6. As the machine finishes the first it will ask you to load the next one, load it and hit cut.
7. As the machine cuts, flip your mat over and remove the mat from the unwanted cardstock. Sometimes it was easier to leave the cut piece on the mat and take the spatula and gently remove the cut piece with it because it was so thin. I didn’t want to rip it. Sometimes it all just comes off all at once. 
8. Repeat until all layers are cut and ready to be assembled. 

Assembling layers - two different ways to put it together either regular glue or foam dots (which I did) 

Assembling layers

9. I put the foam dots on the back of the layer, I would be attaching to the bottom layer. For the smaller areas that a full sized foam dot won’t fit it took an exacto knife and it in half or into four little pieces and used tweezers to place it. 
10. Once all the foam dots are on and the backings are peeled off attach it and line it up the best you can. You can peel it back off if you don’t like how it is positioned right. Try and remove it right away, don't let it sit too long or it will be too hard to take off. I had to take a layer off a few times. I learned the hard way.
11. Continue doing this with all the layers until it is all assembled. 
12. Repeat these same steps for the other mandalas.

Once you get into a rhythm of how to assemble them you will just fly through making your others with little to no problems.

When they were all cut the mandalas were placed onto a piece of black foam core/board to display them for pictures. You don’t need to do that, you can place them anyway you want. They would look cool as a poster or even a banner!

If you found an easier or a better way that works pop it in the comments below. I would love to hear from you and I love good tips and tricks that would make it faster so I can do more!