Stripes and a bit of upcycling!

This week's challenge  on the Daring Cardmakers is set by Zuzana and is nice and simple - Zuz just wants to see lots of stripes on our cards.
No problem, I thought - I have masses of striped papers I could use.
But then a little parcel of new paints and some new masks/stencils turned up and the idea of using papers was forgotten
In the end, I didn't use  my new paints, but I did use one of the new stencils, a Stampers Anonymous one by Tim Holtz
The "upcycling" bit in the title refers to the flower....can you guess why?

 Materials and Tools

Striped background made using "Burlap" layering stencil from Stampers Anonymous

Various DewDrop, Versamagic and Cats Eye  ink pads

Horizontal piece and twirly bits made from extra card strips coloured with some of the inks

Velvet ricrac braid

Doily die and flower petals die by MFT - Die'Namics

So what is the flower made from?
Well, the other day I was doing a bit of ink-resist embossing so used a couple of baby wipes to clean the ink from the embossing folder- being a messy moo I'd just left the damp and inky wipes lying on the desk.  Going to actually clear myself some working space I thought how pretty the wipes were....and surely I could do something with them.... So I put them aside to dry properly, thinking maybe they would make pretty coiled roses. 
 In the end though I decided to try die-cutting them.  The die I chose is quite a simple shape and this was a good thing because the wipes do "pull" at the edges when you cut them and I did need to trim a few stray strands off with scissors.  

Next time I'll try them with a sheet of paper over the dies to see if that improves the cut
I used two sizes of the dies in the set for this flower and there are a few layers of each size.  I really like the softness of the baby-wipe and especially the variegated shading of the pink - you end up with quite a nice carnation effect, I think.
So there you go - look at those inky, painty baby wipes as a potential embellishment from now on.  I'm not sure it would work for most of the ones I use as they tend to be a revolting mess of colours!

Thanks for looking
Please join in with us over at the DCM BLOG this week