Good Enough for Marie Osmond!

Hi again! Hope everyone is having a great day. I couldn't wait to show you these beautiful paper flowers and the card that I made with them yesterday morning. I get an email newsletter called "Weekly Inkling" from Splitcoast Stampers each Wednesday. In last week's issue there was a link to a tutorial by Judi M. (aka "Crafts") that explained how to make them. Of course I can't do anything exactly the way It's supposed to be done, so I went into my scraproom Sunday and  changed it up a little.

I used a heavy pearlized cardstock and a Stampin Up! five petal flower punch to make the leaves. Just punch a flower and cut it into two pieces. Now you have two clusters of leaves, one with three leaves and one with two. I colored my leaves with Always Artichoke and Certainly Celery SU markers.

Judi used a McGill punch that I don't have, so I made do with what I do have and used the little five petal flower punch from EK. I like the look of Judi's base petals better, but I am nothing if not frugal! The only real difference is the petals on the EK punch are more defined, so I just used one for the base, while Judi used three. I'm sure a small circle or scallop circle (1/2 inch or 5/8 inch) would work just as well. I was feeling rather lazy when I made the flowers (and my table is a HUGE mess), so instead of walking all the way over to my Cuttlebug (all four feet) and getting out my Nestie scallop ovals, I reached across my table for my 3 inch scallop oval punch. I punched just enough of one end of the oval to get six scallops and trimmed it down to a thin strip. I wanted cream colored roses, so I used a piece of pearlized cream stationery. It's about the same weight as a nice printer paper. (I tried cardstock first, but I couldn't get the petals to curl back very well.) 

Now to put it all together! Judi used a mouse pad and an embossing tool to give a little bit of a curl to the base petals and the leaves. I don't have a mouse pad, but the arm of my sofa worked very nicely! If you don't have an embossing tool with a big tip, the clicker on an ink pen or the cap on a Sharpie will work the same way. Just lay the petals or leaves on the mousepad and rub around and around in small circles while pressing down. The harder you push down the more curl you get. I used hot glue to attach the base petal to the leaves. Then I wound the scallop strip around a skinny stick, hot glued it in the middle of the base, and curled the petals back. 

This is what my table looked like (and pretty much still does!) when I finished playing Sunday. I made the little paper roses and experimented with another kind of flower that you'll see in another post. 

Monday morning I came in to make a card for my friend Julie who celebrates her 16th birthday tomorrow. (Think about that one for a minute....) I had a really hard time coming up with a combination I liked. I'd pulled out several beautiful papers and dies to choose from, but it took forever to get it just right. Once I did, I mailed it to Julie and planned to make a copy of it for this post. When I came in here today I decided I should clean up a little. In the process I came across my last SU order. (See the bag in the lower left corner?) 

The Framelits Labels dies were still in the bag just begging to be broke in. The dies coordinate with the Apothecary Art set, which was also unused. The largest stamp in the set has a wreath of roses. Perfect! Just to stay with the "theme" I used a brand-new-never-even-unwrapped pad of Early Espresso.

I found a leafy green paper to use for the background, stamped the label on cream cardstock, and added "Happiest Birthday." I've had the trellis ribbon forever. I love it so much that I am very picky about where I use it, so if you get a card from me with trellis ribbon on it, you must be pretty special! I was happy with the first card, but I think I like this one even better. Sorry, Julie!

You can say it. Go ahead. I should have cleaned my table first. Yep. I should've. But don't for one second think that will reform me! I only cleaned until I got to the SU bag. The rest of the mess is still there!
Thanks for stopping by today--see you Friday! Happy birthday Julie!