Christmas Poinsettia and Pine Cone Tutorial

 

Today I wanted to create a card using two beautiful Marianne Design products for a background for a pretty Susan's Garden poinsettia.  I used the Marianne Design, Anja's Decorative Rectangle (DF3406) embossing folder on the bottom of this 6x6" card.  At the top, I added the Marianne Design, Anja's Border, die cut.

To stay with traditional Christmas colors, I created a red poinsettia using Susan's Garden Poinsettia dies.  These poinsettias always look so realistic.  Under the poinsettia, I added some Tim Holtz  Tattered Pinecones.   The shiny gold "Noel" is part of the Memory Box Grand Joyeux Noel die. I did not have room for the entire die, so for this card I used only the "Noel" die cut letters.

TUTORIAL FOR PINE CONES

 As I stated, I used the Tim Holtz Tattered Pine cone die to create a variety of pine cones. 

This die cut pine cone is similar to the rolled roses spiral die cuts.  You can click on this LINK to see Tim Holtz tutorial.  I picked up some good tips from his instructions, but had a different idea on how to shape the pine cones and will show you my way below.

 I die cut several different colors of card stock to see which color I would like best.  There are different ways you can create different looks by using different colors of card stock, the way you shape them, and different ways to add texture.  I tried several ways to shape each "petal" of the pine cone and found the most realistic look was to shape each petal with the loop tool on the tan shaping pad from Susan's Garden Tool Kit.  I shaped the petals from the backside, pulling the loop tool from the edge all the way to the bottom of the petal.  This gave the petal a nice bowed out shape.  In the picture above, you can see the spiral when all the petals have been shaped. 

 I liked Tim's idea of rolling the pine cone by hot gluing a tooth pick to the end petal, then rolling it.  You want to make sure you are holding the spiral with the petals bent out (not cupped in), when you start rolling.  It looks like you are working on the backside of the spiral, because the shaping has the petals bent back, but you are actually rolling from the top (front) side.

 When you get to the end, add some hot glue on the inside of the petal at the base to hold it all together.  There is a little notch before the last petal that will fit nicely over the toothpick, that will hold it in place.

 You can create different shapes of pine cones, depending on how tight you roll the spiral.  To make a larger pine cone, I glued two spirals together, alternating the petals, then rolled it.  It made a "fatter" pine cone.  You could also glue two spirals together at the ends to make a longer spiral, therefore getting a larger pine cone. 

I didn't use them on my card, but I wanted to see if I could add snow to some of the pine cones.  I used Ranger Texture Paste to dab some paste on the ends of the petals, then I dipped the pine cone into The Distress Clear Rock Candy dry Glitter.  It looks like real snow.  I also used the Adirondack Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber to add some white to the tips of petals. The point dabber has a sponge top and you just swipe it from the tip, inward, to create white tips.   Both took very good. 

 Last year I purchased different colored poinsettias so I could create realistic poinsettias using Susan's Garden dies.  In the past, I have been lucky to keep all the petals on a poinsettia through the end of the year.  Look what has happened this year!  All three of my poinsettias have taken off, and even still have the colored flowers on them with a ton of new growth.  It will be interesting to see if I get new flowers on these plants for Christmas!

You can purchase the following products from Ellen Hutson, LLC:

Marianne Design Anja's Border 

Susan's Garden Poinsettia dies

Sizzix, Tim Holtz Tattered Pinecone

Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit

Ranger Texture Paste

Distress Stickles Clear Rock Candy Dry Glitter

Adirondack Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber

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