Fuchsias

Fuchsias are one of my favourite flowers, and I have a few in the garden. So, as this week I am working on "F", I decided I wanted to include them in my project. That way I cover flowers and the colour! I also decided to make a Fold Over Box, following the sizing guide from Beccy's Place.

I have never made fuchsias before, so found a great tutorial from Archana Joshi. I was surprised at how straightforward they are to make, and how effective they look.

So, you need a rounded petal flower and a pointed petal flower. Archana uses punches, but I don't have them and after rummaging through my dies, I found these old Crafter's Companion Classiques dies called Forget Me Not. The most Fuchsia colour I could find in my inks was Picked Raspberry, and I decided to use Distress Oxide. This is for the outer part of the flower and needs inking on both sides. For the inner part of the flower, I used Spun Sugar, but only inked the central part.

    

One of the interesting things from the video, is the detail for the stamen. One of the stamens needs to be longer than the rest - and this one should be white. I used a bit of wire to secure them together, and wrapped it in a bit of green floral wire. This might be better done afterwards, but I though it might give a bit of stability. The inner part of the flower needs to be like a cup - and although she used foam, she didn't heat it. I did heat it as it kept the cup shape better. The outer part is shaped using a very small ball tool. I didn't have one that small so used the end of my Crafter's Companion quilling tool. You move the ball from the tip of the petal to the centre of the flower.

  

I love that she showed how to make a bud too. I started with some green floral wire as this is much stronger than the wire I used for the stamens. I didn't have any white floral tape, so used (as she suggested) white tissue paper. You then thread on the flower top, and use glue (I used a hot glue gun) to stick down each petal in turn. 

 

  

The next step is to wrap the piece just below the flower in white floral tape or, in my case, white tissue paper. This is then coloured with the same ink as the flower. The same is done with the white part on the bud. I would highly recommend watching the video as it was so helpful and I am so pleased with how these turned out. I shall definitely be making them again. And also checking out more of Archana's tutorials.

  

For the fold over box, you need a piece of card 10"x10" and two pieces 6" x 9". I used A3 Centura Pearl Hint of Gold.  The two smaller pieces are scored at 3" on one side. The small panel provides an overlap for the spine, and these are stuck together.  The box is scored at 3" on all sides, and cut and folded up.

      

For additional F's (and E's) I used a Fairy topper from Crafter's Companion Faerie Poppets CD, and Fussy Cut a couple of the layers. The Embossed card is (although it doesn't show very well) the paler pink card that I mat and layered with.

 

In her tutorial, Beccy shows a way of fastening the box, but I chose to go with fuchsia ribbon. This was taped onto the inside of both sides, and the covered with the decorative mats and layers. including the fuchsia coloured card, the pink embossed card, and a patterned paper from the Faerie Poppets CD.

    

The outside of the card , and the outside and inside of the box were decorated in the same way.

 

The Faerie Poppet and the Fuschias were added to the front, with a bow and some pearls.

So, there you have my Fuchsia Fold over box with Fuchsias, Flower Forming Foam, a Fairy, Fussy Cutting and elements from the Faerie Poppets CD. 

Happy crafting!

Cxxxx 

Hats - Go Large!

There's always fads and fashions and trends in any area - and one of the most recent in the craft world was the hat easel. I resisted for a while, but then decided to have a go myself. I found some instructions on Positively Papercraft - with two different posts sharing instructions and videos for construction and for two different hat boxes.

I decided that I wanted to go much bigger than this, so I have adapted the sizes  - but pretty much followed the assembly. I didn't bother with the fancy boxes - but did make a box to deliver it in - more details later. I really relied heavily on my Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies - both the ordinary set and the Grand set - which I have had in my stash for a very long time. The measurements that I mention are in relation to these dies. 

To make this (at this size - which is just over 7"), you will need 2 sheets of A3 card for the easel base. I used Centura Pearl card from the Pastels pack. I used one sheet and cut a long strip off - 15 1/2" x 2 1/2" - you will need this later. The rest of this piece of card was scored and folded at 8 1/4" and then the base was cut with the largest Spellbinder circle die that I have - 7 1/4".  Once cut,  one side of the easel was cored a 3 5/8".

Please note: some of the photos are of another hat easel I made as I didn't take many photos while making this.

The strip that was cut needs to be scored at 1/2" and 2", and then notches cut into it as shown below.

This will form the sides of the hat, and is attached to a circle of 4 3/4" diameter as shown below.

It's then all about assembly. I started by decorating the hat top as I found this easier to do before sticking in onto the large circle. I used strips of patterned paper 1 1/4" wide to go around the hat top, and then went round with ribbon. I added a 4 1/4" circle in a patterned paper to the very top

You need another 7 1/4" circle for the top of the easel card - which serves as the brim of the hat. On this one I added a 7 3/8" scalloped circle in green, a 6 1/4" circle in orange, a 5 3/4" circle in the patterned paper, and a 5 1/8" scalloped circle in the original Centura Pearl. Onto this, you glue the hat top.

For the easel base, I used the same size circles and scallops as above, but added another green 4 5/8" scalloped circle. In other ones I have made, I have added another 3 3/4" circle on the top of that - but didn't do that here.

For the sentiment/stopper, I used a green 2 3/4" circle, an orange 2 5/8" scalloped circle and the sentiment was stamped onto a 2 3/8" circle of the Centura Pearl. For other ones I have made, I started with a 3 1/8" scalloped circle of the original card I made the base from.  The sentiment was stamped in Stazon - Cactus Green and sentiment is from an old Crafter's Companion Sentimentals stamp set.

I then decorated the hat brim with bow in the same ribbon as I used before, and then some flowers I made using Flower Forming foam (see my post here).

I did make a very simple box for this. I used two 12x12 sheets of Core'dinations card and used my Big Score to score at 2 1/4" all the way round. I have made 5 of these in total, and I will share the other designs as and when I give them to the recipients throughout the year - one is not until December - but the next one is only a few weeks away. 

Happy crafting!
Cxxxx

Flowers!

Way back on March 10th - before the world changed beyond recognition - I unearthed my flower forming kit that I bought from Crafter's Companion in September last year. The plan was to make some flowers for some cards that I am planning on making later in the year. I did make a start - and also unearthed some Foamiran which I added to the mix - and completed a couple of flowers, but then they ended up on the back burner as other things took over. 

It was over a week ago, when I finally sat down to finish them, and it was an interesting experience, as I developed my own technique and found what I was happy with.

The first thing I did - as lots of the videos that I watched suggest - was to cut my flowers and ink them.  I used a variety of dies including Sheena Douglass Rosy Outlook Perfect Partners, Crafter's Companion Essentials - Flowers for all Occasions Sets 1-4, and Sara Signature Shabby Chic Classic Lily. As the picture shows, I inked them using Distress Oxide. This turned out to be a complete waste of time. It didn't show up, and came off on the iron when heating. I think it's best reserved for white foam.

I decided to start with the Rosy Outlook flowers cut from red Foamiran and opted for the cup style flower.  This is where you heat the foam, it curls up and you then use the foam and ball tool to shape it into a cup - the shape it naturally seems to want to make. I think that this die might have been a bit big for this, but this was my first attempt and I was learning as I was going.

I found by trial and error that it was easier to make the holes before you heated the foam - but again, this was my first time, and I was following things from the videos.

The first time I used the wire around the stamens, I twisted it on so it stayed attached to the flower, but as I progressed, I found that just looping it worked, and the wire could be re-used. I ended up having two pieces on the go allowing me to get on with things while hot glue was cooling.

 

I found that, for me, after pulling the stamens through the first layer of the flower, it worked best to put a blob of hot glue onto the back of the flower. This allowed me to ensure that the stamen was fixed before attaching the next layer. I found, at the start, that I was pulling them through. These are the first three flowers I made - the ones that I made lots of mistakes on, and that I wasn't overly happy with. Although, on reflection, they look fine.

So, three weeks later, and having watched more videos, I wanted to try other things. So, using the same die cuts and foam as before, this time I heated the flower, then folded each petal in half and rolled it in my fingers. This gave a more scrunched look, and I liked the result. 

This is the point at which I worked out to just loop the wire around the stamens, and that adding glue at the back of the first layer helped to stop it slipping through. I also put hot glue on the back of the last layer and allowed it to set before removing the wire.

   

I have been using a really old travel iron for heating my flower, and have found that holding it on with the ball tool works best for me. With these purple flowers, I did the opposite to making a cup by turning it over before using the foam and ball too to shape it.

  

  

For these yellow and orange flowers, I used a combination of cup shaped and the other shape (no idea if it has a name). I did the same for the cream and orange ones.

And finally, I tackled the lily. I was wishing I hadn't used this die as I was not sure how it would go together. But, I pushed on and decided to try the tool that comes with the Crafter's Companion kit to ruffle up the ends of the petals. I heated the flower, folded it so the petals were on top of each other, then folded them in half. I then ran the finger tool over the ends of the petals, on top of the board.

The resulting flowers are better than I first anticipated, but I really don't like this colour of the Foamiran.

So, lots of lessons learnt. It's a long process, but it is worth it in the end.

Take care, stay safe.

Cxxx