Creating your own flowers

Hi, it’s Gael here today and recently I’ve created a couple of layouts where I couldn’t find the exact colour of flower I wanted, so this got me looking at ways to make my own flowers.  Today I thought I’d share with you how I made the flowers and show you a layout where I’ve used them.

To create the flowers I used 3 punches, 2 circles and one small 5 petal flower punch.  From white cardstock I punched one each of the circles and from a light pink cardstock I punched 5 of the 5 petal flowers.

Next I inked the centre of the smaller circle with the ink coming out slightly towards to end of the circle.  I then cut some V shapes into both the circles to form 6 petals.  These don’t have to be perfectly even.

Spritz the circles with water and crunch them up to get some creases on them.  I found it worked better if I crunched them up twice, so I just carefully opened them up and crunched them up again and this softens the cardstock and the creases seem to hold better.  Do this for both the circles.

For the smaller flowers give them a light spritz and crunch them up as well.  Make sure you have one which is crunched really tight, this will be the centre of the flower.  I found if I pressed the centre of each petal with my finger nail to give it a fold and then crunched it up, it held the shape better. 

Leave the petals to dry. 

Once dry gently open up the two larger petals and curl over the corners.  This gives the flower a more realistic look.

  - a close up showing the curled over edges.

For the smaller petals, gently open the four other petals.  Leave the tightly crunched centre petal as is. 

Put a dot of glue in the middle of the four opened petals.  Pick up the centre petal and put into the glue in the middle of one of the petals, continue until you have all the small petals stacked together.  Then add glue to the middle of the two larger petals.   Pick up the centre stack of petals and place them on the glue on the smaller of the remaining petals and then put that onto the glue on the larger petal.   (I hope that makes sense!!)

The end result should look like this -

This is one of the layout I’ve created using these flowers.  In this layout I made some of the flowers the reverse colour and I also added some glitter to the petals. 

 

Dress up a Tin Box

Hi there, it's Cathy here with a hybrid project for you today.  What's hybrid? It's the combination of digital and tradition crafting. You may think that it requires an extra step of getting the digital products out of the computer and into your hands, but there are some great benefits to hybrid. The one I like best is that I can re-use digital papers over and over again!

The project I'm sharing today is dressing up a tin box. You could use this for presenting a special gift, or keep some cherished items in.

The digital papers that I used are from the digital Kit "Cherries Jubilee" by Kristin Cronin Barrow.
Here's how I made this box:
1. Select two digital papers to use for flowers and one for leaves.

2. Open digital paper selections in photo editing software and prepare for printing.

  3. Print selected digital papers on inkjet cardstock ( I used Red River Linen 60lb)

4. Use large and medium flower punch (Paper Shapers Retro Flower)to punch required number of petals to create flowers. For the twisted rose, punch three large flowers and one medium flower. For a rose, punch three large flowers. For the open rose, punch one large flower and two medium flowers. For the small rose, punch three medium flowers.

5.Work on a soft surface such as the back of a foam mouse pad. Create two twisted rose flowers. Use three large and one medium punched flower for each of these. Spritz the flowers lightly with water to make them easy to manipulate. Using tweezers, hold the middle of a petal and twist it about 90 percent.

 
6. Push the twisted petal in towards the middle of the flower. Repeat for the remaining petals on all three large punched flowers.

7. Using your fingers, scrunch medium punched flower in to a ball. The image below shows one punched medium flower and one that has been scrunched.

8. Lay one of the large punched twisted flowers on the work surface. Place a drop of liquid adhesive in the center (I used Beacon Adhesives 3-IN-1 Advanced Craft Glue). Layer another large punched twisted flower on top, alternating the petals. Use the handle of a small paint brush to push the center of the flower into the foam work surface to shape and adhere the flower. Repeat with third large punched twisted flower.

9. Add a drop of liquid adhesive in the center. Using tweezers, place the scrunched medium punched flower in the center to complete the twisted rose. Set aside to dry.

 

10. Create three rosettes. Use three medium punched flowers for each. Push the center of one of the flowers into the foam surface using the handle of a small paint brush.

11. Repeat step 10 for the two remaining medium punched flowers, making them each slightly tighter than the previous flower. There will be three shaped flowers pieces of varying openness as shown in the image below.

12. Layer the three shaped flower pieces starting with the most open on the bottom. Add a drop of liquid adhesive in the center and layer the middle open flower piece on top. Add a drop of liquid adhesive to the bottom of the tightest flower piece. Using tweezers, insert it into the middle of the two layered flowers to complete the rosette. Set aside to dry.

13. Create one rose. Use three large punched flowers. Use the handle of a small paint brush or stylus to curl the petals on one punched flower under.

14. Using the handle of a small paint brush, push the center of the remaining two large punched flowers into the foam surface.

 
15. Make one of the flowers tighter by squeezing it against the handle of the paint brush.

16. Layer the three shaped flower pieces using the same technique that was used to layer the rosettes. Start with the most open flower on the bottom and end with the tightest flower on the top. The image below shows the three shaped layers, most open on the right and tightest on the left.

17. This completes the creation of the flowers. See image below to identify each flower type.

 
18. Punch leaves from green digital paper.

19. Prepare the tin by coloring it with inks. Color the outside of the lid and base. Simply place dots of alcohol ink on the tin surface. Use an alcohol ink applicator tool to spread or overlap the inks if desired. Allow the inks to dry. Below is a picture of the tin prior to coloring with the inks. The inked tin is seen below in step 20.

20. Once the ink has dried, spray the lid and base of the tin with Beacon Decoupage Gloss Sealer. This will seal the inks and provide a nice smooth, glossy surface to the tin.

 
21. Wrap ribbon around the lid of the tin using fabric adhesive (I used Beacon Adhesives Fabri-Tac)

22. Adhere rhinestone sticker to lid.

23. Cut dimensional glue dots in fourths using non stick scissors

 
24. Use the cut glue dots to adhere the flowers and leaves to lid.

Here are some additional photos of the tin.

Designer Showcase: Flower Clustering

Hope you are all having a wonderful Wednesday! Cathy here with this week's Designer Showcase. Our theme this week is Flower Clustering.

Anupama shares this amazing page with us. She likes to combine fussy cut paper flowers along with Prima flowers.  She shares this as a great tip to stretch your scrapping budget. You can really help make a pack of Prima flowers last by mixing it up with some paper ones. You also get a really nice look.  Also note the way Anupama works in the curls of torn paper, lace and leaves.  On the opposite side of the page she places a rosette near the stitched lacing at the paper tear. Such a sweet detail.

Gael has shared this lovely page with us this week. All of the flowers are handmade from cardstock. And they are just drop, dead, gorgeous!  Gael did an amazing job of clustering the flowers in flow with the background printed paper from Prima.It's as if the flowers blossomed right out of the paper. I really love how she worked in the bridge and bird bath too. What a wonderful garden-like setting!

Lesley considers herself a "flower addict", she loves to cluster flowers. To help ensure that her albums do not get too full, she also uses the fussy cutting technique. This is a great way to include a grouping of flowers on your layout without adding too much bulk.  Also a great way to use that beautiful flowery paper that you just had to buy, but then aren't really sure how to use it.  Cut it up and cluster the flowers, you could get several projects out of just one sheet of paper!

Here is a digital page that I created a cluster of flowers as a border., I have to admit that I am not the greatest at clustering flowers. In fact, this is really one of my short-comings. So this clustering took quite a bit of time for me to get the layering and shadow depths just the way I wanted them.  Which leads me to a tip... when you create a digital flower cluster, and you're really happy with the results, save the layered file of the cluster as well as a .PNG file of the cluster. This will allow you to easily use that cluster again on another layout, saving you a whole lot of time!

Flower clustering is not just for layout. You can use this on other projects too.  This is a box that I altered using scrapbook papers and embellies.  I clustered some flowers on the lid. I tried to vary the sizes of flowers to include large, medium and small flowers.

You can also cluster flowers on cards. I wanted this card to have a vintage Victorian garden feel to it. I clustered these small rosettes together to create a topiary as the focal point on the card.

One of the best ways to branch out into flower clustering, is to just play. Set up several flowers for your project. Then move them about. Change the stacking order and angles of the flowers until you find an arrangement that is pleasing to you.  Most of all, just have fun creating!

Designer Showcase: Spring Flowers

Happy Spring!  Officially the season started yesterday. We are sharing some beautiful Spring Flower designs today for our Designer Showcase.

Is this just adorable??  It's an "ice cream flower pot" made by Cindy.  This would be a sweet way to celebrate the season!  Cindy is sharing a tutorial for making these at her blog. You can find it here.

Cindy has also shared this layout that she made. She gathered her inspiration from the outfit that her goddaughter is wearing in the photo.  The yellow journal strips are a great offset to the pretty yellow flowers.

This sweet card was also made by Cindy. She used crayon shavings to create the beautiful colors on the flower. Want to know how? There is a tutorial here.

There is a lot of yummy "Spring" to be found on this page by Vicky.  The bird cage, butterflies and the gorgeous flowers. The way Vicky positioned her photo makes it looks as thought her daughter is reaching down and picking one of the flowers from the cluster. Really neat!

This is another page that carries on a "Spring" theme and flowers. On this page, Vicky has included really sweet Beatrix Potter type images of bunnies and faeries. The flowers she has added bring great dimension to the page. It looks like a story book setting and her photo fits in just perfectly.

Oh my!  This is just beautiful.  Dolores has made a page with a photo of an iris bloom and surrounded it with an amazing  bouquet. Her digital page is gorgeous in it's layout, the punched edges are so cute.  I love how she has captured the beautiful shades of color from nature throughout her design.

Coloring Flowers for Versatility and Economy

Do you ever have the color of flowers that you need?  Me either.  As an economical measure, I have solved my problem by buying only white flowers and adding color.   Usually, patterned paper is realitively inexpensive, but you can run up a bill quickly buying accessories so I make most of my own.

For flowers, I use anything that will stain the colors I need.  Mulberry flowers like Vicky used on her IFS post last Thursday take coloring the best. http://ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com/2012/02/soft-petal-flowers.html  In the example included here, I had a few sheets of a couple different paper collections from My Mind's Eye and no matching embellishments.  One flower was painted, using different shades of acrylic pink paint.  Acrylic paints are inexpensive and a few bottles of basic colors allow you to blend whatever color you need.  For the top coat I used a dry mustache brush (no idea where I got it) to strafe the lighter color on top of the dark color.  Made a mistake?  No big deal, just re-paint it!

The teal flowers were colored using alcohol ink.  I applied the ink to a dabber, then added some alcohol with a medicine dropper to lighten up the color.  You can buy alcohol ink medium where ever the inks are sold, but it is ordinary rubbing alcohol and costs a lot more than the quart bottle of alcohol at your local discount store.    I like to streak the colors for depth but an even color is also easily accomplished.  For the following layout the flowers were looking a little drab so I finished them off with glossy Modge Podge.

I used Pam Callaghan (IFS)'s Big Heart Template.  I loved her page and had to use the sketch .  http://ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-big-heart-sketch.html.

I have also used a direct ink pad to flower method as well as the new distress ink pads.  Another favorite technique is to stamp a design which adds interest and color.  Since I live five hours from a scrapbook store, improvise is my middle name.  There is not much you can do to color a flower than can't be undone or re-done so don't be afraid to try what you have on hand.