Susan's Garden Columbines

Today I have a closeup of the flower I created with Susan's Garden "Columbine" dies. I never would have thought I could create a columbine, but Susan made it so easy with her new flower dies.  Below I have a few tips for how I created my flowers.

There are a lot of different colors of Columbines.  I found this picture to use as a guide.  The Columbine is the State flower for Colorado, where I spent most of my life.  This was my favorite color, so tried to duplicate it.

There are instructions in the package of Susan's flower dies,  plus you can get Susan's online instructions here.

When you look at the picture of the Columbine, you can see the tails under the flower are round.  In order to achieve that look with the die cuts,  be sure to draw a line down the length, all the way down to the very bottom of the tail.  This will cause the tail to become rounded and will look natural.  Shape with the self-closing tweezers, as shown in Susan's directions.  Shaping is very easy when you use the tools and pads in the Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit.

To create a nice full stamen, I used scissors to make two cuts in each "prong" of the die cut stamen -- so instead of 5 stamen's, I ended up with 15.  When you cut 2 slits in each stamen, they will be very thin, so be sure you cut nice straight lines so you don't end up cutting one off.

Roll the stamen up.  Spread each "leg" out so you can add one very small drop of glue on the end of each one. This will keep them from sticking together - then push the stamen down in the Susan's Garden Woodland Scenic Pollen.  Once the glue is dry, you can push them back, closer together.  For the tips of the stamens, I like using Tombow Mono  Liquid Glue.  I use Crafter's Pick The Ultimate Glue to assemble all my flowers.
 

Here are the shaped pieces I used for each flower.  One thing that makes it easier to assemble the Columbine, is to glue the stamen in the center of the 5-petals die cut, and let it dry before gluing the individual petals, with the tails, to the base of the stamen (in between the petals with the stamen.  I colored my petals different than Susan did on her tutorial.  The tails are colored purple on the white petals, and the die cut with 5 attached petals, was colored purple.  I used Susan's Garden Pan Pastels (Purple and White), to color.  To apply the Pan Pastels, I use the Pan Pastels Sofft Tools.

 This is a picture of six Columbines placed on the top of a box.  When I attach my flowers to a card or box, I like to use Pop-up Glue Dots.  This gives them a little more height if you want to add additional leaves under flowers.

Here are links to each of the products I used from Ellen Hutson, LLC:

Susan's Garden Columbine Dies

Susan's Garden Woodland Scenic Pollen

Susan's Garden Flower Tool Kit

Susan's Garden Pan Pastels

Pan Pastel Sofft Tools

Crafter's Pick The Ultimate Glue

Tombow Liquid Glue

Pop-up Glue Dots

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