A Visit With Susan Tierney-Cockburn and Susan's Garden Rose

As I'm sure you all know, I learned all my flower creating techniques from Susan Tierney-Cockburn.  I loved using her Punch Bunch punches and learning flower shaping techniques from her "Paper Bouquet" book,  and now love using her new Susan's Garden flower dies, which are much easier to use than the punches.  Susan and I live across the mountains from each other, in the same state.   My friend Pat and I had the priviledge of going over to see Susan.

Susan took some time out of her very busy schedule to show us some of her flower creating techniques. It was so fun to sit with her to learn new techniques. Among other things, she taught me a lot about coloring and shaping leaves, which I will show you in future blog posts.  All of Susan's "Susan's Garden flower dies have all the pieces to create each flower, which helps you create beautiful flowers without trying to figure out what dies are needed for a certain type of flower. In addition to the directions that come in each flower packet, she has developed videos to help you visually see how to create them.  Susan wants to make it very easy for you to create these flowers and has other products to help you achieve great shaping, coloring and texture.  At the moment, the Sizzix Flower Tool kit, inspired by Susan,  is available, and very soon the Pan Pastels and the product for creating realistic pollen for your flowers will be available.  I had a chance to try the new Pan Pastels and see the pollen powders and I know you will want these products.  The Pan Pastels are very different from other chalks we have used.  They are kind of creamy and Susan told me they will last for a very, very long time.  I was very impressed with them.  The powders for the pollen are so realistic and work much better than the Flower Soft I used in my Lily Tutorial.   

 Susan is a very multi-talented lady.  She baked some very incredible snack cakes for us called "Cliffords!  (Red-Velvet Snack Cakes).  In addition to all the other crafty things Susan does, she is a master baker.  If you would like to check out the recipe for these delicious snack cakes and all her other recipes, you can check out this link.  Thank you Susan for taking time out of your busy schedule for us.

Well I couldn't do this post without showing you another gorgeous flower  I made with the Susan's Garden dies.  Don't these dies create the most realistic rose you have ever seen!  I can almost smell this rose!   I started out by die cutting the rose with vanilla card stock.  The center of each petal was sponged with Spun Sugar Distress Ink then the edges of the petals sponged with Tea Dye Distress Ink.  I love the color it turned out.  The rose was assembled the same as the one I created in my Rose Tutorial at this link.

The other products used to create this card include the Marianne Design (DS0907) embossing folder; Impression Obsession Leaves; Memory Box "Fresh Foliage",  Memory Box "Chloe Stem". Along the bottom of the card I used the Memory Box "Tessatina Border".   All the dies needed to complete the rose and the rose leaves are in the Sizzix, Susan's Garden Rose" die set.  I used the Sizzix Flower Tool Kit to shape the petals and leaves. 


Products used:

Sizzix, Susan's Garden Rose die set, (658411)
Sizzix,  Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit (568437)
Marianne Design embossing folder (DS0907)
Impression Obsession "leavy Branch" (DIE055-N)
Memory Box "Fresh Foliage" (98502)
Memory Box "Chloe Stem" (98321)
Memory Box "Tessatina Border" (98302)

Distress Inks, Spun Sugar and Tea Dye

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