Flower Girl

I love embellishments.  They take a card from being lovely to stunning.  They also take your postage price from $0.61 to $1.29, but that's a whole other story.

I've got a workshop coming up next weekend with some ladies that are already stampers so I wanted to show them a few tricks to make their cards really stand out.  I was trying to think of techniques that they might not already know, but I was stumped.  I love my Big Shot, but for a hobby crafter, it isn't always the most likely purchase.  I also love my heat tool, but people already know how to use it.  Then I was thinking about punches.  I love, love, love my collection of punches.  I think there are probably only three that I don't have.  I always include these anyways, but I figured showing how to use them for less conventional things was a good idea.  Then it hit me - flowers!

 There are so many ways to make beautiful little (or big) flowers to add to your card.  I spent some time this morning making samples of a number of them.

I thought about making a little video showing how to make each of one of them but then I realized that I would probably spend an entire day writing a script for it, doing 800 takes, fussing and cussing, and finally scrapping the idea because I don't like the sound of my voice and I have horrible sausage fingers which don't need to appear on camera.  Also, someone else has already gone to the trouble to make such videos, so here are some links.

Scalloped Circle Punch flower (top row, first flower)
Satin Ribbon flower  (top row, second flower)
Rolled flowers (bottom row, first 2)  (starts at 3:02)

The other two ribbon flowers (middle flower and bottom row, last one) are super fast and easy.  I punched out a circle of cardstock and a matching one from a double-sided sticky sheet, then stuck them together.  I then peeled off the remaining sticky side.  I worked from the outside in, adhering the ribbon onto the sticky circle.  Tip:  rather than cutting a piece of ribbon off your spool, work directly from the spool so that you don't waste any, or come up short.

One of our make and takes is going to be using Wisteria Wonder, so I wanted all of the flowers to match it.  Sadly, the only ribbon you can get in WW is the In Colour Ruffled.  No problem.  I played around a little and made my own Seam Binding and Satin versions.

I dampened the strips of Very Vanilla Satin and Seam Binding ribbon by spraying a glass baking pan with water and then pushing the strips around inside it.  This seemed to be the best option for getting them just slightly damp.  Having the ribbon damp allows the ink to soak up a little more easily and uniformly.  After that I lay the tips of three of my fingers across the ink pad and ran the ribbon under them a few times until I got the richness of colour I was looking for.  It's certainly not the same as the solid colours that the actual ribbon gives, but it looks lovely anyways.

This last flower was made with Seam Binding ribbon.  I did the scrunchy ribbon technique (starts at 2:23) on it, then adhered it like I did with the ruffled stuff.  I love it the way it looks.  I think this flower would be the one I would most likely choose for a vintage card.

Please leave me a comment if you try any of these techniques for the first time, or if you've got some to share!