Flower Power

With all the beautiful patterned papers on the market now, I really love making my own handmade flowers to include on layouts. There are probably 20+ tutorials in the blogosphere about how to make various types of paper flowers, but here's one I discovered on my own when playing around with some papers last week.

 

The paper I'm using (by Lily Bee Designs) has a hexagon pattern (that's six sides, if you're math-challenged like me). So I hand-cut the hexagons out of the pattern. However, if you have a die-cutting machine or punch that can cut a hexagon or pentagon (5 sides), you can get the same effect with any paper you have on hand.

I started by cutting out 18 hexagons (they're about 1 1/4" each) from the patterned paper.

Then I applied glue to only the bottom edge of each hexagon and glued it to a piece of scrap paper.

 

I glued them into a circle using about half of the petals (9 hexagons) to form the bottom layer of the flower. I used 6 for the second layer and three for the top layer.

 

When all of the petals were glued down, I cut the scrap paper from underneath the flower, leaving only a small circle that doesn't show from the top.

 

I used my fingers to pinch the edges of each petal so they would roll up slightly, adding some dimension to the flower. I also inked the edges a bit. Then I punched a small hole in the middle of the flower and topped with a large (28mm) brad. My brad was created with the Imaginisce i-Top tool in a coordinating patterned paper, but you could use any large brad or even a large button.
And finally it was ready to add to my layout.

 
There are so many ways you could play around with this concept using different shapes and colors. If you make one, please post a comment with a link so we can see your interpretation!

Supplies used:
Patterned paper: Lily Bee Designs
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper
Die-cut frames: Lily Bee Designs
Die-cut letters: Quickutz
Letter stickers: Jenni Bowlin
Rub-on: Lily Bee Designs
Bling: Prima Marketing
Brad: i-Top Brad Maker by Imaginisce
Ink: Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries

Robyn Schaub
http://dreaminginscraps.blogspot.com