Last week (when I had a bad case of calendar fever) I featured a hydrangea I made using punched flower groupings from a Martha Stewart punch I recently purchased (you can see that little fella in this post HERE). Jamieson and La Fuji Mama asked me about the punch so I decided that it might be a good idea to do a post on it!
I searched high and low for the punch for you guys but alas I cannot seem to find it on line. If anyone finds a link to it (other than ebay) let me know and I'll post it. I actually purchased my punch at Michaels (and it was the first time I had ever seen it.. so it might be new but I am not sure).
When I started this project I was going to make a pink hydrangea. Sunday morning after breakfast RonChops asked me if we could go to JoAnn's to look at fabric and scrapbooking supplies (cause he heard they were having a mega sale AND he got a 50% off coupon in the mail Friday)...oh wait....that was me not him. Anyway.. he went with me (I think he secretly likes going there - ummm. yeah. right.)...
Since they actually were having a killer sale - I got some nice pieces of pink paper to make my hydrangea.
So notice the pink heart there in the picture...? Evidently making a pink hydrangea was not in the crafty cards. Mid-way through the project I lost my hydrangea karma and went with a heart instead (in honor of valentines day coming up soon and all).. I took a little crafty detour and merged onto the highway of love (oh man that was corny).. hmmm...on that note I'll start a little tutorial to get you through the rest of my sappy-ness as quickly as possible.
I took strips of the papers I had chosen and cut them so that I would waste as little as possible. They basically fit the M. Stew punch perfectly. You can see the Martha Stew punch there (in teal). I also have a McGill flower punch but decided not to use it after all.
Once I had punched all the way down those 8 strips of paper I mixed my flowers up.
I had heavy card stock, thin paper and even some red vellum (swooon)!
Once you have your flower pieces.. all you need to do is bend up the corners (like so)..
I usually bend as I go...
There are several ways you can adhere the flowers to your surface
and I am going to share two of them.
1) Small Zots (they come in a purple box). You can find them HERE.
Roll out a strip of the zots and place each flower on each one.
When you lift them up the Zot will be stuck to the back side and then you can stick it to your surface.
OR
You can roll glue tape onto the back center of each flower.
This is a little harder to do but works just as well!
Nextly.. you are going to want to get some tweezers. I have a pair that I use for beading
but honestly..any old pair would do the trick!
I like to place each flower with the tweezers (I may have lost a few of you with that part.. yes it's time consuming but it looks so cool when you are done!).
You are going to want to work the bottoms (they are almost square) as close to each other as possible and the tweezers really help make that much easier!
Keep your petals pointing up as best you can.
That helps to get them close together and helps really make this stand out nicely!
Once you have a few going you can either completely cover your surface with larger flowers and then go back in and place the smaller ones in the center (you do not have to place them in all of the larger flowers.. it just helps give them a little more dimension).. or you can kinda work smaller and larger ones in together. I like to do a little bit of everything.
Since I changed my direction mid-stream..from hydrangea to heart...I needed a heart pattern to follow. I grabbed a heart cookie cutter and traced around the inside with light pencil.
That gave me a nice guide to follow.
Ta da.. heart made from flowers.
After that was done I decided to add a little sparkle to the center of each flower!
I used some plain silver gems. If you have never used these before.. you will need some sort of knife to cut them apart from each other. They are all attached to a long adhesive strip.
I usually cut them apart with knife and then use my tweezers to place each gem individually
(did I lose you again???).
Remember: Lolly likes tedious (err.. I mean) detailed projects!
Originally I was going to make a nice card with my heart - but it takes me like 400 years to design a card so I decided to frame it instead. I keep a ton of empty frames on hand at all times cause you never know when you might have a framing emergency! I get them from places like Tuesday Morning, Marshalls and Ross (they all have lots of very affordable frames).
You may have noticed that I decided to make this heart flower on vellum paper. I did this for two reasons. 1) I love vellum and 2) I really really love stuff peeping through vellum (notice a pattern here).
I made the heart flower on the vellum and then I cut out the word "love" with my cricut (but you do not need one to do something similar). You can buy words like this in a ton of different formats.. chip board, rub-ons, stamps and even stickers. Do not feel limited just because you do not have the word cut out! You have a zillion options out there. heck..RonChops thought I had written that by hand with a fat marker.. so you can even go that route if you want (let me add... the man just does not get my fascination with the whole handwriting font thing).. he thought the font I used for the calendars was a mistake.. heheh.
When I was done with this little project... I brought it upstairs to RonChops and told him that I had made him a little early Valentine's gift to decorate his studio (I was not even laughing or anything). I hid it behind my back and presented it to him ever-so-seriously. He turned a little pale and just looked at me all quiet like. I told him that I even had picked out a place for it..and happily bounded over to his desk and set it up! He turned a little more pale and sat really still...just looking at me. So I said.. "..what? You don't like it? But honey...I made it with LOOOVEEEEE.." and then I started laughing. I think I really scared him. heh.
Happy Week HUGS!
Your corny/sappy friend,
O.M.T. I am going to be doing another giveaway Friday..and it's kinda sorta got something to do with this post! So if you like this heart flower thing - stay tuned!
