Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Decorating Design Paper with Susan's Flowers


Today I have designed a card using the Graphic 45 Botanical Tea Design Paper as a background for some of Susan's pretty flowers. 

 Graphic 45 Botanical Tea Design 8"x8" Design Paper

This piece of design paper, out of the 8"x8" paper pad, was cut down to 6"x6" to fit my card.  To give the card dimension, I (somewhat) duplicated the flowers in the design paper.  In the center I created a pink rose using Susan's Garden Rose 1 dies.  At the top of the rose, are two white lilies created with the Susan's Notes Lily dies.   A few little daisies were placed around the rose.  They were die cut using the Garden Patch Daisy/Chrysanthemum dies. All these flowers were attached over the flowers in the design paper.    On the left lower corner I added a branch of purple lilacs created with Susan's Garden Notes Lilac dies (which are not in the design paper).


Here is a closeup photo of the flowers. Creating my own similar flowers added a lot of interest to this pretty design paper.

The products from Elizabeth Craft Designs include:



Thursday, July 23, 2015

Tag and Susan's Garden Notes Lilac Tutorial

 I had a great response to the Vase of Susan's Garden Lilacs I posted at this LINK.  On some of the comments and emails sent to me, I was asked to do a Lilac tutorial, which I have below.  First I will tell you about the products used for this tag.  I used the Tags & More 6 - Daisy Tag dies and die cut the top layer using white card stock.  The portion under the pretty die cut was embossed using the Swirly Curves Embossing Folder.  For color under the die cut portion of the tag, I die cut the basic tag using dark purple card stock and glued the two pieces together.  Two narrow strips of the same dark purple card stock were cut and glued along the top of the embossing at at the bottom of the tag.  I die cut the top of the tag again using purple card stock and used the die cut circles to decorate the top part of the embossed section.  The sentiment is one of the ECD Peel Off Stickers. 

GARDEN NOTE LILAC TUTORIAL


 This is a picture of Susan's Garden Notes Lilac dies. 


 I use 80# card stock to create my flowers.  The dies are sharp enough to use two sheets of card stock when die cutting.  There are ten lilac flowers in this set -- I die cut them 5 times, which gave me plenty of flowers when die cutting two sets at a time.  It is hard to see in this picture, but I used two slightly different shades of card stock to give the flower dimension.

 Susan shows us in her videos to glue two stems together for extra support.  I did this before shaping the flowers.  I love Susan's new Molding Pad.  It is large and give you plenty of work space when shaping petals.  To shape the flowers, use the smallest ball stylus and press down in the center of each petal - this is very quick and easy shaping.  Sometimes when you use two pieces of card stock, the petals will stick together but usually pop apart once you press down in the center.  This looks like a lot of work, but it really goes pretty fast.

 I work on a Teflon work sheet when gluing.  I like to start by adding glue to the part of the stem that the flowers will be attached to.  I let it sit to get a little tacky before adding flowers.  I also have a little spot of glue on the work sheet.  Use the self-closing tweezers, that are in Susan's Tool Set, to pick up a flower, dip the back in the spot of glue and place it on the stem.

 I like to start at the top of the stem and work my way down, but it makes no difference where you start - you just want to glue a solid line of petals down.  When I place the flower on the stem, I use Susan's Leaf Tool to press down in the center of the flower to make sure it attaches well.  You don't want to lose the nice shape of the flower, so the sharp point on this tool keeps you from pressing down on the petals and flattening them out.

 Glue petals on both stems. Below I have a few pictures to show you the progression of how it looks as I layer the flowers to create a full blossom.  I find it easiest if you let the petals dry between each layer so they don't slide around.




 You can stop at any point, but I like to have a nice full flower.  If you have die cut and shaped a lot of petals before starting, it is so easy to keep going until you have the flower just the shape you want.

 This is the finished Lilac with the leaves added.  Susan's Lilacs are so beautiful, you can use a single flower like this or create a whole bouquet.

 Out of all the little flowers die cut and shaped, these are the petals I had left over for another flower.

 I like to use Pico IrRESISTible Embellisher to create the center of the flowers -  these embellishers have a needlepoint end which makes it easy to create whatever size dot you need.


You can create a variety of colors of Lilacs.  Have fun creating your beautiful lilacs.

Products from Elizabeth Craft Designs:


Monday, July 20, 2015

Susan's Garden Rose with Baby's Breath Tutorial

ECD-SGDT-July-2015

Today my project is designed for Susan's Design Team project on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog.  I love to create any flower with Susan's dies, but one of my favorite is her rose.  Once created, they are so realistic you can almost smell them.  Susan has three different rose die sets.

This rose was created with Susan's Garden Rose 1 dies, which is the largest rose.  It was die cut using white card stock then colored using Tattered Rose Distress Ink.  A drop of the refill ink was placed on the Teflon Craft mat and water added to dilute the ink.  Some of the petals were dipped in the ink, especially the petals used for the center of the rose and the rose buds.  The rose buds were created with two of the largest rose petals.

ECD-SGDT-July-2015-Rose

 I love to add Baby's Breath with Roses.

ECD-SG-July-2015-Tut1

To create Baby's Breath, die cut the Berry Branch.  The die cut branch is seen on the left.  You can use the whole branch, but I cut off a portion of the bottom so it wasn't too high behind the rose.

Die cut a lot of the little flowers from the Country Scapes - Flora 1 die.  The flower die used is shown on the upper right corner in picture.

Shape each little flower by pressing down in the center, on the Flower Molding Pad, with the smallest stylus from Susan's Flower Tool Set, to give them shape.

ECD-SGDT-July-2015-Tut4 
Start gluing the little flowers to the "berry circle" on the Berry Branch.  I used the self-closing tweezers from the Flower Tool Kit to pick up the tiny flowers, dipped them in glue, and pressed them down in the center with the tip of the leaf tool from the Flower Tool Kit.
 
ECD-SGDT-July-2015-Tut5

Glue more little flowers on the stem of the Berry Branch, filling in all the open spaces.  Next, let the glue dry so the flowers don't slip around.

ECD-SGDT-July-2015-Tut-5
Glue additional little flowers over, and on sides, of the branch until you have a very full looking baby's breath branch.

ECD-SGDT-July-2015

Die cut the Paris Edge on a 6x6 piece of card stock.

Emboss the Paris Edge die cut using the Spring Leaves Embossing Folder.  Attach it to a 6x6 inch card front, with the lacy side toward the bottom of the card.

Die cut banner, seen at the top of the card, using the Agatha Edges dies.

Die cut the hearts and the small ovals using the Accordion Oval Card die set.  The hearts and two largest ovals were colored the same as the rose, using Tattered Rose Distress Ink.  Attach the two ovals together with dimensional tape, and glue to card.

The Sunshine and Love sentiment was stamped using black ink on white card stock then cut out with scissors.  It was glued to the card between the ovals.

Die cut the Small Butterfly.  The solid butterfly was colored with Tattered Rose Distress Ink, then the white lacy butterfly attached on top.

I hope you have fun creating Baby's Breath for your Susan's Garden Roses!
 
Products Used from Elizabeth Craft Designs:




Monday, July 13, 2015

Vase of Lilacs



Don't these flowers look real!  I can almost smell the wonderful aroma from these beautiful Lilacs.  I created white, and a two of shades of purple lilacs using Susan's Garden Notes Lilac dies. The purple flowers were die cut using colored card stock and the leaves and white flowers die cut using white card stock.  The leaves were colored using Distress Ink.  Susan's Flower Tool Set was used to shape the flowers and leaves.

 Garden Notes - Lilac (1017)
1017 Susan's Garden Notes Lilac

 Asian Vase (741)
 741 Asian Vase

The vase I put them in is the Asian Vase; it was the perfect size for this bouquet of Lilacs.   This vase comes with two dies -- the solid back and the pretty overlay design.  The back piece was die cut using purple card stock.  The overlay was die cut using white card stock that was backed with the ECD Transparent Double Sided Tape so it would be easy to attach to the purple back.  To give it a glossy look, I patted the vase with VersaMark Ink making sure ink covered every area -- since the VersaMark pad is spongy, I was able to press it down below the white die cut.  It was covered with Clear Detail Embossing Powder and heat set. 

This vase of lilacs is the perfect size for a pretty card or to decorate a box or home decor piece.

The following products can be purchased from Elizabeth Craft Designs:


Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Deer In Woods


I love all the CountryScapes Critters dies in Susan's new die collection.  I live in an area with a lot of evergreen trees and where we see deer daily.  I have been anxious to create my first Christmas card using Susan's CountryScapes deer.  

I started with a 6x6 inch card.  A white front panel was cut slightly smaller and two score lines added around each edge.  A rectangle was cut in the upper portion to create a window effect.  A piece of white card stock was embossed with the Lots of  Dots embossing folder and glued to the base card.  A few "snow banks" were cut and glued to the embossed background so they would show at the bottom of the rectangle opening. Cool Diamond Silk Microfine Glitter  was glued to the cut edge of the snow banks.

The deer from the CountryScapes Critters 3 set was die cut using white card stock.  Distress Inks were used to color it.  

The ECD 5 Part Pine die was used for the trees.  They were die cut with a piece of  Transparent Double Sided Tape attached to one side of white card stock.  The backing was removed and I used a mix of ECD Spring Peridot and Forest Green Silk Microfine Glitter to cover each piece.  This is a fun tree die to work with because there are five separate pieces and you can "build" any size evergreen tree you want.  The trees were built using dimensional glue dots between layers.  Two trees were glued to the background (in the window area) and two trees were attached to the top layer, along with the deer.

This card will make be a perfect masculine Christmas card.  It feels good to have a start on my holiday cards! 

The following products can be purchased from Elizabeth Craft Designs:

353 - Christmas Peel Off Stickers

Monday, July 6, 2015

Flower Garden



Elizabeth Craft Designs has such a beautiful array of flower dies by Susan Tierney-Cockburn. Today I arranged some of Susan's flowers, that I created, on this oval canvas frame.  Here is a list and Links to the flowers displayed:


Susan's Sunshine and Love sentiment was stamped on a doily created with the Paris Edges die.

I hope you enjoy seeing my garden today and I have inspired you to create your favorite flowers. You can see all of Susan's products at this LINK. Thank you for stopping by.

Additional products from Elizabeth Craft Designs:



Friday, July 3, 2015

Garden Notes Pink Lupine

 

Today I designed an Accordion  Card with Susan's Garden Notes - Blue Bonnet/Lupine dies.  I have created the Blue Bonnet flower and posted several projects;  today I created a pink Lupine.  This is the inside of the card.  The sentiment is Susan's new "Take Time" rubber stamp.  A butterfly and dragonfly were die cut from the Garden Notes - Bugs & Butterfly set. 


For inspiration, I used this picture I found on the Internet, for the color.

 The petals were die cut using white card stock.  I colored the bottom portion of some petals light pink, a few bright pink and the petals on top, that have not opened yet, were colored green.  They were colored with Susan's Pan Pastels.

This is the front of the card; it was created with the Accordion Oval Card die.  The Oval Flourish Frame Edges was added to decorate it.  

Thank you for stopping by today.  I wish you a safe and fun 4th of July.

Below are links to the products used:  


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