Cherry Blossom Time

Today is my first post on The Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog as a member of the Susan Tierney-Cockburn Design Team.   I have Spring Fever and am looking forward to all the beautiful flowers that should start blooming soon.  I have decorated a 10 inch square mirrored frame with a beautiful branch of Susan's Cherry Blossoms at the top.  Along the bottom I have included three white flowers using Susan's Garden-Anemone dies.  

Before I started creating my flowers, I used a couple of stencils and texture paste to create a background on the frame. 

This is a picture of the Susan's Garden - Cherry Blossom die.  

I die cut the cherry blossoms using a very light pink card stock.  There are two sets of dies to create flowers and you can see that the flower has only two die cut pieces to form the flower (one piece has 3 petals and the other 2 petals).  These flowers are so easy to create.  I wanted to add cherry blossom buds so I die cut the 3 piece petal in a darker pink to create them.  I shaped (cupped) the petals, added glue over most of the topside, then pinched the petals to form a bud.

Below is a Tutorial on how to create a realistic branch:

To form the branches,  I die cut two branches using Kraft card stock.  The branches were sponged with several colors of Distress Ink then both branches sprayed with a light mist of water to spread the ink and loosen the fibers of the card stock.  They were shaped using a ball stylus (just press down in the center of all the branches to give them shape). In the picture above the top branch has been sponged but has not been shaped.

You will need to let the branches dry thoroughly (either air dry or use a heat gun) then glue the two branches together.  This creates a sturdy branch and helps make it look realistic.  Once they are glued together, you can sponge a darker brown ink over the creates to help it look like bark, if you want to.

After your branches are ready, you can start attaching the cherry blossoms and buds.  I only have two branches pictured here but actually used three for the frame. 

In the center of the frame is a mirror.  It was not possible for me to get a picture without my reflection so I die cut a piece of card stock to cover most of the mirror.  The sentiment I used is the Susan's Garden "Sunshine and Love" sentiment stamp.  ( I will be removing the pink card stock and have the sentiment attached directly to the mirror when I use it for a piece of home decor.

Along the bottom of the frame, I attached several pieces of lace.  The flowers on the white lace were created using Susan's Garden - Anemone dies.  The pretty lavender butterfly was die cut using the Elizabeth Craft "Small Butterfly" dies. 

Have you signed up for the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog updates and the Newsletter?  You can do that at this LINK. You will find a lot of inspiration on the Blog including videos by Susan showing how to create her flowers. 

The products from Elizabeth Craft Design are linked below.

Susan's Garden Cherry Blossom (1006)

Susan's Garden - Anemone (1005)

Elizabeth Craft, Susan's Garden, Sunshine and Love stamp RS001

Elizabeth Craft Small Butterfly (713)