Flower tutorials revisited

Hello, friends!

Recently I have been inundated with emails about making the flowers that I make for my projects. I have two tutorials that I made a little over a year ago that will should prove helpful in making your own paper flowers.

Supplies: You need the ART PHILOSOPHY cartridge or the Artiste cartridge.

Hot Glue Gun: I use one that I bought from M's. It is a Martha Stewart and has settings for low and high temp. You will use the low temp when making flowers.

Tweezers: This is almost as important as the glue! They are invaluable when making these flowers. Mine are of coarse from Close To My Heart. I like that these are long. It is great when getting into tight places.

Now lets make some flowers! Here are all six of the different types of flowers that are included on the Art Philosophy cartridge. I cut them all out at 3 1/2"

I chose the flower on the top left in this photo for this demo. All the flowers are made this exact way, so once you learn the basics you can make all 6 flowers! Tomorrow's tutorial will be using the other 5. I will show you 5 different things to do to the flowers to enhance them.

The next step is to roll the spiral up to give it form. I like to do this around a marker. Start using the very end.

After it has been wrapped completely slip it off of the marker barrel and grab your tweezers. Grab the center part of the flower with your tweezers and start twirling. This tightens up your flower, so you can make it as tight or as loose as you like.

Now it is time to put a small dollop of glue using your hot glue gun on the big round bit that your flower rests on. Be careful because the glue is very hot!

You are left with this little flower.  It is pretty and you can left it just as it is or you can tweak it just a little. 

I like to gently bend back the petals. This opens the flower up and give it just a little more life.

After you have folded back all of the petals you can you are left with this. Again it is pretty, but it is missing something. Lets add some leaves! I like to add leaves because it adds a little more color and it can hide some imperfections.

I cut the leaves at 1 1/2". Again, these are ok how they are, but with just one little things turn from good to great!

Using my tweezers I scored the leaves down the center and folded them inward. This gives them a more realistic look.

Now you can just glue them to the back side of the flower. VOILA!

Super simple, right! You can add these flowers to frames, cards, scrapbook pages, wreaths, and bags. I am so into making these flowers at the moment that I want to stick them onto everything!

Now I have a tutorial on how to give your 3D flowers a WOW factor. There are several ways to do this and today I am going to show you 5. Now there is definitely lots more than 5, but this will give you a starting point.

All flowers used for this tutorial were cut out at 3 1/2" using the CTMH ART PHILOSOPHY cartridge. You can also you the Artiste cartridge.

First lets talk about inking. I actually ink all of my flowers. Inking gives the flower a more realistic look.

To ink you will need:

a sponge

and some ink

Then all you do is load up your sponge with the ink and darken the edges of the spiral before you roll it. I recommend inking both sides.

You are left with this which is kind of hard to see in this picture, but it has a nice mix of light and dark shades.

Here is a photo of the flower we made yesterday and the flower we just made. They are both made using the same color of cardstock. Notice the color difference?

Next tutorial is going to be glimmer misting. To so this you will need some glimmer mist and a flower that is already made.

I like to have a small box lined in paper towels to do my glimmer misting in. Then I just lay the item in the box and generously spray the glimmer mist. It will need to dry a bit, but before that it is good to move the petals around a little more because your flower is very pliable while it is wet.

Your end result is a slightly glittered flower. The effect is very subtle, but beautiful!

The next tutorial is glittering. Now this can be done many ways for many different types of effects. For this flower, I simply added liquid glass to the edges of the flower and then dipped it in glitter.

This is the result!

The next tutorial is adding adhesive backed pearls or buttons to the center of your flowers. You can use anything you have on hand. I used these pearls from Close To My Heart.

and this is the result...I want to say something else about this particular flower. If it was cut large it would be an excellent bow for a gift!

The final tutorial for today is adding dew drops to your flowers using the liquid glass. This is super simple to do and looks great when it is dry!

Also with this last flower I rolled the edges with my fingers before it was made.It looks like this.

When you are done this is the result.

and here is the flower with LOTS of dew drops. Perhaps it has just rained ;-)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I look forward to seeing you all back here tomorrow!

October Specials

Back by popular demand, I am giving away one E2 Cricut machine to a lucky customer. To be eligible to win, you have to place an order on my Close To My Heart website this month. That is it! I will draw a winner November 1st.

The October stamp of the month is a total must have! It is called Very Merry Christmas and coordinates with the Artiste cartridge, so if you have that cartridge you are going to want to snatch this up! It makes tag making a total snap!

As always, this stamp set (retail price of $17.95) is only $5 with any order of $50 or more!

 Now don't forget that you can still buy the fabulous Artiste and Art Philosophy cartridges, so if you have not taken the plunge yet, come on in the water is great!

To order click here ==> Melanie's Close To My Heart website

Have a MAGICAL Monday!


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