Tutorials

 
I first made these flowers a few years ago using pages from an old book! Those of you who know me in real life will know what a sacrifice it was to actually cut up a book. I can (and do) usually read an entire book and barely crack the spine!

So I was wondering how to make them without sacrificing any more books *shudder* and I came up with the following:

You will need the following supplies:

Vellum paper (not cardstock, it should be the lighter weight vellum)
Brayer
Ink Pads (large enough to fit your brayer, I used Stampin' Up Creamy Caramel)
Large Text Stamp (I used En Francais)
Scallop Circle Punch
1" Circle punch
Some scrap cardstock
Vintage Buttons
Linen Thread
Glue

Step 1: I used the brayer and Creamy Caramel ink to cover the vellum paper. I then stamped all over this with the large En Francais background stamp and chocolate chip ink. Don't worry about how neatly the edges of the stamped image overlap, it won't matter by the time you finish your flowers.

Step 2:

I punched out eight scallop circles using my punch. Most punches are designed for cardstock and sometimes struggle to cut a crisp clean edge on thinner paper. To avoid this happening I folded my vellum in half and in half again so it was four layers thick and then used my punch. Also saved some effort as I got four scallop circles at once.

Step 3:

Scrunch up your vellum scallop circles, really tightly and then open each one out again.Oh I should mention that your eight circles will be enough to do two flowers. Once you have opened them out put a tiny dot of glue in the centre of three of your circles and glue four circles together, one on top of the other

Step 4:

Now holding the circles with the top towards you pinch the circle in the middle underneath and fold the edges over on themselves to make the petals. Your flower should now look something like this

Step 5:

Punch out a 1" circle from scrap cardstock and glue this to the bottom of your flower.

Step 6:

You are now ready to add a button to the centre of your flower. I used some genuine vintage buttons from my late Gran's button tin (its a huge old biscuit tin full of buttons and bizarrely enough there are also some broken lead soldiers that my dad shot at with his air rifle when he was a boy - LOL health & safety eh!)

Sew your button on using some linen thread and you are now done!
Two of the examples below used the scallop circle punch and for the other one I used the 1 3/4" plain circle punch for a slightly different look.


The great thing about these flowers is that although I've gone for a vintage theme you can customise them for whatever look you want depending on what ink colour you use on your vellum.
You could use some of the soft subtles for easter cards, bright colours for birthday cards and scrapbook pages and greens and reds for a Christmas theme.

If you have a go I'd love to see what you make - if you post your project anywhere on line then do please leave a link in the comments section so I can have a nosy at your take on this little vellum flower.