Fun With Flowers!

We had so much fun learning four new flower-making techniques at my latest workshop last weekend. A couple of them were a little challenging, but we persevered and created four wonderful cards with our beautiful blooms. Let me share with you what we did:

This first card uses the wrapped ribbon flower technique. We used white grosgrain ribbon (3/8" wide) and a 2" "Gluber" (manufactured by Cosmo Cricket) to create the flower. Starting from the center, twist the ribbon as you press it onto the adhesive surface of the Gluber, creating a spiral, and covering the entire surface of the circle. Tuck the ribbon's end under the Gluber (so it sticks to the underside), peel off the plastic backing, and adhere to your card. It takes some patience to create this flower, but it's super cute and so versitile with all of the different colors, patterns and styles of ribbon there are!

This next one is the accordian-fold flower. We used an 8.25" long by 1" wide strip of white cardstock, which we stamped, inked the edges of, then scored at 1/4" increments along the entire length. Accordian-fold the strip and adhere the ends together to form a ring (be sure when adhereing the ends together that they match up just like another fold in the pattern - you don't want any stray flaps or folds). The tricky part here is getting the top of the ring scrunched together, then pushed down into the center, while pulling the bottom of the ring outwards, to create the flower. Here's a quick visual to help explain:

Once you get to this point, you will have to adhere the flower to a circle of cardstock - otherwise, it will keep springing up on you. We just used a 1" circle of cardstock and a hot glue gun. Stick the flower onto the circle so that the 1" circle of cardstock is on the back. We glued a brad into the center of our flowers (the "feet" of the brad were too short to poke through the back of the flower), but you could use any number of buttons or bling that you'd like. Now you can adhere your flower to your card.

While we had the hot glue gun sparked up, we created our next flower using a cut from the "Art Philosophy" Cricut cartridge. There are several different flower styles to choose from on the cartridge, but I thought this one looked the most "beachy". After cutting the flower out on the Cricut at 3.5", we started at the outer end of the spiral, and wrapped continuously toward the center around a thick lollipop stick (this will give you a nice, tight wrap). When you reach the center, pull the stick out and let the flower uncoil a bit. Put hot glue on the center circle (built into the flower design), and press your wrapped sides down onto it. After the glue is set, press down each set of petals, starting with the outer-most layer and working your way in, until you get the look you want. Adhere the flower to you card.

Last, but not least, was the tissue paper flower. This was very easy and created a stunningly realistic carnation. All you need is 15 sheets (or layers...you can fold one sheet many times to get 15 layers) of tissue paper, a brad, a 2" scallop circle die, and a die-cut machine (i.e. - Sizzix Big Shot). I originally tried this using my 2" scallop circle hand-held punch, but it kept tearing the tissue (even after putting the tissue between cardstock), so I borrowed a friend's Big Shot and aquired the die from my local craft store. Once you have your 15 layers of tissue, fold them in half, unfold, turn 90 degrees, fold in half and unfold again. This is done to simply find the center of the circle. Once found, poke the brad through the center and secure at the back (it doesn't matter what you use for a brad - you won't see it in the final product). Starting with the top layer of tissue, gather it up and crinkle it into the center around the brad - don't push it down into a ball - just crinkle towards the center. Do this for each layer, being careful to do just one layer at a time. When you're finished, you will have something that resembles a closed flower bud...which begs for us to help it bloom! All that's left to do is press outward on the layers of tissue until the flower emerges. I used my piercing tool to help me separate some of the layers and spread them out. Once you have your flower just the way you like it, adhere to your card. Beautiful!

Now that you're all expert flower-makers, I hope that you can join us for my next workshop on Sunday, March 18th from 1-4pm! Contact me for all the details!