Day 127: Rolled Flower Tutorial

So I've been working on these watercolor rolled Cricut cut flowers for a very special project, and posting the pics to my Instagram. We have these flowers in different shapes on many of the CTMH cricut cartridges. This shape in particular is from the Art Philosophy cartridge, which remains my favorite cartridge to this day. It's my favorite flower on my go to, almost-always-has-what-I-need cartridge.

I had cut these flowers out of plain white cardstock, then colored them using a water brush to pick up ink from my ink pads. When the shapes were dry I rolled and shaped them into this:

There was one left over, which I used on this card, which lead to a question on Facebook about how to roll up these funky rolled flower shapes. Since rolling and shaping flowers is one of my favorite things, here's a little infographic tutorial for you!

Seven Steps to Beautiful Rolled Flowers:

1. The first thing I do with a freshly cut rolled flower shape is add a dab of dry adhesive to the flat center of the shape. This could be Tombo, a glue dot, whatever you like that sticks well.
   
2. Then I use my CTMH Quilling tool to roll them. I insert the smallest end into the wide slot on the tool. You could use tweezers, but I find this so much easier.
   
3. Roll up the flower shape towards the center, wrapping it tightly around the tool.
   
4. When you get it rolled as far as you can, Hold it tight for a few seconds to sort of "set" the curl.
   
5. Let it go (Let it go!) and slide it off the tool. Place it on a flat surface and gently tap the center to help it relax into shape. Then press down lightly on that center to stick it to that adhesive we applied earlier. That's just to hold it in place until the next step.
   
6. Apply Liquid Glass (or the sturdy liquid adhesive of your choice) down in between the petals of the flower. Let that dry completely before moving on to the last step.
   
7. Use the quilling tool on the smaller side to roll the petals back. I like to start on the outsdie and work my way in. Sometimes I leave the center area untouched for a more rose like effect. In the photo on the chevron above I used the tool to push in and down the center petals for more of a peony center. If I need it flatter I'll smack it down with a handy 3 x 3 or bigger acrylic block.  Sometimes I fill the centers with Glitter. Take that basic flower and make it your own!

If you want to color on, emboss, sand/distress your flower, do that before you start step one. The possibilities with these rolled flowers are endless...endlessly fun! 

Alcohol Marker Blending & the next giveaway!

I am off to Bend this weekend, and here's the swap card I did for my upline's fab team meeting. I used yet another completely adorable sketch from Freshly Made Sketches - I love their style! I also chose my colors from the new Play Date Cafe Color Challenge, so for me that's Autumn Terracotta, Honey, and my new favorite neutral, Slate. 

I used my It's Your Day National Stamping Month special set and my shiny new CTMH alcohol markers to add the stripes to my beloved Shimmer Tape. I stamped the tape with the bold strip image using a light pigment ink to mark the stripes, then colored it with my Honey (bottom) and Autumn Terracotta (upper stripes) markers. You can see that the top stripe is darker, and for that I just colored the striped three times instead of once to layer on the additional color. How fun is that?

The main sentiment image is from one of the Cricut Artiste coordinating sets. I inked it in Slate ink, then stamped it onto the Dotty background image from It's Your Day to add the texture before stamping it onto White Daisy CS. Of course, I couldn't resist adding that little giggly [Tee-Hee] to my Hello bubble. [Tee-Hee]

Like my new Infographic? Pin me to win!

I used some tips from this fab You Tube video by Aimee Noel  when shading my butterflies for this project. If you are new to Alcohol Markers, watch the video. I learned that we need to shake the markers before coloring! I added three or so layers of color to each butterfly, using both Autumn Terracotta Markers and the Honey Marker to shade them. Each time I added color I used the lightest color as a blending pen to smooth the color across the image. When I was happy with the shading, I stamped over the top with the scripty corner image from the Scroll WOTG using Sunset Pigment Ink. I used the Autumn terracotta Marker to color in my plain sparkles as well, changing them to a soft coordinating orange glow!

And since I'll be in Bend this weekend, I probably won't be blogging much, so I thought I'd better announce the next Friday Favorite Things giveaway today! I'll be giving away a brand new C1511 Love Blooms Stamp set for one lucky Stamping Friend next Friday. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That's it for me, as I've got a 6:30 a.m. carpool to Bend...hope you have a giggling good time this weekend - I know I will! [Tee-Hee]