Promised Flower Tutorial.......

Good morning everyone and welcome to my little corner of the world.  I'm going to try and share how I make a flower this morning and so be patient and kind please.  This is sort of a long tutorial and I tried to take lots of photos along the way so I hope I don't bore you.  The flower I want to show you is the one I used on my tag for the Craft Hoarders February Challenge tag.  In case you missed it here is the photo again of that tag.

I have been drooling over the new Stampin Up color Blackberry Bliss and just had to have it so that is the color I'm playing with this morning.  Also the die I'm using for my petals is the Tim Holtz Alterations Die Tattered Florals.  Mine is quite old and I've used it a lot.  I'm always happy to figure out how to make a new flower using this die.

I cut two flower petals out of watercolor paper and colored the center and the edges of them with the ink. I also always color the back outer edges in case I curl the petal in a way that shows the naked cardstock.  You want everything to look like you would find it in nature.

Once you have the color looking the way you like, place in a tray and spray with either water or I used a homemade shimmer spray. When you are spraying the cardstock you want to use enough to make the cardstock pliable but not so much as to make it pull apart when you start to shape.  I'm afraid this is a trick you learn as you go along.  If your cardstock feels like it might tear, just use a heat gun and dry it some. Spraying also makes the ink run, so if your color isn't even it is not a big deal.

Next I fold the petals in on themselves and scrunch them and break the fibers. You can also use a petal shaping tool with a ball on the end to burnish the petals and continue to break down the fibers.  Here I just folded and scrunched.

Now you want to open the petals again and at this point the paper is soft but sort of wet so be careful; you don't want to tear off one of the petals.  Also you can add more color to the edges if you like.  On this flower I wanted the color to be stronger so I added more ink.

At this point you start to shape the petals.  I have this yucky pair of tweezers that I use for everything from shaping flowers to holding things to glue or to glitter whatever I'm working on. I grab the end of the petal with the tweezers and just start curling it end over end and then release and leave to dry. You can curl in several directions and as you are playing with it you can find what suites you. Remember, in Nature all flowers are perfect so if each one is different it's ok! Once dry the petals hold their shape well and you can do whatever you want with it then.

The next photo shows how my flower looks after I have curled all the petals. You can see some have been curled up and over and some are from side to side. It's a matter of taste and you will figure out how you want it to look.  Sometimes I let them air dry

But I'm an instant gratification kind of girl and I will use a heat gun to dry my petals; you just have to be careful and if they start to uncurl use your fingers and scrunch them back into shape.

I use whatever I have on hand that sort of matches in color to do the flower centers.  I have taken clear glass beads and dropped distress inks into them to color them.  You can also color glitter as well so the re-inkers are a great thing to have on hand.  Whenever I buy a new ink pad, I try and buy the re-inker to match it.  Just put a dab of glue in the center of the petal and fill it with whatever you have chosen.

Next glue the two petals together and leave to dry.  I love the look of this flower and think that nature would probably make it grow this way.

I also like to add Glossy Accents to the edges of the petals to give some pretty shine.  You can also touch glue to the edges and add glitter or sometimes I even do some pretty embossing powder on the edges.  I love the Lindy's Stamp Gang embossing powders because they have two tone color...nice!

Here is my finished flower!  You can almost see the pretty seed beads in the center.  Now that I look back at this, a pretty yellow would look nice as a center.

So there you have it.  I hope this has not been too long to hold your attention. Flowers do take a bit of time but handmade flowers are always so gorgeous and well worth the bit of extra effort.  Now go fourth and make flowers!