Mother's Day Flowers

Last night, a friend and I hosted a special "Moms Night In" jewelry and crafting party, which was a fun and relaxing way to spend the evening!  I wanted to create a special thank you for each of the wonderful women who attended, and decided on handcrafted roses.  I arranged them in a jar that I had antiqued using the same technique as for the arrangements I made for my hostess tea this year (you can see those here, but basically I upcycled a glass jar by spraying it with Krylon's Looking Glass Spray).  Here's how my rose bouquet turned out:

Hope the ladies who received the flowers felt super-special and appreciated!

Supplies:

Paper:  Real Red, Primrose Petals, Raspberry Ripple, So Saffron, and Gumball Green Card Stock; Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper
Accessories:  Spiral Flower Originals Die (I cut two pieces for each rose); Five Petal Punch (retired); Very Vanilla Seam Binding (dyed with Rich Razzleberry ink; I used a Color Spritzer filled with several drops of reinker and water, and spritzed that onto the seam binding)
Other:  Glass Jar, Looking Glass Spray and Floral Wire Stems

Hope you've had a beautiful day!  Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle

Elegant Birthday Cards

Happy Monday!  Today was a busy day here . . . trying to get reorganized after having been away for a couple days to play in the snow with my husband and our two little guys, and having a blast with a fun get together with my SUper Friends group, and doing all our regular school (plus now baseball season) routine entails!  Whew!

Anyway, I have a couple of special birthday cards I created recently to show you today.  These were created using the beautiful Everyday Enchantment Designer Series Paper (one of the awesome free items you can select as a reward during Sale-a-Bration!!!)  Here they are:

The card base is Calypso Coral.  The Everyday Enchantment pieces were cut using the Pennants Die. and were pieced together to form an almost quilt-like border.  I used a strip of the beautiful new Baja Breeze Pleated Ribbon along the edge of the designer series paper border.

"Happy Birthday" and the image around it are from the Elementary Elegance Sale-a-Bration stamp set, and were stamped on Very Vanilla using Early Espresso and Pool Party, respectively.  The piece was die cut using the Label Framelits die.  Underneath that are some scallops of the Everyday Enchantment paper that were die cut using the one of the scallops on the Pennant die.  That, in turn, is layered onto a piece of Pool Party cut out using a larger Label Framelits die.  (Can you tell I just love the Framelits?  Seems like I've been using them on almost everything I've been creating lately!)

The 3D rose embellishment was created by punching several pieces of Calypso Coral with the Fun Flower Punch.  I used the same technique I showed in this tutorial.  The leaves were punched out of Pear Pizzazz using the Blossom Petal Builder Punch.  I used my Simply Scored tool to add the lines to them.

And, I couldn't resist adding a few Pearl Jewels for a little extra touch of elegance.

If you'd like to order any of the supplies I used to make this card, please be sure to visit my online store.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

- Michelle

Fancy Valentine's Heart Box

Marlene and I are swapping again, and now that I know she's received this, I can show you a Valentine's heart box I created for our 3D Valentine item part of the swap!  I've seen others making this type of box . . . and seeing all the beautiful chocolate boxes in the stores made me think these would be fun to make with the new Heart framelits, too.  So, I decided I had to give it a try.  Here's how mine turned out:

And the side view:

To create my box, I started with two hearts cut using the largest of the Heart Framelits out of Riding Hood Red Card Stock (you could also make these using the smaller framelits . . . I just wanted to have the scalloped heart for this box).  Then, I strips of Riding Hood Red Card Stock to create the sides for the top and bottom.  I used 1-1/2" strips, then scored the strips at 3/8" using my Simply Scored Tool.  I used Sticky Strip on the small part I had created with the score, removed the Sticky Strip backing, then cut about every 1/2" (you could do that in the opposite order if you were worried about getting adhesive on your scissors).  

I attached the side for the top piece close to the edge, then repeated the process on the bottom piece, but made sure that side was adhered a little farther into the heart so that the top would fit nicely over it when I put the two pieces together.

Then, I decorated the outside of the box, using the beautiful new Blushing Bride pleated ribbon and hearts I die cut from the Everyday Elegance Designer Series Paper.  I actually embossed the outer designer series paper heart using the Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder.  I added a 3D card stock rose, made using the technique in this tutorial.  The rose is made out of Pink Pirouette Card Stock, and I rolled the petals tightly.  I also used some Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds to make the petals glitter.  Here's a close up:

The leaves were punched out of Lucky Limeade using the Blossom Builder Punch, and then I scored the "veins" onto them using my Simply Scored Tool.

For the greeting flag, I trimmed a piece of Very Vanilla into shape, and stamped it in Riding Hood Red with the "be my valentine" greeting from the P.S. I Love You set.  I added Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamond around the edges.

The inside of the box was filled with several small heart shaped easel note cards:

I also adhered two Pink Pirouette hearts, which I had embossed using the Vintage Wallpaper Textured Impressions Folder, into the box to line it.  Here's a better peek at the inside and at the little note-cards.  The note-cards were decorated with stamps from the P.S. I Love You Set and the Fresh Vintage Sale-a-Bration set, and a bit of Everyday Elegance Designer Series Paper.

Here's another, almost identical heart I created with a little variation on the rose:

 And, here's a close up of the rose:

I used the same technique to create this rose, but didn't curl the petals as tightly.  For this one, I used a touch of Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds in the center for just a little sparkle.

Hope you enjoyed these, and they inspire you to create some fabulous Valentine hearts and projects of your own!

- Michelle

Vintage Rose Video Tutorial!

I'm excited to announce I have a new video tutorial available for you!  You might remember this card, with 3D vintage-y rose blossoms, from this post:

If you'd like to re-create these flowers, here's my video to show you how:

Hope you like the video.   Please let me know if you make these, I'd love to see what you create with this idea!

Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle

Rose-Covered Mini Easter Basket

This little basket is a 3D item I created for a recent swap with my friend Marlene.  I thought it would make a cute Easter basket, and filled it with Smooth & Melty Mints, since those were the closest thing to Easter candies I could find when I made it!   This could also make a cute favor for a spring birthday party or gathering.

You might recognize the bottom of the basket as cut from the same die I used for the cupcakes for my hostess tea.  It is from the Bigz XL Table Setting Die.  This time, though, I used Crumb Cake (kraft) card stock, and after die cutting on the Big Shot, ran the card stock through my crimper.  I would release pressure on the crimper and turn the card stock every so often to keep the lines roughly vertical.

The handle was created by die cutting Crumb Cake card stock with the Tasteful Trim Die (again with the Big Shot).   I glued that into the basket base.  The base of the basket also has a Fancy Flower Fold flower in the base to fill the hole in the bottom -- same as with the cupcake bases.

The roses started as Marina Mist circles that I had punched out, and then trimmed into a spiral.  I twirled them up and then glued them.   The leaves are Old Olive card stock that I die cut using the Little Leaves die. 

I packaged the candy in a Small Cello bag, tied at the top with a piece of Pear Pizzazz Stitched Poly Twill Ribbon.

Don't know about you, but I can't wait for spring!!! 

Thanks for stopping by!

- Michelle VanWiggeren

100th Post! My Paper Rose Shortcut Tutorial

Wow!  Can't believe it, but I'm already to my 100th blog post!  To celebrate, I have a very special tutorial for you . . . for how I've been making paper roses lately.  You might remember I fell in love with the paper roses I first saw created by Julie Williams, and I then went on to create my Flowers for Mom card.  Well, I've come up with a shortcut for putting these beauties together.  Because my creative time is limited (and interrupted early and often) by my wonderful little guys, I like to be able to put things together quickly -- without having to wait for glue to dry, if possible!  So, I decided there had to be a way to make the roses with glue dots.  Guess what?  There is!  And, now I'm going to share it with you . . .

Start by punching four flowers from card stock or designer series paper -- for these, I used the Five Petal Punch:

Then, cut off petals from three of the flowers, so you are left with a 5 petal flower, a 4-1/2 petal flower, a 3-1/2 petal flower, a 2 1/2 petal flower, and a single petal.  Here's a visual:

Next, put a glue dot onto the 1/2 petal "tab" on the 4-1/2 petal flower, and bring the tab behind the petal across the gap from it, hiding the tab on what would be the outside of the flower. 

Then, curl the flower petals.  These petals were curled under several times -- the amount of curling you do, will depend on how tight you want your fiinished rose to look.  You can use a paper piercer to wrap the paper around and create the curl, or perhaps safer would be the technique I've seen my friend Jane Matsumoto use -- pull the paper across your closed scissors almost as you would if you were curling ribbon.  (Maybe Jane will make a tutorial to show her excellent technique for this, if she hasn't already?  Hint, hint.)  For these flowers, I started the process with the scissors, but then ended up rolling them more by hand, to get the curl pretty tight.  The curl of the petals is something that can be adjusted a bit further once the rose is completely assembled as well . . . just easiest to get a good start on it at this stage.

Repeat these steps with the 3-1/2 and 2 1/2 petal flowers, and roll up your single petal, so you end up with this:

Now, it is time to assemble the flower!  (You could also sponge some color around the edges of the pieces at this stage, to add some extra 3D oomph). 

The last time I showed this assembly step, I was asked if it was better to assemble from top to bottom or bottom to top -- I had been doing bottom to top, but that got me thinking, why not try the other way.  Well, turns out top to bottom does work better for me (thanks to Sparrow for making me test this!)  So, put a glue dot on either side of the bottom of the single petal roll, and carefully insert that into the center of the 2-1/2 petal piece so you end up with this:

This would make a cute little but.  But, for a larger flower, again, use two glue dots on either side of the outside of this new piece, and insert into the 3-1/2 petal piece.  The end result should look something like this:

Again, you could stop here, or if you want a larger rose, use two glue dots on the outside to adhere this piece to the 4-1/2 petal piece, like so:

And, finally, adhere this piece to the 5 petal piece, either one or two glue dots will work fine at this stage.  Here's the finished product:

You can do this same process using other punches -- such as the Extra Large Flower Punch.  Here are some photos of the process with that.  First, how to cut the four punched pieces:

Second, how each piece looks after its petals are connected by a glue dot, and petals curled.  Well, and actually in this photo, the assembly process is already underway:

Here are the two glue dots on the outside of the 3-1/2 petal piece as it is about to go to the 4-1/2 petal piece:

And, the finished product:

And, a side view:

Finally, for sake of comparison, here are four roses I've created.  The top two were made using the Extra Large Flower Punch, and with the leaves just slightly curled. 

The bottom left rose is the one created in the photos above using the Extra Large Flower Punch, and the bottom right is the one created in the photos above using the Five Petal Flower Punch.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial!  Look forward to seeing what you create with it!

- Michelle

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Today is my Mom's birthday -- please join me in wishing her a fabulous day!!! 

I had fun creating a very special card for her, and wanted to share that with you as well.  Here it is:

And, a side view:

I became obsessed with these paper roses when I saw Julie Williams' beautiful card, which you can see, along with instructions for how she created it, in this post.  My roses were created in a similar manner, except with the Stampin' Up! 5-Petal Flower Punch instead of the new Extra Large Fancy Flower Punch (from the Occasions Mini).  The Old Olive leaves were also punched out with the 5-Petal Flower Punch.  The stems and smaller leaves were punched out with the new Extra Large Two-Step Bird Punch (also in the Occasions Mini). 

The card base and the scored layer on the front are made of Stampin' Up!'s Shimmery White Card Stock. The layer in between the base and scored layer is Barely Banana, as are the rose petals, and Scallop Oval Punch.

The "Wonderful Mother" sentiment and the "happy birthday" inside are from the Well Scripted stamp set in the Occasions Mini.  I stamped these with Old Olive Classic Ink.

For the finishing touch, I attached half pearls from the Pretties Kit along the bottom of the card.

- Michelle