Susan's Garden Lilacs with Tutorial

 

The lilacs are starting to bloom!  I love how we can create such realistic lilac blooms with the Susan's Garden Lilac dies.   I can almost smell them.   You can find Susan Tierney-Cockburn's instruction for creating her lilac at this LINK.  On my last blog post, I had a request from Laura to show how I create these lilacs, so below I have a tutorial showing the steps I took. I hope this helps you Laura.

For the background on this card I used the Marianne Design, Anja's Delicate Corner.  I personally like having two of these corner dies so I can die cut both corners at the same time.  Between the two corners, I added the Marianne Design, Anja's Decoration (CR1271).  In the middle of the card I used the Marianne Design, Anja's Vintage Decoration.  It was backed with purple card stock.  On the bottom portion of the card I added a Dotted embossed background.  The Lilacs were attached with Glue Dots and a silk bow added.  White pearls were also added.

A tutorial on how I created the lilacs using the Susan's Garden Lilac Dies.

I followed Susan's instructions and die cut two branches for each lilac.  I am creating two lilacs so have four branches die cut.  To create the lilac, I used Designer Dries Clear Adhesive, which is a liquid glue.  This is in a bottle with a nozzle and worked well for this flower.  I followed Susan's instructions and drew a line down the middle of all the branches with the Leaf Tool from the Susan's Garden Tool Kit.    I spread the glue over two of the branches, then placed the second one on top and pressed it firmly to glue them together.  By gluing two branches together, you get a stronger branch. 

 While the glue is still wet, I pressed in on all the branches, with my fingers, to give them a rounded shape, rather than just leaving them flat.  The branch on the left, above,  has been shaped.  I colored them using Pan Pastels.

When I die cut the petals for the lilac, I used three different shades of purple card stock.  I always die cut a lot to make sure I have enough when I get started assembling my flowers.  I used the smallest stylus and pushed down on the point of each petal then pushed down in the center to really give the little flower a lot of shape.  I worked on the foam mat from the tool kit.

Here are the pieces needed to get started creating my lilacs; the flower petals, branches and the leaves.  I die cut the leaves using white card stock and colored them using Green Pan Pastels. The vain was colored with Susan's Garden Rust Pan Pastel.

I spread glue over the branch then picked up the individual flowers with tweezers and placed them on the branch.  

Alternate the colors of the flowers when you attach them to the branch.  This will give the lilac more depth of color which I think makes it look more realistic.  Cover the entire branch (above the bottom stem) with petals.  Let the flower completely dry, on your non-stick Teflon pad, so the petals will stay in place. 

Once the petals are dry, go back and add a dot of the glue to the bottom of a petal and place as many as needed over the dried petals to get a nice full lilac branch.  Pick the branch up and add flower petals to the sides of each branch.  Glue on the leaves.  At this point it is still going to need some more shaping.

 Once all the petals are dry, go back and and shape the branches to resemble a real lilac.  Twist the branches so the bottom (stem end) is wider than the top.  You want to make it come up in a point. 

What do you think?  Doesn't it look like a real lilac!

You can purchase the products I used from Ellen Hutson, LLC.

Susan's Garden Lilac dies
Marianne Design Anja's Delicate Corner
Marianne Design Anja's Vintage Decoration  
Elizabeth Craft Designs, Lots of Dots embossing folder 
Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit
Designer Dries Clear Adhesive
Green Pan Pastels
Susan's Garden Pan Pastels
Glue Dots
Non-Stick Craft Sheet 
Hero Arts Accent Pearls

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