Making 3D Flowers

I've come to the realization that I dislike making 3D flowers when I'm in the process of designing a card. I can't say that flowers are ever a focal point in my projects, so find myself trying to figure out which ones will work best, which colours, etc. as I'm working on my design.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this frustrating. I don't just want a sorry excuse for a flower on anything I do, maybe that's my problem. I tend to use patterened paper for effect, so then have to rifle through all my paper choices ... blah, blah, blah ... I could go on as to why I get put off.

There are some lovely pre-made flower options on the market, and I fully intend to add some to my stash of embelishments. But as it stands now, I make all my flowers.

This set a bee in my bonnet to create a bunch of flowers in a variety of shapes and colours, so they are sitting in a storage box just waiting to be added to my work.

I grabbed some flower dies that have layers and are a good size. Then I gathered a bunch of papers. Patterened, solid, flower foam, decoupage tissue paper all in varying shades and colours.

Then I got to cutting. Filled each sheet with the dies I was going to use and cut and gathered them all up. It's mix-and-match, so I didn't need to keep each die set separate.

Got all my brads and staymens together and went to town.

I'll admit it was a few hours getting the handful I did completed, but my resolve is to now put a few hours in on a regular basis, so I will always have a stash at the ready.

I cut and heated the Leane Creatief flower foam, and you can see the first one I completed at the top left hand corner. I will make a collection of those as well as they are a whole different look than paper flowers and I love adding them to cards. You can see the stash of flower foam layers in the blue box in the centre of the top picture.

Here is the mixed media piece that started this ball rolling.

I had wanted flowers on the corner and cut out some pink and yellow of the Marianne Designs Anja's Flower Set LR0472 but it just wasn't working on the piece. But that LR0472 has got to be one of my favourites, I think it works so well in creating little "peek-a-boo" colour accents in each of the finished flowers I created. I have been asked what that spiral piece is poking out of the back of the arrangement. It is Leane Creatief floral wire that I wound around a pokey tool and pulled it to create the length and amount of spiral that was appropriate for this arrangement.

Details about the products and techniques used in this Mixed Media Piece in the next blog "Mixed Media Reversed Canvas"

Jenn