Handmade Flowers/display

I don't have a card for you today, but these flowers could easily be used on a card. I am making these in abundance along with many other types of flowers for a display on the book The Secret Garden. This happened to be one of my favourite reads when I was a child and still have fond memories of it. So I was  delighted when I was asked to do a display on the book.  I don't get enough time at work to create enough elements for this display so I have been spending many hours making flowers at home in the evenings and at weekends just to make sure I have enough flowers for the board. This has meant I haven't had too much time for card making this last week or so. Hence the lack of posts on my blog. I guess I could have made life easier for myself and create a baron  garden, devoid of colour, but where's the fun in that.

 Today I will share with you how I made these flowers.

 I punched out a bunch of petals using an old S.U punch (the name escapes me)

 from some pale orange card, I sponged a little pumpkin pie ink over the tips of the petals. Then using my Japanese screw punch, I punched a small hole in the centre of each flower.

Then I cut a strip of yellow card an inch and a half wide by the length of a piece of A4 card stock and drew a line along one long edge with a black marker pen and rule. I folded the strip in half and snipped into the black edge many times and very close together and about 3/4 of an inch deep to create a fringe.

 To make the centre of the flower I snipped off  about and inch and a half of the fringe and rolled it up tightly and glued the end.

                                      I stamped a few brown spots across the centre of the petals. 

Quite a few S.U stamp sets have  a small speckled stamp in, I can't remember which set  this one came from.

 Using a large ball tool and working on a foam mat, I shaped the petals by rubbing the ball tool on the back of each petal. Once all the petals were shaped  I flipped the flower over and working in a circular motion on the centre with a smaller ball tool to lift the petals  up to form a shallow cup. 
I carefully pushed the rolled up fringe through the hole in the centre of the flower. It should be a tight fit. Then added a little glue to the back of the flower around the stem.

 To add a stem I took some fine wire about 6  to 8 inches long and folded over the sharp end by half an inch and added a little adhesive before I  poked the end into the back of the flower.

Using green florists tape, I tightly bound the base of the flower and wound it tightly around the wire, gently stretching the tape as I worked to release the sticky wax substance  which makes the tape stick.

To join the flowers together to form a sprig, I laid the flowers side by side with one flower  about  two  inches higher and the bound the stems together with the tape. I continued  working my way  down the stem until I had five flowers bound together on each stalk.  Then I folded over the end of the last wire before binding it with tape to prevent the wire poking through the tape and injuring anyone handling the flowers.
 

Update... I thought you might like to see the  almost finished Secret Garden display. The children's work has yet to be added on and around the board.

 Here you can see how I used those orange flowers in the tutorial.

There are three glossy little ladybirds hidden in this display.

I made them by punching out three small circles from red card. I punched out two black rounded rectangular pieces of card using the word window punch. then glued the  red circle on the the black leaving just a tiny amount  of black poking out of one end and trimmed off the excess. 

I drew on the dots with a fine sharpie pen and then cover the ladybird with glossy accents.  I let the glaze dry over night, then applied a second and third coat leaving the layers to dry over night each time.

One member of staff has already asked if she can have them when the display comes down as she wants to turn them into earrings, another member of staff has asked for the flowers to put in a vase for her room. But I think they might brighten a dreary staff room.

A Delicate Aster... stamp and die set.

 

Another flower making post today.
But this time with  a very useful tip on lining up stamps with coordinating  dies.
I learnt this recently and just had to share.

I have only recently discovered Heartfelt Creations stamps and dies.... I have been an S.U junkie for the past five years so I haven't been looking at other company's products very much. But
 S. U  are making many changes at the moment, not only with their products but with the whole company and I am finding it difficult to get my head round all the changes. I am not sure I like the changes, the artwork or  the introduction of polymer stamps.
As you probably know I don't like polymer stamps much and S.U seem to be making more and more of their sets in polymer.  As a hobby demo,  I am finding less and less to spend my money on (which will come as a relief to my husband). So I have been looking around to see what else is available.
That's when I found these flower stamps and dies and just had to try them.

Unlike the Arianna Blooms stamp set these flowers are individual stamps and not in a block, so you have to cut one at a time.
You start by stamping the image on a piece of card stock a bit larger than you need.   I will call this..... Card stock A  for the purpose of this tutorial.

The cutting edge on these dies are NOT on the edge of the die, as it is on the Arianna Bloom set so it is difficult to line up the cutting edge with the stamped image.

Unless of course you already know the tip I am about to share with you.

Take a scrap of paper, smaller than card
stock A  but  big enough for the die,  tape the die face down to the paper, allow the tape to hang over the edge of the scrap paper.  As in the photo below.   


Run this through the die cutting machine and  then remove the flower from the centre of the die.  Leave the die attached to the paper along with the tape. 

Now flip the die  up as though  opening a door,  using the tape as a hinge.
Take your stamped image  Card stock A and place it under the paper template.  Line up the image with the aperture you have cut as accurately as you can. 

Once you have matched up the image with the aperture press those over hanging bits of tape down so they stick to the layer of card with your image on  Card stock A.  
Flip the die back over so it sits back into the original cut.  Do this carefully so not to disturb the card layers.   Then run it through a die cutting  machine again.   
                                            
These dies are designed to cut out the
 image without leaving a white border.
So positioning of the die is crucial.
 
Here you can see the over hanging sticky tape stuck to bottom layer of card and you can see the centre of the stamped flower through the hole in the centre off the die .                                                                    The next photo shows the flower after it's been cut out.     You can see how accurately you can cut these flowers out using this method.                                                            The next photo is of the left over card stock, just to prove the accuracy.

                                                                                To make the flower at the top of this post I used six layers of petals in total.  Two of the largest size, two of the next size down and two of the next size down.  To complete the flower  I sponged each petal with lilac ink.    I could however,  have just stamped the image onto lilac card stock in the first place.                          

The next step was to shape the flower.      Place the flower face side down on a sponge mat. Using a ball tool,  stroke  from just below the tip of the petal down to the centre. The petals will curl upwards as you do this.  

                                      

When all petals have been curled turn the flower over and with a ball tool draw a circle firmly around the centre of the flower following the base of each petal, do this a few times to get the petals to lift. 

Repeat these steps on all  the layers.          You can then layer them up and stick them together making sure you off set each layer as you add it.

For the centre of the flower, I cut a narrow strip of  yellow card and cut a fringe along the edge and rolled it up and stuck it in the centre of my flower.  These Aster dies do come with a small stamen die  which I chose not to use on this flower. 

Time for bed for me, it's the early hours of the morning yet again and this post has taken many hours to write up.    I have been having a lot of issue with my blog of late so I do hope all this makes sense. So this is  goodnight from one very tired  Laura. x

 

Oh Darn it!!! I forgot to mention there is a very good video on you tube on this technique. It By Emma Lou of Heartfelt Creations.  I can't remember which dies and stamps she uses to demonstrate this method but I know it's not this one.  She has quite a few videos all worth watching..... she also seems to have just as many hair styles. 

Apologies for the poor spacing and lay out of this post.......I am having some issues with my blog. The more I try to correct the issues the worse things gets.

                                                                                                                 

Arianna blooms stamps and die set.

It feels like an eternity since I last posted or even visited my blog. I am sure it's not  really as long as it feels. The reason being is, I have been very busy packing up  my kitchen, cleaning and having floor tiles containing asbestos removed. Then cleaning again and putting everything back.  If that wasn't enough, the house was due a full electrical inspection too. More inconvenience, so I haven't done much over the last few weeks apart from hump furniture around.  

I also celebrated a birthday last week and received some wonderful crafty presents. I also treated myself to a set of Heartfelt Creations coordinating dies and stamps. I chose the Arianna Blooms set. I really love the fact you can stamp and cut 5 flowers at time.  I am always put off the flower building dies due to the amount of individual petals you have to cut to build one flower, so this is great for the impatient stamper /die cutter like me. 

There is something else I love about these dies too but I'll come to that in a little while.

They are very easy to use. First you stamp the flowers then you place the die over the stamped image and tape the die down to prevent it moving and run it through  the die cutting machine. It's as simple as that.

 

 

Now this is the other thing I love about these die and stamp sets.

Take a look at the photo of the die below.

Notice the cutting edge of the die is on the edge of the die. That means the white border around the image is minimal.

 I have never liked dies that leave the wide border around the images. But when I saw how close these dies cut I knew, I  just had to have them.

 

 

Once cut out you can colour and assemble any way you like . Here are a few examples.

 

The blue one I inked with SU 's bashful blue and brocade blue ink and then applied some Wink of Stella to the petals for some shimmer. Personally I think it's too shimmery. I think a light spritz of shimmer paint mixed with a some Isopropyl  (rubbing alcohol)

For the purple one I used SU's Pale Plum and Concorde Crush to colour this one.  I chose cream stamens and pearls for the centre of this one.

 

I used SU's  Hello Honey to colour this one and black stamens for contrast and one of those flat back gems that look like Jelly tots.

 

 You can colour these or stamp them on any colour card, add as many stamens as you like,  add  gem stones or pearls. vary the stamen colours, heat emboss the stamped image. stamp them on Vellum. The possibilities are almost endless.

 

There is one more thing I have not yet mentioned and that is the shaping of the petals.

for all of the above flowers I  lightly sprayed the back of each layer with water and crushed/ pleated each petal  length ways down each and every  petal and allowed the petals to dry off a little before opening them up and layering up.

You can shape each petal with a ball tool instead for a more rounded look flower. It's great to be able to get  several different looking flowers from one die set. 

 I favour the crushed petal version.

The rounded version is slightly  quicker to make.

 

If you want to see demos on making these flowers go to ...  YouTube and watch Heartfelt Creations  Emma Lou 's flower shaping videos.

 

As you can see .....I got carried away.

Paper Gerberas

Today I resurrected  the daisy die  I bought some years a go  from Stampin up! I have only used it  twice to make brooches from tin cans. (This die has now been retired.)
It was nice to make something a little more colourful with it this time.

Brief instructions as I don't think you will need detailed instructions for these.
 Cut two large and two medium size daisies in the colour of your choice.

 Then cut three smaller daisies for the centre two  in a one  colour and  the third in  another colour.

Here I have used a mix of  two white to one yellow  on one flower,  then two yellow to one white. 

The purple flower I used two white to one pink.

 I layered up and stuck  all the petals together and gently  curved  the two large sets of petals downward with a bone folder and the small petals curved  upwards. 

I also  covered the hole in the centre of the flower with a
1" card circle  punched from green card stock and stuck to the under side of the flower.

For the centre of the flower, I punched a small circle placed it on some firm foam and rolled a large ball tool  round and round until the circle started to form a slight dome. 
 I covered  it in crystal effects and  then smothered it in glitter and left it to dry for a few hours. 
Once dry  I stuck a piece of thick double sided sticky foam in the centre of the flower and placed the glittery centre piece over it.

The stems of the flowers are kebab sticks wound tightly in  old olive  card.
Before winding the card around the sticks I curled them over and over again in all directions until the card started to peel. 
 I peeled the layers apart so I had two thin strip of card to with a little glue I would  the strips around the sticks. 

I poked  a small  hole in the  back of the flower head with  a very sharp paper pricker added a little glue and pushed the  pointed end of the kebab stick into the hole at a slight angle and allowed to dry.

The leaves were cut  by hand with scissors. Lucky for me I had a Gerbera plant sitting on the window sill so I had a reference point for the shape of the leaves. I think my leaves are a little bit broader than on the actual plant. I drew the veins in with a fine ball tool and sponged the edges and attached them to the stems. The final step was add a few drops of crystal effects  to give the appearance of water droplets on the leaves and allowed to dry.