Tuesday 3 August 2010

Bloomin' lovely


You might want to go and make yourself a cuppa before you sit down to read this post.....you might be here a while!!! I have had so many wonderful comments about the flowers that I give away as pins, I decided to do a bit of a step by step thingy for you guys so that you can make your own. I actually used this in a class once and we stuck them on the top of these great picture frames.....they fit perfectly. So are you ready......this is what you are going to need.
PaperArtsy Hot Picks 1004 & 1008, Flora & Fauna 5. Black Stazon ink pad, TSS pointy tool and an embossing wheel, PaperArtsy Grunge Flowers dies, Big shot or Cuttlebug, Melt Pot with clear UTEE, a round cookie cutter and of course some metal tape sandwiches.
For those of you who have not yet stumbled across my tape sandwich technique, basically you will need a piece of metal cut to size with a piece of black card and Humungo sticky adhesive cut to the same size. In this instance my tape sandwich is just slightly bigger than my die
The Humungo sticky tape is beyond sticky so to help you stick all three layers together without getting in a big fine mess, I would suggest that you only remove about a centimetre of the red backing paper from the tape and stick this to the top of the matching card. Once in place, slowly remove the remaining backing sheet and smooth down. Now repeat this process to stick the metal on top of the tape. This creates your tape sandwich and the reason that we do this is to give the metal some stability.
Now just a little bit of information about PaperArtsy dies....very clever idea to have dies that match your stamps!!!! This Grungeflower however could be a bit of challenge unless you know about the notchy bit as the flower is not symmetrical. On the picture below, you can clearly see the notchy bit.....technical terminology I know, but it's language that I can understand.
Now before I explain the details of the notchy bit, I wanted to show you how to get the best out of the the die. Place the metal good side facing up and the die facing down, whizz it through your Cuttlebug or in this case Big Shot Bruce to cut out your flower.
You can see that the notchy bit is visible and there is also a raised border. In order to successfully stamp on this flower, you will need to flatten the border.
This can be don with a paper stump
Now this is an important piece of information. The petal that I am pointing to is the petal that lines up with the notchy bit on the largest flower.

In the next picture, I am pointing to the petal that lines up with the notchy bit on the second size flower. Leandra came up with the brilliant idea of marking the back of your stamp so that every time you stamp it, you can see the mark through the acrylic block and get it the right way up. You will need to use Stazon to print your images on metal and once stamped and the ink is dry, take an embossing wheel and decorate the edges.With a pointy tool, you can add detail to your image.
Then snip into the flower petals of the largest flower, making a cut approx 1.5cm between each petal.
I stamped by largest grunge flower on Gold Nugget metal and the smaller one on copper.
Now for the centre of the flowers. I stamped the smaller of the two pointy flowers from Flora & Fauna 5 on a copper tape sandwich and the little centre of the flower I managed to stamp that on a left over piece from the grunge flower.


Use the pointy tool to do the "dotty, dotty" thing in the centre of the flower.

Followed by the "scribbly, scribbly" thing on the copper flower.

Carefully cut them both out and stick together. I used a touch of Glossy Accents to do this. You also need to check that your flower fits comfortably inside your cookie cutter.

You now need to fire up your melt pot and melt some clear UTEE. You are going to need to work on a Craft Sheet, a pokey took will be helpful too.

Pour a generous puddle of UTEE over the top of you flower. It's going to bubble like crazy but DON'T PANIC!!!! Let the bubble settle down and the use the pokey tool to push down on the flower to expel and more air bubbles. Although I don't want you to rush, you do not have an endless amount of time to get your cookie cutter in place.

You also want to remove the cookie cutter whilst the UTEE is still warm but please do not test the temperature with your finger, use the pokey took to tap the UTEE to see if it has set. You can get a really nasty burn from this stuff.


Then you end up with this really fab looking embelly.

Now we can start assembling the whole thing. Use a bit of humungo sticky tape to stick the flower centre to the smaller of your grunge flowers.

Snip into the petals right up to the edge of the UTEE piece.


Bend all the petals up.


Then bend each corner back, rounding them off. Use a bit more tape to stick the whole thing together.


Then you can go on to make lots of variations to the concept of flowers. Some of these flowers were die cut and embossed instead of stamped.

Colour the high points with either stazon or alcohol inks.
This flower uses all three sizes of grunge flower instead of the UTEE centre.

Now you can go make your very own flowers and I can go and make me a cup of tea.....phew, that was a bit of an epic.
Enjoy, Lin

30 comments:

Minxy said...

great tut Lin... now all i need is some free time and the new hot picks

Elaine A said...

Lin -

Thank you so much for sharing this fabulous project with us! Very well done and clear. Love the results.

Elaine Allen

Carmen said...

Very cool craft!

Dawn said...

Thanks for sharing - I really want to have a go with more metal work - fingers crossed there will be a workshop I can do :-)

Helen said...

Thank you so much for this - I have one of your pin flowers and it's gorgeous, have had a go without the utee cos I didn't think of a cookie cutter - that's why you teach and I spend money, lol!! Great tip about marking the notchy petal on the other side of the stamp.

craftimamma said...

Fabulous tutorial Lin! Thankyou very much as I have long admired these gorgeous flowers.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Caroline said...

Stunning - can't wait to have a go - not done any metal work despite having all th tools - this might be my beginning!! Thank you so much, no excuse now. Caroline

Viv said...

Love these LOADS!!!!!! Got to have a try... thanks for the tute! x

Linda M. Cain said...

Amazing! Simply AMAZING! TFS!

Linda

Andrea - Wales, UK said...

Amazing tutorial and gorgeous flowers......Thank you.

xx

Angie said...

OMG ...that is sooooooo beautiful ...will be back to have a proper read and follow of your method....well try lol xx

Daniele said...

thanks for a great tutorial Lin....just need to get a melt pot or use one of my saucepans ...lol probably not a good idea though. Hopefully I'll get to class when we are playing with utee as its all new to me
best wishes Daniele

ScrappyDandyDoo said...

Oh wow!!!
These are amazing!!!
Fab tutorial :D
Julie xx

Sue said...

Beautiful, stunning and so clever

WW said...

That is gorgeous.
I've never tried true metal embossing, I have done a little on metallic tape. I even bought myself a whole roll of the metallic tape and haven't used it yet.

steph martin said...

these flowers are stunning - great tutorial Lin :)

Jennie -The Artistic Stamper said...

Lin, fab tutorial, thank you for sharing :)

Artmadnana said...

Fabulous tutorial Lin - with great tips. I have just marked up my paperartsy flowers - how sensible!! I had been struggling a bit to match them up but worked out the little notch after a while. Linda and I are getting together for our own little craft day tomorrow, so will have a go with these flowers. Now all we need is another wonderful tutorial for a little canvas to put the flower on - cheeky or what! As if you haven't got enough to do! LOL Chris x Monday was great!Thankyou!

mckinkle said...

oh my goodness, what a fab tut and what fab make. Unbelievably fab!

TFS!

Keryn x

Starla said...

STUNNING!! I've just gotten brave enough to explore metal work and this is a MUST try!!

Art By Wanda said...

Wow!!! Wow!!! Wow!!!! These flowers are super fabulous!!!! The UTEE over the flower... awesome!!!! Thanks so much for the great pictures and tutorial!!!

SmilynStef said...

Wowza ... this is amazing. Are there any US online stores that sell Paper Artsy products?

Sue said...

I found your blog from Tim Holtz's Blog. The first thing I looked at was your TSS Metal work... OMG... Can't wait to read the rest! Congrats on making Tim's Design team. What an honor! :) Snick~ Sue

Anonymous said...

Hi..luv this pin...do you sell them? I do not have all the supplies! gorgy! cher

PaperArtsy said...

You are the BEST!! Love it, great destructions too! Awesome.
Leandra (Mrs PaperArtsy)

Hels Sheridan said...

Just found this Lin, tis LUSH, loving your Tut, thanks for all the deets.. I neeed those dies LOL

Spyder said...

Fabulous, thank you for sharing!

Puan Sri Toh Ee Siew said...

Thank you Lin, will definitely try creating the flower when I return to Malaysia. Your tutorial is great!

Susanne said...

I LOVE IT!!! Thank´s for sharing it with us... I must try this.

Hugs from Sweden

Kat said...

I love the floral pin what a artsy craft, very interesting.