April Showers

April Showers brings May flowers. We have been in the midst of a shower of flowers.  With two girls having two graduations and having multiple awards nights we have been bringing flowers to a variety of events.  The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge challenge this week is plants and I decided to use this as an opportunity to create some paper flowers to present to my daughter.  

Here is the finished picture with a few gift cards attached.  Saved on the flowers and bought her a few gift cards which she was thrilled with.

I have to admit that this was a bit addictive and I ended up with two bouquets of flowers in a variety of sizes.

You start with tissue paper and fold it into an accordion fold.  The most important thing is to have enough sheets of tissue paper so you get a nice full flower.  The rest can be varied (Length, Edges, Colors)

After you have folded it you will die the tissue paper and then wait, wait and wait some more to dry. I did use the heat gun to speed along the process but I let part of it dry overnight.

Once that is done you will need to add a tie in the middle. I used a light wire to tie the middle.

You will trim the edges.  On his one I chose to cut a rounded scallop on the edges and then cut out a little divot

You pull up each layer of the tissue paper up to the center from each side. This flower ended up not having enough folds and tissue paper so it didn't make it into the bouquet.

Here are a few other samples of flowers;

This was one of my favorites and ended up being quite large but a great focal flower for the center of the bouquet.

This flower I cut the ends into a point :

Less petals with a scalloped edge on the petals:

A fuller version:

To finish off the flowers I attached flowers stems by using the leftover wire on the center.  I sprayed some tissue paper to create my wrapping on the bottom of the bouquet.  I stamped on the gift card holder with some sentiments telling her how proud we were of her accomplishments.

Products: Ranger Archival Ink - Black  Ranger Distress Stain Spray -Fired Brick,  Mustard Seed, Barn Door,  Spiced Marmalade,  Cracked Pistachio,  Flower stems , Simon Says Stamp - More Sketchy  Banner ,  Simon Says Stamp - Tilted Banner Sayings


Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher to a randomly selected participant in the challenge, come play along!

Thanks for stopping by!


Suzz

Hope Feathers

I took a quick peek at Mona's colors this morning and her card and they both were fabulous! So of course I pulled out my supplies before church and started playing around. Mind you nothing on this card was what I started with this morning. :) Mona's color challenge CR84FN4 this week is light purple, purple and grey.

Here is where my card ended up.

And here is the yummy inspiration photo:

The flowers were made from tissue  paper that came in my daughter's shoes. It had such a fun pattern that I pulled it and set it aside for future use.

I love this verse from Verses Rubber Stamps called: Hope Feathers QQ1007-D. The verse is:

Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches on the soul,

that sings a tune without words

and never stops at all. 

Emily Dickinson

And since I have a few bird stamps this comes in handy and is great to send to someone needing a little hope. The music notes is Hero Arts Cling stamp, the birds are Inkadinkado Dawn Houser. Inks: Hero Arts Lilac Shadow Ink, Memento London Fog, and Versafine Imperial Purple.   Other supplies: May Arts Silk Ribbon, Spellbinders Die Cuts Ovals, Labels 10, Doily. 

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday!

Suzz