Paper Flowers - A What Not to Do Guide

Frilly and Funkie Challenge blog tasked us with creating paper flowers this week. Due to my lazy nature, it's been a long, long time since I handmade my own flowers. Usually I let Prima or Recollections do the work for me. 

But, because I have fallen in love with this new challenge blog (thanks Pamellia) and have become a veritable pauper by browsing through the Frilly and Funkie Boutique store, I decided to give it my best attempt. 

You, my lovely readers, are about to profit from my mistakes - or at least laugh at them.

I am one of those rare breed of people who looks at an object and sees something else entirely. Like what it could be used for on a card. Consequently, I really hate it when people send me package fillers because it means I am practically obligated to stick it in some drawer to be used at a later date. 

The flowers I decided to make were a product of some thin packaging paper. Which brings me to step one of What not to Do when creating paper flowers. 

Do not attempt to cut uber thin, wrinkled packaging paper on your Cricut. Yes, your Cricut can cut vellum, which is also thin. No, it will not cut this. Just don't. You will spend the next half-hour inventing new curse words as you try to peel bits of paper packaging from the adhesive sheet. 

So, that brought me back to good old fussy cutting. I started by making a 5 pointed flower piece, followed by a slightly smaller 4 pointed flower piece, and then an even smaller 5 pointed piece. 

After cutting out the petals, I rubbed each piece with Old Paper Distress Inks, to add dimension. For the very centers, I cut a circle and then cut tiny strips into it, then painted it with Perfect Pearls - perfect gold and added a teensy pearl. Lastly, I curled the ends of the petals.

Which brings me to my second What not To Do when making paper flowers. Do not spend a half hour cutting out paper petals from the most delicate paper and then decide to try out your brand new spray stains. Things will not end well. Delicate paper will not sop up liquid. But it will disintegrate when you attempt to move it. 

And then you will entertain the thought of giving up and not playing in that challenge you really wanted to play in, before inventing new curse words, and then sighing in futility and starting all over again. 

But when you finally do finish those flowers, you'll probably remember why you went through all the trouble - because the end result will be gorgeous. 

I used some gold fibers from an old cord to add texture behind the flowers, and I die cut a black doily and painted the edges with Perfect Pearls, letting some areas get more saturated than others for a more distressed effect. 

For even more texture, I took some red feathers and added some glitter to ends of one of them, giving it a good juxtaposition between hard and soft.

After I had all these pieces, I piled them all together and....

...grinned happily. If somebody translated me onto a card, this is what I would look like. I think I'm going to make myself this card for my birthday.

Papers are from Carta Bella and the sentiment is from Penny Black's Lost Without You set.





I'm sending this card on over to the following challenges:
Frilly and Funkie - Winter Blooms
Penny Black and More - Anything Goes
Paper Players - Thank you for the awesome sketch!

**EDITED** - I was very inspired by the Paper Players sketch and truly wanted to link up over there. I apparently didn't read the rules very well, because I can only link up to 3 challenges while playing along. So I've removed the other challenges, and my entry links to them.
 
I haven't had much opportunity to make my rounds this weekend because I was babysitting two lovely little girls and helping them make a birthday card for their mommy (my cousin and best friend). 

Sorry for the terrible lighting, but I was not about to let those adorable little stinkers into a room full of paper products, so the basement craft table it was! :D They were pretty enamored with my stencils and spray stains. 

Well, I'm off to play some catch up! Thanks for stopping by. Please leave me a comment so I know you were here!