Paper Flowers, Part 1 - The Spiral

I love paper flowers on cards to create depth and texture so I'm going to do a few posts on different ways of making them.

These flowers were printed some from a CD, I wasn't sure how to construct them and had to look it up. So here's my little method to add to the mix of those available. The flower spirals can be brought ready die cut, there are dies to cut your own or you can print them and cut them out.

To make up the flower you need to roll up the spiral with the pattern on the inside of the roll. I start of a tight roll by using a cocktail stick or pokey tool, or you could use a quilling tool.

Once you get started you can just hold it between your fingers.

Once you get to the end, the circular bit of paper that was in the middle of the spiral forms the bottom of the flower.  Before doing any glueing let it all unfurl a bit, it doesn't all come undone so don't worry.

This flower is not glued, I just let it go to unfurl a bit.

To fix it all in place I squeeze a big splodge of silicone on the bottom of the flower to stick it to the circular base. Hold it in place till its set, and then start fiddling and squidging!

You can roll the petals right over for a more open look, ink the edges or dip the whole thing in utee if you have a melt pot for a faux porcelain look.

Sweet Treats Card

This is the first card I've made with my Crafters Companion goodies.  I printed both sides of the card from the Sweet Treats CD then used the Ultimate Pro to shape it into a concertina card and create a wavey edge along the top.

The tags and flowers on the front and the rosette inside are printed from the Sweet Treats CD. 

The bird is embossed from one of the Crafters Companion embossing boards using paper from my stash. The whole thing was finished off with some ribbons.  

I had planned to try out the enveloboxer but it only makes ones up to 8inches and I accidentally made the card a bit taller than that. So I made a box instead!  

I've never really made a card this shape before but I like extra surfaces to cover with loads of lovely stuff.

New Home Card

This card was made with a mixture of the Papermania Vintage Notes set and some of the sheets from the Crafters Companion Inspiration Magazine Winter Edition (which is jam packed, would recommend anyone to pick up the next one when it comes out).

I tucked three pieces of lace behind the main topper to make little tags, there is also lace down the right hand side.  The ribbon across the bottom is paper but down the side is a strange corrugated kind of real ribbon.  The paper flowers are from the Vintage Notes set and the tag and button are attached with silicone and there are pearls in the top corner of the topper to try and give extra depth.

Christmas Presents!

Just thought I'd do a quick post of what I was given for Christmas as I've been so lucky.   I have had the original Ultimate Crafters Companion for years but have been wanting to upgrade for a while as I use it a lot for making card blanks, envelopes and boxes. What I got was a bundle not only with the Ultimate Pro but also with two instructional DVD's, the Enveloboxer, the Boxer Board plus the Sweet Treats boards and CD-Rom!

I love the Pro its really substantial and good to use, and I really love the boards, it's the first time I've used anything like them.  I love the storage for the boards in the ultimate, the paper cutter is better than the original and even the embossing tools work really well, which I wasnt expecting as they're plastic.  I will post some of the things I've been making soon.

I was also given a magazine subscription (like I said, I've been very lucky), I haven't received a magazine yet but the subscription came with the Papermania Vintage Notes paper collection. I've never had a whole coordinating collection before, its quite a novelty as I've always been a womble of a crafter just making use of the everyday things that I find!

Below is a carton I've made from one of the Sweet Treats boards, the card and embellishments have been printed from a different CD though.

Maritime Card

Here is a nautical themed card I made for my Dads birthday, I love the worn look of the you'vidual elements that look as though they were in use once.  into he background is made from kraft card printed with nautical elements, a Tim Holtz Components stamp and a kieser craft script stamp using a masking technique.

The more prominent images are stamped first. These are then masked off with the same image stamped on to a post it note then cut out and stuck over the original image on the card.  Then the background stamps like the script one can fill in the gaps without stamping over the first images.

The white parts above are the post it masks which are stamped over with larger images.

Here is the finished background.

Other components are the map stamp from the docrafts range coloured with promarkers, and the same Tim Holtz stamp from the background made into a little bit of ephemera which can be unfurled to reveal the whole stamp.  The ship has been stamped on to a die cut square (xcut, parenthasis die set) in black ink, and embossed with clear embossing powder, the sentiment was stamped in the same way.

Inside the card I roughly cut a piece of paper, inked it to look like a treasure map you'd make at school and stamped Happy Birthday onto it.

Here is the finished artical, I was really pleased with the look of this card. I think it looks authenticly worn with a dollop of distressed goodness.

Strawberry Print Toddler Dress

Following another visit from my Mom another little dress has been created on Great Grans old machine.  The fabric was chosen by my sister on a trip to Birminghams Rag Market.  

Here is the finished article

I tried out french seams, which weren't as complicated as I thought you just have to remember that its counter-intuitive and you have to put wrong side to wrong side to start off with. 

For the buttons on the back we made two little rouleau loops.

This was in the summer 2013 finishing this post it's now Jan 2014 and I havent made anything on sewing machine since, so that is my new years resolution, to get the machine out!

Stamping with Gesso

This afternoon I thought I'd have a little play with gesso on some left over die cut shapes.  I spread some white gesso on the carinkin with an old credit card, not to thick and not worrying to much about it being perfectly smooth, and left if to dry al little bit, probably only for 10min as I'm impatient!

I then spritzed some stamps with water before pressing them into the gesso, the water means the stamps release from the gesso easier (or at least thats the idea!).  For the square piece of card I spritzed it with water with some perfect pearls mixed in but this didn't really show as the stamp lifts off the gesso rather than leaving ink behind.

The oval piece looks ok but I think to square one has a bit too much gesso or I should have left if a bit longer as the stamping came out a bit splodgy.

I then tried stamping on the plain part of the oval card with the gesso which I am really pleased with, to do it I just smooshed some gesso on my craft sheet (using the trusty credit card) and then 'inked' the stamp from this. I haven't had time to try inking over all of this but will report back when I do.