So recently there's been a lot of talk in blog land about making your own embellishments including this great post on Nichole Heady's blog last week featuring embellishments she and the Senior Design Team at Papertrey made. I have been meaning to show you how I made the distressed layered flower from this card, so I thought I'd do that today. I love, LOVE the idea of being able to make my own embellishments at a fraction of the cost of store-bought ones, and in any color scheme that I might need or want. However, I'm a little picky in that I want my home-made embellies to look very professional and as if just maybe, they WERE store-bought! :) SO, I thought I'd give you a few tips today on how I make my distressed flowers and you'll be on your way to making fabulous flower embellishments for your cards in no time! Let's get started!! I've got another fun tutorial for you on how to make more distressed flowers with a bit of a vintage feel, so stay tuned for that! Oh, and I'll be adding this card to my new RaspberrySuite Etsy shop, so if you like it, you can purchase it there. Thanks so much for reading! I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts on this post -- too long? Too many photos? Too much detail? Or do you like tutorial posts like this one? Thanks for your input, Peeps! {Make a Wish Supplies}
First up, choose a color palette that you want to work with. For today, I've decided on 4 colors from Papertrey....dark chocolate, melon berry, berry sorbet and soft stone! I know the light gray (soft stone) might be a bit of a surprise, but just wait till you see how the gray and brown work together with the bright colors to create a very fun card when we're finished!
Now, you'll want to tear a bunch of circles in random sizes out of your card stock. If you're right handed like me, hold the card stock in your left hand and pull the card stock toward you, as you tear with your right hand. That way you get that great torn edge showing.
Here's my pile of torn circles in various sizes.
Next, you'll want to take a circle and start rolling the edges toward the center of the circle. Repeat this on all of your circles.
Here are 4 circles, just stacked one on top of the other. These are not adhered together at all.
Now, take your paper piercer and punch 3 holes in the center of the flowers, poking the holes thru all 4 layers.
Now put 3 brads in the holes! This secures all 4 layers together AND makes for a cute flower center!
Ok, so next we're gonna make some leaves. I literally just cut these out of some card stock. Just eye-ball them. They don't have to be perfect (mine obviously aren't!), as long as they're the general shape of a leaf. And don't feel like all your leaves have to be green either! Use one of the colors that you're working with, preferably NOT the same color as the largest layer on your flowers. In this case, that would be brown so I don't want brown leaves. By using a different color for the leaves, it will show the definition much better, between my leaves and my flower.
Now, you certainly don't have to stamp anything on your leaves but I say, "Why not?!" Especially since the flowers are all solid colors, it gives you a great opportunity to put an extra special touch on your leaves. For today, I decided to stamp a pattern from my Damask Designs set on my leaves.
Next, I used my Heidi Swapp edge distresser around the edges of my leaves. You just slide the card stock in the opening and drag the edges along the blade allowing it to sort of shred up the edges of the card stock. This little tool is a great investment for just a couple dollars.
The distressed damask leaves...
I've gotten several questions lately about how I adhere embellies like these. For these leaves, I put mini glue dots on the FRONT side of my leaves, down on one end.
Then I stick the leaves to the back side of the flower so they're all stuck together.
To put the flower on the card, I used several mini glue dots on the back side of the flower and leaves.
And here is my fun distressed flower on a card!! Don't you think the gray is a fun and different color to pair with the brown and berry shades?! The sentiment is from the Mega Mixed Messages stamp set.
The great thing about these flowers is that you can build them in all different ways! You can mix up your layers of card stock or make flowers that are all the same color. You can make smaller flowers or larger ones. You can put brads in the centers or ribbon or buttons -- whatever you like! Here's an example of how you can use a button center, and by threading the twine thru the holes in the card stock, you can adhere your layers together without having to use adhesive!
Here are a few flowers that I made all at the same time. Making distressed flowers is one of those things that you can easily do on those days when you're just not feeling very creative. When the mojo's not flowing, take that opportunity to sit in front of the tv, tearing paper and building distressed flowers. That way, when you ARE feeling creative, you'll have a ready stash of fabulous embellishments just waiting to be used!
Paper: melon berry, berry sorbet, dark chocolate, soft stone
Stamps: Damask Designs, Mega Mixed Messages
Ink: dark chocolate, berry sorbet
Other: berry sorbet topnotch twill ribbon, Making Memories brads, SU! scallop edge punch, Heidi Swapp edge distresser