Shabby Chic Flower Tutorial

As promised, here's how I made the flowers I've been showing on here recently. 

I've used the thickish handmade "Lokta" paper to make these, but it's worth trying different papers too as they'll all give different effects.  As you can see, I've managed to acquire quite a lot of this stuff - it's lovely for covering books and boxes - especially when I make boxes for special cards as it not only looks opulent with all the paper's knobbly texture , but it also makes for a really sturdy box.

Anyway, on to the flower project....

You'll need

a piece of paper - about A5 will be enough

Glue

Scissors

Stickles Glitter Glue - I like Crystal Ice Stickles

Circle punch (abt 5cms) or cut by hand

There are a lot of photos, so I'll add them in small view - you can click on them for a larger version

1. Cut heart shapes, either using a multi sized die, or just freehand with scissors.

You'll need at least three sets of different sizes,  I prefer to use four sizes of hearts but I think it really depends on what sort of paper you're using

For the 1st and 2nd sets you need to cut 8 hearts

for the 3rd and 4th sets cut 4 hearts in each size

Use a dot of glue to stick the points of the hearts together in pairs - this photo shows all the hearts at that stage, the ruler will give you an idea of sizes I've used

2.  Now put a dot of glue in the middle of one pair of hearts and add the second set of the same size as shown here.  Repeat for all the sets of hearts ending up with something like this

3. I've made a few of these flowers now, and find you get a nicer result by making a base piece.

For this, cut/punch a 5cm circle, fold it in half, and half again then cut as in pic 2 below.  When you open it out you should have something like picture 3 shows.  Set this aside for later. 

4. Now build up all the layers from the largest at the bottom, toi the little ones at the very top, add a little dot of glue at the centre of each floret between each of the layers.  Allow to dry for a few minutes

5.  When the layers are firmly stuck together, take the flower and start to crumple it all up into a ball.  Roll it between your hands as though you were making a meatball!  The crumplier, the better. 

When you uncrumple it you'll have something like on the second photo - if you think it needs a few more wrinkles just crumple it up again till you're happy with the effect.

6.  Next apply some Stickles to the edges of the petals, or wherever you think will look good.  You can use your fingers to move the glitter about a bit.  Leave it to dry thoroughly

Punch or cut a circle of card and stick this to one side of the base section you made earlier.

7. For the flower centre you can use a large brad, or a button, or you could make something like those I've done here

The first is made with  Card Candy. which are domed circles just perfect for flower centres, or to use as faux brads etc .  I wanted to cover this one with black Stickles so I used a beaded pin with a bit of blutack on to secure it on top of the bead while I applied the Stickles - it's a bit easier to do it that way rather than when the Card Candy is stuck to the flower - I always end up with the Stickles getting onto the flower petals when I do that.

8.  Once the flower is dry, apply glue to the punched circle on the base piece and stick the two sections together.

Make a hole through all the layers for attaching a brad, or just glue the Card Candy, button or jewel to the middle of the flower and leave it all to dry for a while.

You can do some extra "tweaking" to get a better shape - but try to get your fingers in between the flower and the base layer when you do this.

The finished flower

Here's another idea for the flower centre

*Punch two or three 1.5cm circles from card and stick them all together to get a firm base

*Apply a thick layer of Glossy Accents all over the card circle

*Drop beads of a single colour, or mixed colours to match your project into the GA, trying to cover the whole circle

*Apply more GA over the top of the beads then leave to dry thoroughly before adhering to your flower.

There you go, all done - I warned you there was a lot of photos, but often pictures help more than words!

I hope you'll have a go at making one of these flowers and will come back and let me know how you got on

Happy Crafting

Flapping Around

Nothing new there, then!

Actually it's "flaps" we've been adding to our cards this week for the new challenge on The Daring Cardmakers - and as it was me setting the dare, I was in even more of a flap than usual.  Mainly because I knew I had an idea for this when I wrote it on our calendar a couple of weeks ago....but can I remember what the idea was? 

     Getting in a Flap

    I'd like to see cards with flaps this week. Little flaps that you lift up or open out to see a secret "something" hidden behind or bigger flaps that form part of the actual card. Maybe even little birdies with wings that really "flap" As long as it's a flap that lifts up from your card it will count - just flat images of a bird or butterfly flapping it's wings won't!

So it came to yesterday and still no inkling into what I had had in mind - it must have either been a brilliant catch-it-while-you-can idea, or else it was so rubbish it took the initiative and consigned itself to the bin!

How embarrassing would it be to fail at getting a card made for my own challenge? aagghh

In the end I remembered something I did for a "food" themed challenge ages ago ( back in 2007 - I've just hunted it out) and decided to give that a new look. 

It gave the perfect opportunity to use the beautiful new sei papers that have been giving me "come hither" looks since they arrived

 Untie the ribbon and open the flaps and inside you find:

 The "Claire" papers from sei are just gorgeous, some have a lovely shimmery finish and some have subtly foiled effects running through the designs.  I bought a few 12x12 sheets and a 6x6 paper pad and I already know I'll be wanting more of these papers!  

The Daring Cardmakers DT have made some fab cards this week (they always do though), lots of ideas for getting in a flap with you own cards - I do love cards with little hidden extras!  You can see them all on our BLOG, and of course there'll be more info on our individual blogs too

 

What I didn't realise until this morning was that my google image search came up with exactly the same photo this time as when I made the original version back in 2007. For that one I made the whole front of the card into the chocolate box

 That's it for now - Next time I'll be blogging how to make these flowers

I've just got a couple of extra photos to do then I can write it up.  If you want to have a go straight away, try and hunt out some Lokta paper, or other thickish  handmade paper. You'll only need about an A5 sized piece, and apart from that you'll just need some glue, some Stickles glitter glue and some scissors.

I've not tried one of these with other papers yet, if I get time I'll do some experimenting though!

Hope to see you there

Bright and Cheerful

The new set of Crafty Templates are on the loose, along with the optional Crafty Goodies kit for this month.

 I think a lot of the Goodies and some of the Templates have a little of the 50's vintage feel about them, certainly the lovely apron template reminded me of those "Perfect Housewife" pictures you see in magazines from the era - which is why I ended up using it with these colours of card and these paper designs on this little post-it notes booklet

The yellow, green and pink card are all from the Goodies kit, as are both the patterned papers on the outside cover and that lovely heart design ribbon.  I've a feeling that the cherries jewelled brad and the Gingerbread woman brad came from past Goodies kits.  The flowery paper just looked perfect to use with the 50's style pinny template, I cut the frilly edged base, the belt and the bow trim for the apron from pink card.

I found the cute wooden rolling pin in my stash and couldn't resist tying it onto the spine of the book.  I used some BG paper (from my stash) on the inside and added a little pen holder made with another of the paper designs included in the Goodies Kit

 The cake is a rub-on image used on a scrap of card and then covered with Glossy Accents.  The lettering is cut on my Craft Robo.

I love this little flying owl template!  More paper, card and ribbon from the kit, along with a foam circle and button also found among the treasures in the Goodies bag.  The owl is carrying a pc generated greeting and a couple of Prima flowers with Card Candy centres.

This one may be a bit more Hippy era with all those bright colours and cute images - maybe I should have added a few happy-hippy flowers too!

The rainbow in the centre is the template from the set - or half of it anyway.  You do get the full image in the Template Set, but I was awkward and decided to use just one half - what's at the other end of this rainbow is left to the imagination!  One of the papers in the Goodies kit has lots of rainy day images on and I've used three of them on this card.  To echo the rainbow in the lower picture I found colours and patterns from my stash to make the big one, then cut the cloud from another of the papers inn the kit.  I wasn't sure about throwing quite so many colours into one small space, but in the end it seemed to work!  The "sing a rainbow" is another computer generated sentiment - it seemed right to go with the flow and make it as bright as possible.

 You can find out all about Crafty Templates and how to get your hands on the Templates Set and if there are any left, how to order the Goodies Kit by visiting HERE

Thank you for all your comments - they are soooo appreciated.  I've not had a chance to come and visit all those who left messages yesterday yet - but I will get there eventually, I promise!

I'll also get that flower tute on here soon too!

Daring Cardmakers Day tomorrow and it's my turn to set the dare - I'm sure I had something in mind when I put it in our calendar, but obviously that thought is long gone....ohhhhhh dear oh dear, what am I going to do....

A Card and a WOYWW

Wednesday again, so time once more to share our craft spaces and whatever's on our desks.  It's such a treat to be invited to see so many different crafters joining in and sharing their spaces each week - clever Julia for coming up with the whole WOYWW idea!  

Here's  my desk first thing this morning.  Yesterday I'd started making the bits I need to do the photos for a tutorial on how to make one of these flowers (photo on right), so what you see on my, and please note new and clean craft mat (yes, I've taken it out of the polythene at last, haha) are the first stages of the project.  

Check back in a couple of days if you'd like to see the whole thing.

Also you can see one of my new acquisitions - from the "Lord of Ink and Altering's" Idea-ology collection a Tiny Attacher stapler.

Apart form that it's the usual stuff that you see sitting on my desk every week!

I've been on a bit of a stash diet lately - mainly because I pretty much wiped out my account on that helicopter jaunt for Hubby's birthday - but I reckoned I'd left it long enough so have had a little spend this week - the Tiny Attacher you've already seen, so here I'll swing round to Hubby's desk (which I've "borrowed" while he's not here and will have to clear up before he gets home) to show my other new stash.

Some exceedingly bright and happy papers and flowers by Bo Bunny (Charmed Cards and Crafts)

And a big box of gorgeousness from The Craftz Boutique - some delicious new papers, flowers and brads from the new sei collection "Claire", a couple of new punches and some charms to go in that chipboard word book which is still unfinished.

Last for today a quick anniversary card made using my April sketch - if you like using sketches, I'd love it if you have a try with this one.  So far only the lovely Kate has linked her card to the April sketch - you can find the link to her card, and more info by clicking on The Sketch File LINK

Right, it's lunchtime and I'm starving so I'm off to grab a sandwich.  I'll be checking out the other links later, but if you still haven't a clue what this WOYWW thing is all about, Click HERE to find out more!

EDIT: hmmm so, I was obviously more in need of lunch when I wrote this than I though!  Thanks to Joanne for the "heads-up" about the missing card!  Here it is:

Little Treasures

Over the last few weeks I've been using the latest flower kit from Creative Treasures, aptly named "Parma Violets" and full of beautiful flowers, ribbons, buttons, etc in pinks, mauves and blues, plus some other little tempting treasures that Tracy always manages to include. I realised this morning that I've neglected to show all the cards I've made on here so thought I'd better put that right!

I've used loads of things from the kit on this card. I made the three layered paper flowers using various of the  blooms.  The pretty jewelled centre of the middle flower is included in the pack, and I've glittered one of the buttons and topped it with a pink flat backed pearl for the flower on the right.  The first flower has one of the wired aster flowers from the kit in the centre, I nipped off the original centre and added a pink gem instead.

The beautiful metal flower is actually a bead cup - I was going to use it to thread one of the bigger wired roses through on another project, but found that it didn't really show up how pretty it was used that way.  So instead I took courage in both hands and started tapping it with my hammer until it lay flat.  The loops allowed me to thread one of the gorgeous leaf charms from the kit (I do love these charms!) on to it.  I found a pink gem brad in my stash which was just perfect for securing all the bits together.

The flowers, ribbon and buttons on this second card form part of the Parma Violets kit.  The Card Candy is also from Tracy's shop and is so fab to use as although I didn't have exactly the colour I needed, I could just pick the one closest and add the right shade with pens or ink pads.

The frame is made using Nesties dies and the sentiment and little flower picture are more from the stickers sheet I made a few weeks back

This  third card didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but that happens sometimes! The papers are from Fancy Pants and work well with the blue and pink flowers in the kit. 

I've clipped the central corners of the card with a Zutter Round it All, then used the corner punch from one of the MS All Around the Page punch sets - I think I should have added a tiny glimmer of glitter to the flowers on this one.

I really like the way it's easy to use Tracy's flowers with whatever is in your stash already, and that adding paper with other colours in their designs bring a new look to the flowers.

 Do check out Creative Treasures and see all the "pretties" that Tracy's got in stock at the moment - lots of temptation to be had!

That's it for today, I hope the sun is shining where you are - we even managed to sit out on the patio on Saturday afternoon - makes you think that maybe Spring really is here (at last).

I'll be back soon - I've still got more makes to share

A Shoe in....

Daring Cardmakers Day again, and despite my "down in the dumps" state of mind and lack of mojo I got a card made and even enjoyed doing it - so hopefully that's a good sign.  Especially as I've neglected my to-do list - they don't get any shorter when you do that, you know ;-)

We've more exciting DT news this week - so please head over to the DCM BLOG to read about that....

Our lovely Sue is taking a bit of time out and trying to give her eyes a proper chance to heal after recent surgery.  However she didn't go without leaving a little treat of a challenge to play with 

If the Shoe Fits........

buy it in every colour, as the saying goes!

We all wear them, don't we? so this week I would like to lots of footwear on your cards.

Boots, shoes, sandals, trainers, ballet shoes, slippers.... the list is almost endless so I'm sure there'll be some fab fancy footwork to admire this week.

Hidden away in my "charms" box there is a gorgeous little painted flip-flop charm.  I bought it ages ago for a specific card I needed to make, but in the end I went with another idea instead.  That poor charm is doomed to stay in the box because the same thing happened this week - I planned to use in for this week's dare, but in the end I made this instead:

The hardest thing was altering a photo of the shoe shape into something I could then make into a Robo template.  It's much easier to convert colouring pages as they are already black and white!  With this one I had to "trace" over the main lines of the image then alter the colours a couple of times before I could get the outlines I needed.  Mind you, there's probably a better and easier way to do it, but I'm no techie and the resident Tech Support was at work.  Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box and come up with your own solutions, don't you?

Well, hey, it worked and I got my template.

How I made it

I resized the layers all together (see HERE for how to do this) so that they would make a card to fit a 15cm square envelope. 

There are three layers (plus the silver bit at the back) to this card, I used the base layer only as a pattern for cutting out the actual card - the fold of the card is hidden and overlapped by the second layer (cut in dull silver card).  

The upper layer is cut from patterned paper (from Cosmo Cricket's Fleuriste collection).  After cutting I embossed it (Cuttlebug Textile Texture folder)

Lastly for the basic card I added the silver section at the back of the shoe and it was ready to decorate.

Other supplies

Shiny red braid, Prima Artful flower plus a large coiled flower, Stickles in black, silver and burgundy

Tassel - made with black thread, the beads are threaded onto wire and attached to the card loop at the back of the shoe.

As I said, this was a lot of fun to make - and it didn't take long either, as there aren't many parts to cut out.  I'll be using this one again, I think.

There is a wonderful array of footwear on display on our BLOG this week - it's like a shoe shop over there - full of gorgeous, desirable and fun shoes. But we're sorry, but these are for window-shopping only.  We'd love it if you'd join in and add your footwear cards to our virtual shoe shop this week!

Be Happy

Before I do anything else, I'm going to apologise for not managing to leave many "return" messages on your blogs at the moment.  What with one thing and another it's all a bit of a struggle at the moment - but I'm getting there - I need to craft my way out of the doldrums I've found myself in.  I thought it was going to be a real challenge to get something made for tomorrow's Daring Cardmakers, but once I'd got going I really enjoyed myself making it so I'm hoping that it'll kick-start my crafting-mojo.

I didn't get round to showing the photos of the word book I made with the new Retro Fun download from Funky Hand, so here it is!  It took me ages to do but I hope you like it.  You can click on the photos for a closer look if you like ;-)

All the papers are designs from Retro Fun download

There's a page for each letter of the alphabet and ones with numbers too.  For the "BE" I reduced the size in PSP and cut the letters using Mr Robo

I used my Bind it All to join the pages and added some organza ribbon to "prettificate" :-)

I printed out some "Happy" quotes to use on some of the pages.  The "Here comes the sun" was just hand-written (you can probably tell!).  

The big sun is cut from some gorgeous flocked paper I found lurking in my stash

The watering can image is a Robo version of one of the digi-images from the Dreams Come True CD, also from Funky Hand

The bird and the tree are more Dreams Come True digi-images - I wish I'd taken the time to ink the edges of the tree so that it would show up more (but I was being lazy).  I trimmed down a coule of feathers to use for the birds' tails.

The potted plant is another of the digi-images, converted for Robo cutting,  I added the flower (Cuttlebug die) to match the flowers on the paper

I loved this old gramophone image the moment I saw it on the Dreams Come True CD and have been wanting to use it ever since.  Music makes me happy, so it was the perfect opportunity to make it into a Robo template and use it in my book.

Other supplies:

Martha Stewart border punch

Flowers, either die cut using Retro Fun scraps or Primas

Buttons, Brads, Card Candy, Ribbon and Thread

Funky Hand Products available HERE

On My Desk Today....

 There's a right old tip!

Yes, even more of a mess than usual. 

It's my first day back crafting after waving our visitors off yesterday and I have some very difficult cards to make before I do anything else. I've done the decorative bits of the cards and I'm procrastinating now because I have the wording to deal with next.

I thought I'd be brave and pan down to new depths and show what's going on below the desktop.

If you guessed there'd be more "stuff" under there, you'd be right.  The 12x12 case is full of larger scraps of Bazzill type card, the plastic crate is full of things that "might come in useful one day", the tin has scraps of silver and gold card/paper in it.  The top drawer has the punches I don't use so often, the middle one has loads of pens and markers that I really should sort out, and the bottom drawer has stuff like Friendly Plastic, Paperclay and various moulds.  It used to have casters but the drawers were so heavy that it kept buckling and tipping over, so I took them off

One of the reasons there's so much stuff lying around is that it's been difficult to decide what to put on these cards - sympathy cards are never easy, but in this case the colours, style and sentiments I tend to fall back on in making them aren't really suitable. Which is why I keep getting stuff out, then rejecting it and reaching for something else.

The excitement of the imminent birth of a new member of our extended family turned to sadness last week when the little boy was born very, very poorly and died after just a few short days in this world.  What can you say in such circumstances?

Well, I must get on and finish them.

I'll be checking out the other WOYWWer's blogs later and will be back with some crafting from last week asap

Lucy in the Sky?

Today is Friday, AKA Daring Cardmakers day so a lovely new dare to play with - actually some of us didn't think it was so lovely - we found it rather taxing on the little grey cells, to be honest!

We also have a couple of pieces of exciting news to share.  

A new Guest Designer:

We're thrilled to have Cinnamon Sally with us as Guest Designer this month, her work is always beautiful and you can see the first of her DCM cards this week - we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do.

 A new full-time Teamie:

We're also chuffed to bits that Natty is going to be a permanent member of the Design Team
 from now on, we just couldn't bear not seeing her inspiring work on our BLOG after her GD spot was over! 
WooHoo all round!

Well, the first dare of the month throughout 2010 is given over to that month's birthstone. 

 The birthstone for April is the Diamond so this week we're making cards which relate in some way to diamonds
Sounds easy enough., doesn't it? Well, I wasn't the only one who spent most of the week wondering if I'd get a card done in time. hehehe

I got this one done yesterday afternoon after I decided that I'd just have to start something and hope for the best.

I must have spent hours looking for a good quotation to use as a theme but nothing seemed to jump out at me.  In the end I've gone for a 60th wedding anniversary card - so if you know anyone celebrating their 60th, just give me a shout as I've a card going spare!

I really fancied doing a black/white/silver colour scheme but thought lilac shades might be more appropriate, I quite like the final result.

There are lots of layers and lots of shimmer on this one which the camera doesn't pick up very well.

I embossed the background paper (which is very slightly shimmery) with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, then cut it in half to use at the top and bottom (wouldn't it be nice if the folders were a bit bigger). The central panel has layers of pearlised metallic card, pearlised lilac paper and a shimmery paper with a dot pattern in it.

I cut "diamond" on the Robo in two layers, one card and one the lilac pearlised paper.

It's probably getting boring to see yet more coiled flowers, they do come into play rather a lot at the moment!  I've also used a Prima daisy in this group - I folded it up, cut across the point in the middle, opened it out again and then between two of the petals I cut into the middle so that I could wrap it around the pretty ribbon and lace flower I found when I was sorting my box of wired flowers the other day.  I also found the crystal bead string things I've used in the corner.

The sentiment was computer generated, and to finish I've added a few "diamonds" in different sizes to the big letters, the corner of the card and the greeting piece.

Must admit there was a big "PHEW!" when I'd finished it!

I've been playing with flowers quite a bit lately as I'm working with the new "Parma Violets" kit from Creative Treasures.   I made a birthday card for DCM Lynda using some of the kit but decided that whilst I liked some elements of what I'd done, I hated the way it all looked together. So I made her a new one - the one I put on here earlier in the week, then set about dismantling the first effort and trying to make something I liked better.

The coiled roses, pearl brad and leaf are from my stash, all the other flower elements, ribbons and pretty leaf charm are from the "Parma Violets" kit.  The kit is stuffed with gorgeous blooms and wired flowers of different types, which look fab either on their own or used to "build" a larger, layered flower - those wired stems make it very easy to do! 

The blue flower with the pink beady centre was made in the same way as for my DCM card mentioned above, but this time I used some wire and glass beads to make the centrepiece to wind the paper flower around.

I made some gathering stitches part-way along a length of the satin ribbon and pulled them up to make the ruched section - it was fiddly just doing a little bit - easier I think to have a whole length of ribbon gathered up, but to be awkward I only wanted a little ruched section at the end!

I made another card with the stuff I pulled off the original and I'll put that on here another day!

Apart from this beautiful kit, Tracy (Creative Treasures) has some rather lovely new lace and lots of different flowers in stock at the moment - very tempting they were.  So tempting that I couldn't resist buying this little lot!

Right, I've got to go and help do some painting now (oh joy!). I'll be back later for a catch up around the blogs - I'll probably be needing a sit down by then!

Funky April Showers

 April 1st sees a new challenge on Funky Hand's challenge blog "Get Funky".  Somewhere among all the chaos of a few weeks ago I completely missed Anice asking me if I would like my very first challenge to be thee April challenge....ooops!.  So it was only with about a week or so to go - and after the lovely Jules had gently pointed it out to me (thank you, hunny) that I actually suggested an idea to the girls on the DT.  I'm not sure they liked it, but they are all way too nice to say so! hehe

Anyway, the theme this month is April Showers and as usual there's a £20 Funky Hand spending spree up for grabs as a prize for one lucky Challengee (I made that word up, do you like it?).  Check the Get Funky BLOG for info on what you need to do to qualify and to see all the wonderful things the team has made.

You might need sunglasses to look at mine, it's not very subtle!

All the papers I've used are from one of the sets on the fab Dreams Come True CD.   The stripes on the brolly and those at the top and bottom of the card are the same design - I just resized it to get the mini version for the umbrella.

The Child with Umbrella is one of my Craft Robo templates - I cheated a bit and used the same template and the same quote on a card for the Daring Cardmakers last year - I'm admitting it just in case you thought it all looked a bit familiar ;-) 

The black zig zag flower stems aren't ric-rac, they are cut with an old Quickutz die - it's the trim from the wedding cake set!

other supplies: ribbon, buttons, Prima and other mulberry flowers, green gem brad, Card Candy, tiny blue gems. black stranded embroidery thread

The sketch for this card will be the April sketch on The Sketch File (that's my next task), so I'd love it if you'd make something using it - it's always so interesting to see how other people interpret a sketch.

If you were here yesterday (WOYWW), I mentioned the half made Word Book that was on my desk, well - don't fall off your chair!  I actually got it finished - I'll show the rest of the photos another time but here's a sneak peek of one of the pages

The pages and papers are all part of the Retro Fun Word Book download which was released on Funky Hand earlier this week - and they are just gorgeous!

Right, it's 10.30 am on Thursday, and I'm supposed to be making my card for tomorrow's DCM.  Trouble is, I haven't got a clue what to do yet.  Wish me luck!