Paper roses... pa-a-per roses...

Well OK, they're not roses but since the paper blooms competition was launched on Just Bex, I can't get that song out of my head!

I took the instruction to make a bouquet 'ready for summer' rather literally and went for the sunniest flower I could think of!


I made a paper mush for the centres by liquidising torn up scrap paper with a load of water and then draining it and squeezing into a sort of clay consistency. I used a pastry cutter to keep the edges of the circle while I pushed the mush into a firm blob. I rounded the edges off with a wet finger and then left them to dry out (here's where having an Aga helps - nice warm spot to dry your paper mush projects!). I inked with brown and black ink and then painted over with the bronzey colour from the cheapo H2O-alikes from The Works.

The petals are cut on the CraftRobo - it's actually a water droplet from a dingbat font called Mostly Waves. I chalked the tips and stuck two layers round each centre.

The leaves are stamped with a big foam stamp onto glossy green cardstock and then cut round them. Flowers are on bamboo skewer stems and a few narrow strips of green paper got shoved in the vase to make frondy foliage bits. The bud is a spun paper ball with the yellow and green papers scrunched round it.

I'd had this square olive oil bottle for ages because I liked the shape but hadn't found a use for it. A few glass nuggets and a bit of raffia tied round to give it a more rustic look made finishing touches.

I decided I quite liked the way these turned out so I didn't tie a gift label on cos I'm keeping them!

Shape shifting

Yay! I've joined the Cuttlebug Embossing crowd! The folders I ordered from the USA arrived this morning and I sat straight down to make a card for the Friday Night Challenge over at the Just Bex forum. The challenge is to make a shaped card - no squares or rectangles. I knew what I wanted to do but desparately wanted the embossing folder to do it!



I used the D'vine Swirls folder to emboss smooth white cardstock then cut three rectangles and rounded off the top corners with a punch. The 'ribbons' are cut from silvery Moondust paper (which doesn't photograph well but has a lovely sheen IRL). Sentiment is heat embossed and the hearts are punched shapes - one triple embossed and the other from the Moondust paper raised on little foam pads.

Right, I've more folders to play with so I'm off!

Raise it up

Oooh, I love embossing! Lythan has set this week's dare over at DCM and it's an embossing theme. Any kind of embossing will do! I've got a load of Cuttlebug embossing folders on order but they haven't arrived yet otherwise you'd probably have been overwhelmed by Cuttlebug textures. Instead, I've done two cards with some DIY embossing plates I made ages ago:



The Bundle of Joy sentiment is embossed onto pale pink cardstock with the trusty old corner rounder and chalk ink in Rouge swiped round the edge. I punched holes in the star, covered in lots of layers of silver sparkle embossing powder to make a 'button' and attached it with a bit of ribbon. A border of machine stitching and a bit of gingham ribbon finish it off.



Same basic techniques here but the embossing is on DCWV cardstock so I've distressed it a bit with a Silkimitt. The big flower is a Bosskut die and the little ones are the QK flower doodads. I used chalk ink and a freebie foam stamp to do the border pattern.

If you fancy the DIY approach all you need is some die cuts and a die cutter plus an embossing mat (or funkyfoam at a stretch). Stick your diecuts as you want them onto a piece of card stock cut to a size that will go through your die cutter. If you're using shapes made of reasonably lightweight card then you can build up a couple of layers to give it a bit more 'bite'. Then just plunk your cardstock on top, add your foam layer and put it through your die cutter. You can have any sentiment or texture you want and it will be unique to you. I've given mine a coat of paper varnish to give them a bit of protection but they'd probably be fine without.

Little green men

Sorry, I seem to have faded from view in Blogland - never could keep a diary! I just made a quick card for this week's Daring Card Makers dare though.



It's Keryn's turn to set the dare and with a little help from her son the theme is 'Celestial' (or 'Space' if you're going for the simplified version!). Chris on the BubblyFunk forum collects together cards for use at a children's hospice. I don't often get to make kids cards so I'd decided to make a few and already had the bits and pieces cut out for this one. The alien is designed in Inkscape and cut with the CraftRobo - inked with two shades of green chalk ink and has wiggly eyes at the top of the eye stalks. I find it difficult to judge kids' cards - hope this is OK!