Ink On My Fingers - Handmade Custom Cards, Stamping and Crafting Blog

Wednesday July 27, 2011 Christmas in July at Unscripted Sketches http://unscriptedsketches.com/ and today is my spotlight day. My name is Billie Anderson . This is a darling photo of me and my brother Barry Van Sickle. He was 2 and I was 7.. I love the look on our faces. This really brings a smile to my face. My brother is so dear to me and he is such a rock I couldn't love him more he means the world to me. I couldn't ask for a better brother. (I also have another brother by another mother who is 20 years younger than me so quite an age difference so really don't have this kind of photo.) This is my card that I am highlighting for my shot in the spotlight.. To make this flower.. I am sure some of you have seen this done before by other artist and videos but these are still shots of how I created my flower.

I used old book pages you can also use tissue paper, card stock, designer paper even paper bags make darling flowers. Also I chose for this flower the scallop punch but again you can use all sorts of flower dies, circle punches which make darling masculine flowers, I think they are called lollipop flowers.

I like to have at least 6 shapes punched /die cut shapes. If it's a tissue you may want to add a few more.

For this flower I just used Ranger ink and sponged the edges, you can also spritz with a mist or even leave it plain, on the circle ones for masculine I leave plain.
If you use card stock you can use a distressing tool to ruff the edges especially for the masculine flower.

Next I stack them and punch a small hole in the center and add a brad, you can add a decorative brad or a plain brad and later glue a button or gem on top when the flower is completed.

OK at this point if you just use a book you just take the first scallop and bring it up and scrunch it, then the next layer and scrunch it around the first and so on till all six are done.. NOW if you use card stock you may have to wet/spritz the paper as the card stock will crack and not be easy to crunch. Just wet and scrunch and wet next layer and scrunch and keep going till done but be careful as it will also tear if you aren't easy with it. But I must say when it dries it is so nice and holds it's shape really well. Seems to stiffen the paper more than it was before it was wet.

Now you are at the end. You will want to easily start opening the flower starting with the bottom layer and then the next and next till you have the flower open. Then you can just scrunch and maneuver it to the shape you want. Like I said earlier now you can add a button, gem to the center. I love making my own flowers and I hope you give it a try. I hope you try the circle punch using the larger, med and small circles and make a nice masculine flower for those manly cards.. I'll have to do one soon so you can see what I mean.. I'd love to see what you come up with. It's really easy and so forgiving. Thanks for stopping by.