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Floral Creativity
Robin Willis - Altered Deck CrewmemberWelcome back to another month aboard the S.S. Reflections. I have a fun thing to share with you this month. I hope that you like it as much as I do!! Are you like me and love all the fabulous paper flowers that are everywhere in paper art these days? I love them all and buy them often. But, my biggest problem is that they don’t always coordinate with what I am creating. So, I always end up taking those luscious flowers and inking them to make them work with my project. I am also often thrifty with my art. I like to get the most bang for my buck with supplies
I recently bought a Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter so I would have the ability to cut whatever I wanted, in whatever size I desired. This machine has the ability to also cut computer fonts. Imagine my joy when I came across a couple of gorgeous dingbat fonts of flowers!! This is what sparked my idea. Well, actually, it was a combination of that and the introduction of some super cool grungy looking paper flowers that recently hit the market. I have been unable to find them locally, so I decided to try to make some of my own. I do want to state to everyone, that I will probably be buying some of the manufactured flowers to use in my art, but I want the ability to make my own as well. When I make my own, I can decide the colors, images, etc. that I put on them.
It is quite simple to make these flowers. I just randomly inked white cardstock. Whatever colors, brands, etc. that you like. I mostly used Colorbox chalk and Pigment inks and Distress inks for mine. Then, I randomly (and I do mean randomly) stamped images all over the inked cardstock. No rhyme or reason to it. I did stick with similar images, but you certainly don’t have to. In the end, you can’t really tell what the images are anyway. This is just for color and texture on the finished flowers. Then, I opened the dingbat font in my cutting program for my Silhouette, resized it how I wanted them and followed the procedure to cut out a half sheet of shapes. I ended up with some really cool looking flowers. After removing them from the cutting mat, I decided to add dimension to a couple of them to show how nice these can look. I flipped them over onto a rubber mat for metal embossing and used a stylus to puff up the petals and give them the look of purchased paper flowers. I was really impressed with the outcome. I also think I am addicted to making my own paper flowers now!!
Below are two different color schemes and slightly different sizes of some flowers I did with my Silhouette. Notice that the ones alone at the bottom of the pictures are puffed and have dimension to them.
Now, I wanted to try this with paper punches. I have this awesome floral punch from McGill. It is called Baby Blooms and will punch out seven different tiny flowers in one punch. Absolutely perfect for making these flowers!! It is big and I did have to actually put it on the floor and step on it to punch out the cardstock, but it punched easily that way. I am just a wimpy artist and couldn’t get the force I needed from my hand. I did the exact same procedure to make these flowers as I did for the ones cut on the Silhouette. I inked, stamped and punched. I added dimension with a stylus on these flowers as well. Very easy and very fun!! I couldn’t seem to stop making flowers!!
Now, I had to try a few more things with the punch to make some other interesting flowers. These flowers were punched out of Ruche cardstock made by WorldWin Papers. This cardstock is so cool. It is very textured and feels almost fabric-like. I did slip a piece of cardstock under the Ruche so I could get a clean punch. The Ruche is not stiff enough to punch on its own. No big deal though. I just got twice the amount of punched flowers with one punching.
Then, I noticed a book page sitting on my desk. It was just one that I had recently torn out of a book I was altering a spread in. I realized that it was already preprinted. Bonus!! I just added some ink to parts of the page and left a small area totally uninked. I punched out the entire page and had some really interesting flowers. The uninked ones can be inked if needed or left as is. I think they look cool either way.
I think there is no end to the possibilities when you start making your own flowers. Like I said, I will continue to buy flowers, but I have so many more options when I make my own. I am a person who likes to make my own embellishments anyway, so this was so rewarding for me. I hope you give this a try with your own digital cutter or any flower punches you have on hand. It is really fun to see what emerges from the crazy inked and stamped pieces of cardstock. If you do make some of your own flowers, I would love to see them!!
Until Next Month,
Happy Stamping!
Robin Willis
robinwillis@ssreflections.com
Altered Arts Deck Crewmember
Reflections Publishing Group, LLC
http://rockinrobin1973.blogspot.com
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