Susan's Garden Lily Tutorial

 I had a request to do a tutorial creating Lilies using the Susan's Garden Lily dies. This is a six petal flower with a beautiful stamen.  I suggest you watch Susan Tierney-Cockburn's  Lily video at this link for step-by-step instruction.  Below I have taken pictures for you, as I was working on my flowers.

 Lilies come in many different colors.  For this tutorial I have created pink lilies.

 All the dies, to complete this flower, comes in the Susan's Garden Lily Seed packet.

 I like to die cut most of my flowers using white card stock so I can color them to get pretty, soft colors.  We are told we should use odd numbers when designing and I am able to layer three pieces of #80 card stock over the dies to die cut three sets at one time.

I used the leaf tool in the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit to create lines on each petal.  There is a long line from top to bottom, which is drawn on the back of the petal, then I turned it over and drew some short lines from the base of the petal, as shown in the picture above.

For this pink lily, I wanted to add some coloring to make it look realistic.  I started by using Susan's Garden, Bright Pink Pastel at the base of each petal.

 I love working with Pan Pastels because they blend together so well for a very realistic look.  This bright pink was a little too bright, so I used the light pink and blended it all over the bright pink to soften it.  The light pink was applied over the entire petal.

 Next I wanted to add just a touch of yellow at the base, so I added the bright yellow, blending it in well.

In this picture you can see the difference it made by adding a little yellow to the base.  I then blended in the yellow better by going over it with the light pink Pan Pastel again.  All this blending created a very realistic looking petal.  (I know, sometimes I take extra steps when working on my flowers, but in the end I think it is well worth it.  It only takes a couple of seconds of extra work to create something very realistic!  Try blending your Pan Pastels, I'm sure you will love the effect.)

 A lot of lilies have "freckles".  I used a magenta fine tip marker to add small freckles at the base of each petal.  The middle row does not have freckles. 

 There are three leaf dies in the package.  Add some character to your leaves, as shown on the left side, by shaping them with the tools in the Flower Tool Kit.  Draw a line down the back side then use the small loop tool to give them some "curl".

 One of the tips Susan gives us, is to shape the calyx (base) with the medium stylus to cup it.  The reason you do this is to have a nice "fluffy"  (dimensional) flower, which looks much better than a flat flower.  She tells us to hold the center of the calyx down with the point of the leaf tool and start adding the flower petals.  You gently wiggle the petal on the point making sure not to press it flat.  This little tip does make a big difference in having a well shaped flower.

 To assemble your flower, first add three petals, then go back and add the other three petals.  The gives more dimension to your flower.

For the stamen, I cut each point in half down to the base, then rolled it.  The tips were dipped in Susan's Garden Pink Pollen.  As soon as the six petals were glued to the calyx, I placed them in the Susan's Garden Flower Trays to dry.  This helps keep the petals pushed up while the flower is drying.  You receive 5 trays, each holding 4 flowers so you can work on a number of flowers at the same time.  If you don't place the wet (glued) flowers in the cups, the petals seems to slowly start falling down, which will leave you with a flatter flower. Once the flowers are dry, add the leaves and you are ready to decorate your card or project.

 I love how realistic Susan's Garden flowers look.

You can create these gorgeous flowers too.   I hope this tutorial gives you inspiration to create your lilies.

You can purchase all your Susan's Garden flower dies and products from Ellen Hutson, LLC.

Here are direct links to products I used:

Susan's Garden, Lily Dies
Susan's Garden, Flower Tool Kit
Susan's Garden, Flower Trays
Susan's Garden, Pan Pastels 
PanPastel Sofft Tools
Susan's Garden, Pollen
Ultimate Glue

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