How To Tuesday

Today design team member Celeste Smith is going to show you how to make the fun handmade flower on the sweet birthday card pictured below.  First, here's what Celeste had to say about her inspiration ... "I was inspired by a tutorial I saw on the Enjoy It! blog that used computer paper to make a garland of these flowers.  I thought I'd give it a shot with patterned paper."  Here are Celeste's step by step instructions to create this project ...

First you will need to gather all of the materials pictured below which include papers from the Lil Miss Collection, one piece of book paper, one piece of yellow paper, one piece of green paper, one piece of white computer paper, scissors, tape runner, and a pencil.

Since drawing on patterned paper with pencil is hard to see, on the white computer paper draw by hand four different six petal flowers varying in size from 3" for the largest to 1" for the smallest.  Alternatively, you could use flower punches to make your stack.  I like how the freehand drawing makes them look more realistic.

Cut around the flowers and adhere them to the wrong side of your patterned paper.  Then cut the flowers out.  I kind of neatened them up as I went along.  Then gently peel the white computer paper of the backs of the flowers.

Cut a small circle out of the yellow paper making sure it is small enough to fit inside your smallest flower.

Cut the leaf out of the green paper.  You can make this a little bigger than one of the petals on your biggest flower.  Also cut out a tiny green circle to put in the middle of your center flower.

 
Now you have all the pieces ready to assemble your flower.  To give the flowers more dimension, roll the petals inward around your pencil.

To give the leaf a little more dimension fold it in half gently.

To make the center, cut fringe around the outside edge of the yellow center piece.  Fold the edges of the fringe up for dimension and adhere the little green circle to the center.

Adhere the flowers in a stack.  Adhere the center to the flowers, tuck the leaf behind the finished flower, and adhere to your card.

Thank you Celeste for this wonderful tutorial!  If you get the opportunity to make some of these handmade flowers using Celeste's technique be sure to leave a comment with a link - we'd love to check out your projects!