3D Paper Flower Tutorial

Sheet music + Glimmer Mist + Stickles + vintage button = Fabulous Paper Flower!

My addiction to Pinterest has given me so many ideas lately! I've been seeing a lot of paper flowers these days and I've been itching to try them myself. A friend of mine is getting married soon so I decided to make her a card with my semi-new toy, the original Silhouette machine. I wanted to incorporate a 3D paper flower in the design and figured the easiest way would be to cut different size flower pieces with the Silhouette.

First things first, I searched online for printable vintage sheet music. I don't know what it is about sheet music, but I think it's a cool design for card making. When I found this fabulous design and discovered it comes in blue, I immediately downloaded it and printed it on both sides of regular printer paper. Because I was going to make a flower out of it I didn't want the paper too thick. I chose blue because my friend's wedding colors are navy, silver and white.

After I printed my paper I set it aside to let it dry (because it used so much ink it came off the printer feeling a little damp). Meanwhile, I fired up the Silhouette and set up a document with a bunch of different size flowers from the Card Essentials Vol. 2 kit by My Scrap Chick. My Scrap Chick offered the kit for only $2.50 for a few days in August while they promoted a contest on their Facebook page.

When I made enough flowers to work with, I cut them out of the blue sheet music paper.

The paper looked kind of blah because there was no sparkle to it so I sprayed the pieces with Glimmer Mist  Dew Drop. I couldn't see much of a difference so I sprayed them 2 or 3 times, letting them dry between coats.

I still wasn't getting the results I wanted, which was noticeable sparkle or shine, so after the final coat of Glimmer Mist dried, I outlined the edge of each flower with Crystal Clear Stickles.

Much better. You can see in this photo that the Glimmer Mist gave it a bit of sheen but that's about it. I let everything sit for a few days, then sat down to make my flower. I stacked all the pieces together by size, poked a tiny hole in the center and secured them with a very small brad.

Look at that sparkle! Now the fun part. Working one layer at a time (smallest first), I scrunched up each flower.

This is the point where I realized that dried Stickles and scrunching do not work well together. The Stickles flaked off in chunks and there was glitter everywhere! It was pretty funny actually. I still had enough on the flower to give it some sparkle, but next time I'll apply Stickles after the flower is finished.

Chunks of Stickles on the table.

The combination of Glimmer Mist and Stickles made my paper pretty "crunchy" so I was concerned it might break or crack but it didn't. It was just a little harder to work with. I was still happy with the end results. When I was done crunching up all my layers I opened up the flower and added a vintage button to the center with plenty of Glue Dots to keep it secure. I love the combination of the sheet music, shimmer from the Glimmer Mist and Stickles and the button. 

I entered this card in a Facebook contest sponsored by My Scrap Chick. The contest required us to use the Card Essentials Vol. 2 kit. This card was made with a few elements from the kit, including the flower shapes. I still need to make an envelope that's big enough to not crush the flower. 

I got my Silhouette in January but it's taken this long for me to start using it on a regular basis. I've had a couple of hair-pulling experiences (mostly operator error!) but for the most part I'm in love with this handy gadget. I want to thank my friend Dawn at Serenity Scrappers for offering it to me at a bargain price when she upgraded to the Cameo. Thanks Dawn!

Check out this housewarming card 

I recently made with the Silhouette. 

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