Create a Flower tutorials - Part 1: Mixed media

Hello peeps!

So, thank you for all the lovely comments about my little black box. It really means a lot to me I'm so pleased lots of you loved it! I really had fun making this project and the brilliant thing is you don't need much to do it.  I was touched that people called it "classy", "sophisticated," "posh" and "elegant", that was the plan ;) . Thank you so much! :D who would have thought you could do this with black card? But I wouldn't have been able to do this without the stunning new stamps and dies from Sheena, she made it all possible!

I will talk you through it but I don't have step by step photos all the way through as camera needed charging in the midst of creating this..how rude! lol ..  ;)

So I painted small box with black gesso, two coats for strength. 

Then I decorated it with the texture stamps by stamping on to the box with Versa Mark and heat embossing with silver powder.

Both the natural petal and the fancy petal were stamped and embossed with either clear or black powder, one or the other, can't remember... I've made other things since then. ;) either will work fine though. Then when they were cool I went over them all with some silver gilding wax. And then added some silver foil highlights.

So that the middle was not bulky and remained fairly flat the circle on the end needs to be cut off and petals cut to a point. The circle in the middle that worked as a guide for me was the cut out from the Time Traveller goggles. They were positioned in a cross, then another layer of 'real' petals were added on top in another cross formation, in the gaps as you can see.  I then added two rows of patterned petals in the same way. The top was a smaller section of the large mandala stamps and then I put several Sensational centres in the middle followed by a gem to finish. Remember the petals needed to be shaped. Curling a paint brush underneath them works well. :)

This was the gold flower. I created this wanting it to look like those decorative brass bowls you see on the high street. So again this was just black card again to begin with.

The natural petals were stamped on to black Crafter's Companion card. I then took my very chunky Gold Pebeo pen and swept it across the surface. This will make the embossing super, super shiny.  (Not as shiny once wax added.) I used the pen underneath the gilding wax as I wanted a really strong gold base that was solid. It was a bit of an experiment too and it seems to work. The petals were doubled back to back to give strength. As you can see I coloured the reverse edges with the gold pen before sticking them together, didn't want any black bits peaking through anywhere. Once dry the gilding wax was then polished but I wanted a real contrast in the veins, hence the foil.

Pebeo relief was piped on to the veins so I could add foil. Petals were shaped again.  I did cut a circle base, cut off the end circles on the petals and then fanned them round. Sensational centres were added in the middle. 

I will be back with more techniques in another post, this one took so long due to technical gremlins! Pesky critters!

crafty hugs

Adele

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