The first step for me was designing my project.

I designed the initial mockup seen here in Inkscape. The image is composed of 7 layers and several dozen elements.

The five images here break down my general process for building up the design.

Here was my initial dry fitting. There are some changes that I would make if I were to design it again (like not letting my sunrays get so narrow near the sun! As you can see, when they get too thin it's hard not to break them), but it is fitting nicely. There are roughly 12 pieces in the project at this point, I've thrown out the smallest of the sunflowers from the design (the machine can do it, it's just too much work!). I had also decided against the birds in the design at this stage because I was worried I wouldn't get them to look how I liked.

I played around with the settings a bit, and decided to go a little less on the power and do a second pass since I was going to have to do a second pass anyways (the wood had a few glue spots that didn't cut on the first pass). 80 power, 5 speed, and 2 passes seemed to be the magic numbers for this particular wood.

I cut one of each shape with the exception of the heart outline, which I cut 3 for stacking.

All but two of the heart rings were painted according to my intended design, then assembled.

Layers applied in this order:

1) Heart from canvas 1 with the hanger built in, painted with a yellow to orange to red gradient.

2) Sun w/ rays (single tone yellow), Rolling Hills (which is three layers deep, painted contrasting greens and glued together), one of the heart rings (unpainted)

3) Sunflowers (multi-tone leaves, single green stem, yellow and orange pedal pieces, brown and greenish sponge pattern for the seed center), birds (black), and shrubs (two tone with highlights), one of the heart rings (unpainted)

4) Final heart ring to bring the outside of the project, painted red with a pink gradient.

At this point the project was done, though I sanded and painted the outside edge black to make it smooth and uniform.